Macron shamed as energy giant faces 'anti-terrorism' inquiry for fuelling Putin’s war jets 

French giant TotalEnergies is the only major Western oil company that has refused to end operations in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. 

French President Emmanuel Macron has been humiliated as TotalEnergies, a Paris-based energy giant is now facing an anti-terrorism investigation after it was accused of fuelling Russian fighter jets that were used to bomb Ukraine. The company has been accused of “complicity in war crimes” as two associations filed a legal complaint against it. On Thursday, the France-based Darwin Climax Coalition and Ukrainian group Razom We Stand filed a complaint with France's national anti-terrorist prosecutor, which is responsible for investigating war crime allegations. The company partly owns the Termokarstovoye field in Russia’s far north along with Russian gas firm Novatek, which produces around 600,000 tonnes of gas condensate (similar to crude oil) each month

.According to the NGO Global Witness, this condensate then gets shipped to Russian energy company Gazprom's Neft refinery in Omsk, where it gets refined into products such as petrol, or jet fuel. 

According to reports, hundreds of shipments of jet fuel produced at Omsk have been sent to Russian Air Force bases near Ukraine. Using data gathered from the financial database Refinitiv, French outlet Le Monde traced the supply chain from Termokarstovoye to the two military airbases. 

The airbases, called Morozovskaya and Malchevo, each house a squadron of multirole Sukhoi combat aircraft. Since February, jets from these bases have taken part in a number of bombardments of civilian areas, including the horrific Mariupol theatre attack on March 16. 

Terneftegaz supplied the gas condensate for the Russian warplanes, and until recently Totalenergies held a 49 percent stake in the company that extracted gas from the Termokarstovoye field. 

Following the report by Le Monde, the French said that it had sold its shares in Terneftegaz to Novatek, which is Russia's second-largest natural gas producer 

The oil group denied allegations that any of its condensates were used to fuel Russian fighter jets, adding that Novatek it had confirmed that it had not been supplying Russian forces with jet fuel used to attack Ukraine. 

On Friday, the company dismissed said accusations of complicity in war crimes, calling them “outrageous”, “defamatory” and “unfounded”. However, lawyers from the associations involved said it was time for multinational companies to be held to account. 

Lawyers William Bourdon, Vincent Brengarth and Henri Thulliez told AFP: “Justice should not be blind when faced with the indirect but essential support of multinationals to the war effort, and to the considerable benefits that they continue to enjoy after the invasion of Ukraine." 

They added: “France cannot in the same breath condemn the invasion, and remain inactive in the face of the behaviours propping it up.”