A high aide to Ukraine’s President Zelensky accuses BP of conflict profiteering with stake in Russian oil agency

A serious [hotlink ignore=true]vitality[/hotlink] firm that pledged to promote its stake in Russia has but to take action, and a high Ukrainian official simply accused it of pocketing thousands and thousands from the conflict.

British Petroleum is without doubt one of the world’s largest oil and fuel firms, so when it introduced in February that it could promote its 19.75% stake in Russian vitality firm Rosneft within the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it held weight.

However 9 months later, [hotlink]BP[/hotlink] has but to dump its stake, and certainly one of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest advisers is demanding the corporate lower ties instantly.

Oleg Ustenko, Zelensky’s chief financial adviser, penned a letter—considered by BBC and the Guardian—to BP CEO Bernard Looney urging the corporate to make good on its pledge from the conflict’s early days, whereas accusing BP of being complicit with Russia’s worldwide law-breaking and transgressions in Ukraine by holding on to its stake in Rosneft.

“After 9 months of Russian aggression, conflict crimes, and the bombardment of civilian infrastructure, all funded and fueled by Russian oil, fuel, and coal, BP stays a shareholder in Rosneft,” Ustenko wrote.

A BP spokesperson advised Fortune that the difficulties in promoting BP’s stake in Rosneft stemmed from issues associated to Western sanctions on Russian firms.

Ustenko additionally accused BP of continuous to obtain funds from Rosneft within the type of dividends, citing a latest evaluation by nongovernmental group World Witness. The evaluation claimed that, by failing to promote its stake in Rosneft, BP “continues to obtain revenue distributions to shareholders, often called dividends,” from the Russian firm.

Primarily based on a payout to Rosneft shareholders final month, World Witness estimated that BP had pocketed round £580 million (about $713 million) within the first 9 months of 2022.

The BP spokesperson mentioned the corporate has not obtained any dividends from Rosneft shares since February, and didn’t count on to obtain any in future, including that the choice to promote its Rosneft shares led to a $24 billion hit.

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They added that any funds a Russian firm made to “unfriendly states” overseas can be strictly managed by the Russian authorities.

However Ustenko claimed in his letter that BP’s incapacity to promote its stake nonetheless makes it complicit in Rosneft’s huge earnings this yr, which have supported Russia’s conflict effort in Ukraine.

“BP will obtain this cash right into a restricted Russian checking account, a transparent indication of the historic mistake your organization has made—however all the identical, BP will obtain the dividend,” Ustenko wrote.

“No accounting mechanisms or statements from BP will change this truth. That is blood cash, pure and easy.”

Ustenko accused BP of “ready out the storm, returning to enterprise as common when the conflict is over.”

The BP spokesperson denied this accusation, saying the corporate has “completely no intention of returning to ‘enterprise as common.’”

All through the conflict, Russia has resorted to utilizing vitality as a weapon in opposition to the West, particularly Europe, which was depending on Russia for almost all of its oil and pure fuel provides. Regardless of sanctions, Russia has managed to proceed promoting vitality overseas this yr, profiting wildly off of extraordinarily excessive oil and fuel costs in the course of the first few months of the conflict.

Russian fossil gas exports earned Russian vitality firms 158 billion euros ($166 billion) in the course of the first six months of the conflict, in keeping with a research by the Centre for Analysis on Vitality and Clear Air. Vitality revenues contributed roughly 43 billion euros ($45 billion) to Russia’s federal funds because the begin of the conflict, the research discovered, serving to finance the conflict in Ukraine.

This story was initially featured on Fortune.com

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