TotalEnergies targeted by a complaint for complicity in war crimes in Ukraine

This complaint was filed Thursday with the national anti-terrorism prosecutor, competent for war crimes, by the association based in France Darwin Climax Coalition and the Ukrainian association Razom we stand, which calls for an embargo on energy imports. Russian fossil.

Asked by AFP, the French group denounced "outrageous", "defamatory" and "unfounded" accusations.

The complaint, of which AFP has knowledge, recalls that TotalEnergies held until September 49% of the joint venture Terneftegaz, which operates the Termokarstovoye deposit, in the Russian Far North. The remaining 51% was held by the Russian group Novatek, in which TotalEnergies is also a 19.4% shareholder.

However, according to an article in Le Monde published on August 24, which was based on several documents and an investigation by the NGO Global Witness, the Termokarstovoye gas field supplied gas condensate to a refinery near Omsk in Siberia, which made fuel, which was then shipped to power Russian planes engaged in the conflict in Ukraine until at least last July.

After the publication of the article in Le Monde, the French energy giant assured that it produced "no kerosene for the Russian army". Two days later, he indicated that he had agreed on July 18 to sell his 49% in Terneftegaz to Novatek. This sale was finalized in September.

According to the plaintiffs, "by continuing to exploit the Termokarstovoye field" after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, TotalEnergies "contributed to providing the Russian government with the means necessary for the commission of war crimes" in this country, where the Russian army has notably launched air strikes against civilians.

"TotalEnergies categorically refutes all of the unfounded allegations of Global Witness, published by the newspaper Le Monde last August", recalled the group on Friday, stating that the unstable condensates produced by Terneftegaz had been "exported abroad" and n therefore could not have been used by the Russian army as fuel for its planes.

"Justice can no longer be blind to the indirect but essential contribution that multinationals bring to the war effort or to the considerable profits that multinationals continue to derive after the invasion of Ukraine", for their part commented to from AFP the lawyers for the associations, Mes William Bourdon, Vincent Brengarth and Henri Thuilliez.

"France cannot both condemn the invasion and remain inactive in the face of the behavior that sustains it," they added.