Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko (left) with Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné (right) during a meeting with foreign businessmen at the SPIEF 2019 International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 7, 2019. MIKHAIL SVETLOV / GETTY IMAGES
In Russia, TotalEnergies not only exports gas to Europe, as it often explains to justify its presence there. The French oil giant operates a reservoir with its local partner Novatek from which gas condensates, a liquid hydrocarbon, are extracted which, once converted to kerosene, is used to fuel Russian fighter jets serving in the war in Ukraine. Terneftegaz, which operates this deposit, is owned 49% by TotalEnergies and 51% by Novatek.
Thanks to information compiled by the NGO Global Witness and extracted from the London Stock Exchange’s Refinitiv financial database, Le Monde was able to trace the supply chain from the Termokarstovoye gas field in Siberia to two military airfields (Morozovskaya and Malchevo), each hosting a squadron of multirole fighter aircraft . These squads are accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of hitting Ukrainian civilians on March 16, 2022, specifically the bombing of the Mariupol Theater that would have killed around 600 people. A “proven war crime,” according to Amnesty International.
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In this case, it is still difficult to assign responsibility for the bombardment to a specific crew. Amnesty International investigators say that “the Russian aircraft most likely to have carried out the attack is a SU-25, SU-30 or SU-34 multirole fighter jet based at nearby airfields.” Most of the bombing of Mariupol (population 440,000 at the start of the invasion) was carried out by warplanes based at Morozovskaya, 350 kilometers from the target in the Rostov region. Le Monde has collected several testimonies from Mariupol survivors who report that they were bombed by Sukhoi planes (whose prefix is SU-) that frequently circled the city’s skies.
Minimized role
The French group, which has publicly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine (although it has not translated that condemnation into Russian on its website), downplays its role in the exploitation of gas condensate. “TotalEnergies is not the operator of the Terneftegaz plants operated by Novatek personnel”, he specifies, adding that he “does not participate in the decisions regarding Novatek’s condensate recovery” and “has no control over their sales . » Does the majority shareholder Novatek, with 51% of the shares in the joint venture, make all the decisions alone? “The majority thresholds depend on the nature of the decisions,” concedes TotalEnergies, thereby conceding that certain decisions can be blocked de facto.
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