As Russia's brutal war against Ukraine moved beyond the 500-day mark, Western companies have been exposed as providing crucial technical support to Russia's fossil fuel industry, helping to contribute billions to Russia's war machine and its continuing atrocities carried out against Ukrainians.
As revealed in an investigation published by Associated Press on July 18, western providers of oilfield services supplied Russia with millions of dollars in equipment for months after its invasion of Ukraine, helping to sustain a critical part of its economy even as Western nations launched sanctions aimed at starving the Russian war effort.
“If western companies continue to back Russia's oil and gas - the industry that provides nearly half of the income for the budget of the aggressor state - they entrench their complicity in war crimes. Yet its governments who must tell them to stop. Now is the time for political leaders to finally recognize that both export revenues and extraction volumes of Russian fossil fuels must dry up completely. International sanctions must work towards dismantling the Russian fossil fuel industry, not keeping it afloat. This investigation report proves that positive change depends on the will of Western leaders, who could really save us in Ukraine by fully enforcing embargo against Russia. Meanwhile, we, Ukrainian civilians, continue to be attacked daily with well over 95,000 war crimes have now been registered", says Svitlana Romanko, Founder and Director of Razom We Stand.
According to an analysis of leaked Russian customs data, in the year following the brutal invasion that began in February 2022 Russia imported more than 5,500 items worth more than $200 million from the top five U.S. firms in the oil tech sector, led by SLB, Baker Hughes and Halliburton, who also have business units based in Europe.
SLB (Schlumberger), the top supplier of oil and gas equipment to Russia, after receiving the request for final comment from Associated Press and learning about upcoming release of investigation, announced two days later it would halt shipments of technology and equipment to Russia from all SLB facilities worldwide.
SLB, the world’s largest oilfield contractor, with headquarters in the US and Europe, was continuously operating in Russia throughout 2022 and first half of 2023. The customs data show Russia imported 3,279 items from SLB in the year after the invasion, valued at almost $60 million. The most expensive item was a $3.5 million oil well monitoring system.
Since February 2023 Razom We Stand advocates for the introduction of secondary sanctions on suppliers of equipment and services for the Russian oil and gas industry. In April 2023 such demands were addressed to the European Commission by the energy and utilities committee of Ukraine’s parliament in an official letter, with particular focus on technologies and services that enable expansion of Russian LNG exports.
Ukrainian group Razom We Stand, founded at the beginning of Russia's war in 2022, campaigns to end the war by cutting Russia's exports of fossil fuels, has continuously advocated for a comprehensive and fully enforced embargo on Russian fossil fuels and works towards a green rebuilding of Ukraine with clean energy, for a better climate and better future.
PRESS CONTACT:
Jason Kirkpatrick
Senior Communications Manager
press@razomwestand.org
