Two associations filed a complaint against the French group TotalEnergies for complicity in war crimes, accusing him of operating a depot in Russia and authorizing the production of fuel used by his aircraft in the conflict in Ukraine.
According to a source close to the case, the complaint was filed Thursday in Paris with the National Prosecutor for Counterterrorism by France-based Darwin Climax Coalition and the Ukrainian association Razom we stand, which called for an embargo on Russian fossil imports. energy. .
Questioned by AFP, the French group said the allegations were “outrageous”, “defamatory” and “baseless”.
The complaint, which AFP had access to, recalls that, until September, TotalEnergies owned 49% of the Terneftegaz joint venture, which is investigating the Termokarstovoye deposit in Russia’s far north.
The remaining 51% was held by the Russian group Novatek, of which TotalEnergies is also a 19.4% shareholder.
However, according to an article in Le Monde published on August 24, based on several documents and an investigation by the NGO Global Witness, the Termokarstovoye field supplied condensate gas to a refinery near Omsk, Siberia, which produced which was then sent to Russian aircraft involved in the conflict in Ukraine until at least last July.
After the article was published in Le Monde, the French energy giant assured that it was “not producing for the Russian military”. Two days later, it said it had agreed to sell its 49% stake in Terneftegaz to Novatek on July 18. This sale was completed in September.
According to the associations, TotalEnergies “by continuing the investigation of the Termokarstovoye deposition” after the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24, “has contributed to providing the Russian government with the necessary resources to commit war crimes”. in this country, where the Russian army launched air strikes on civilians.
“TotalEnergies categorically rejects all unsubstantiated claims made by Global Witness, published by the newspaper Le Monde last August,” the group recalled, stating that Terneftegaz’s production was “exported abroad” and therefore could not be used by the Russian military as fuel for its aircraft.
“Justice can no longer be blind to the indirect but essential contribution that multinationals make to the war effort or to the significant profits that multinationals continue to make after the invasion of Ukraine,” the lawyers for the associations told AFP. , Knife William Bourdon, Vincent Brengarth and Henri Thuilliez.
“France cannot condemn the invasion and remain inactive despite the behavior that perpetuates it,” she added.
Source: DN
