On Saturday, activists from the NGO Greenpeace were present at the port of Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), to denounce the presence of an LNG carrier transporting liquefied gas from Russia. The organization believes that “fossil fuels financed Vladimir Putin’s war”. Greenpeace condemned the arrival of the Boris Vilkitsky while “the responsibility of fossil fuels in the war in Ukraine is strongly denounced by environmental organizations”, underlines in a press release the NGO.
According to the British trade union Unison, the Boris Vilkitsky, flying the Cypriot flag and carrying Russian gas, was turned back Friday from the Isle of Grain (Kent, south-east of England), where dockers refused to unload it. “Departing from the port of Sabetta, in the Russian Arctic, on February 25, the LNG carrier is carrying a cargo of liquefied gas from the Yamal site, of which TotalEnergies is a 20% partner”, according to Greenpeace.
Paradoxical situation
A dozen activists from the NGO, in inflatable boats and on the quay, were present this afternoon “to denounce these links between TotalEnergies and the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin, and remember that fossil fuels are fueling this war”, according to the same source. “France cannot condemn the war in Ukraine while letting a French company take advantage of its links with the Russian oligarchs and their business in fossil fuels”, declared Hélène Bourges, head of the fossil fuel campaign for Greenpeace France, quoted in the press release.
Joined in Paris, an industrial source defended the European position on the issue. “If the European Union has not put energy and gas within the scope of the sanctions, it is because it considers that Europe needs them at this stage”, she commented. .
“It would therefore be paradoxical for the French State to ask, for example, TotalEnergies, which produces liquefied natural gas in Russia and sends part of it to Europe, to leave the country. In this kind of extremely complex situation, the sanctions set the framework within which a company can or cannot work with Russia”, according to this source.