The Bordeaux-based NGO Darwin Climax Coalitions told franceinfo on Friday, October 14 that it had filed a complaint, with the Ukrainian NGO Razom We Stand, with the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, against TotalEnergies for “complicity in war crimes”, confirming information from the newspaper Le Monde.
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The daily had revealed at the end of August, on the basis of several documents and the investigation of the NGO Global Witness, that a company jointly owned 49% by TotalEnergies and 51% by the Russian Novatek was manufacturing fuel intended to supply Russian warplanes involved in the conflict in Ukraine, which Total has denied.
According to Philippe Barre, president of Darwin Climax Coalitions, the purpose of this complaint is “to obtain an official judicial investigation”. He deplores the inaction, “the grip that is slow to come” authorities since the revelations of this summer. Philippe Barre believes that “it is the role of civil society to demand accountability when there are such serious accusations”.
Shortly after these revelations, TotalEnergies sold to Novatek its 49% stake in the company Terneftegaz, which operates the controversial Termokarstovoie gas field, accused of having supplied gas condensate to a refinery near Omsk in Siberia. This Russian plant then transformed this liquefied gas into fuel, which was then shipped to supply Russian planes engaged in the conflict in Ukraine until at least last July. But Philippe Barre recalls that the tanker “failed to say he still had a 19.4% stake in Novatek”.
“TotalEnergies is making record results, which it has – a priori – difficulty in redistributing when we see the situation in which our country is at the moment, points out the president of Darwin Climax Coalitions in reference to the strike in the French refineries, at the same time, there are extremely serious accusations, linked to the deaths of thousands of civilians in Ukraine”. For Philippe Barre, “we cannot sweep this information out of hand”. The opening of a judicial investigation must thus, according to him, “makes it possible to obtain the truth and, if necessary, justice”. “The power that TotalEnergies represents should not be an obstacle to obtaining the truth”, he concludes.