A joint venture of the German group Wintershall Dea is supplying Russia’s most important manufacturer of aviation fuel, a joint investigation by Spiegel and ZDF has found.
The company is producing gas in Siberia in Urengoyskoye field together with a subsidiary of Gazprom. This produces gas condensate as a by-product, also known as “white crude oil” that is sold to Gazprom “directly from the borehole”.
SPIEGEL and ZDF traced deliveries of aviation fuel from a Gazprom refinery to Morosovsk and Voronezh near the border with Ukraine, where Russian fighter-bombers take off from air fields to send missiles into civilian targets in Ukraine.
Wintershall Dea says it is examining a “legal separation” of its Russian branch and that the connection between the deliveries and the Russian attacks is “constructed.” However, the company cannot rule out that the extracted gas condensate will also be used for military purposes.
The medias calculated that Wintershall Dea paid at least 400 million euros in taxes to the Russian budget during the Russian invasion, thus funding the Russian war machine.
The French company Totalenergies isfacing legal action on similar accusations.
France’s TotalEnergies facing legal action on accusation of fuelling Russian bombers in Ukraine
