Dear Vladimir,

Ukrainians have asked the world to stop buying fossil fuels from Russia - and some fossil fuel companies were quick to make public statements pledging to stop trading in Russian fossil fuels. For example, early in March the CEO of French energy giant TotalEnergies, stated that his company wasn’t ‘taking any more oil from Russia since the beginning of the crisis’. 

But Vladimir, our recent investigations show this simply was not the case.

Recently, we identified a tanker chartered by TotalEnergies transporting oil from the Russian port of Novorossiysk to Southampton in the UK, as reported by Sky News.

We also found that just two hours after Total’s CEO made that statement, two ships chartered by his company picked up Russian oil from ports in St Petersburg, and shipped over 1.4 million barrels to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, as Le Monde reported.

TotalEnergies has now finally pledged to phase out purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products by the end of the year. 

But Vladimir this comes after a month of atrocious war crimes against civilians in Ukraine, and huge public pressure.

Other companies have been eager to flaunt their ‘anti-war’ credentials and say they have stopped doing business with the Russian fossil fuel industry. 

But we calculated that big energy companies like BP, Shell and Exxon have paid an estimated $100 billion to Russia since the 2014 Crimea invasion. Just one company, BP, paid a staggering $79 billion, by our calculations.

Read more on our investigation in CNN.

Support for the Ukrainian people and business dealings with the Russian fossil fuel industry are incompatible, Vladimir. We’re keeping up the pressure and making it clear to these companies – there is no longer anywhere for them to hide. 

Stay tuned,
Louis Wilson
@LouisJWilsonUK