Wintershall Dea AG
Mario Mehren
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 160
34119 Kassel, Germany
Invitation to Kyiv: Wintershall Dea’s activities in Russia contributing to war crimes in Ukraine
Dear Mr. Mehren,
As a Ukrainian citizen living in Kyiv, I cordially invite you to visit my hometown to get first hand impressions of what consequences Russia’s war on Ukraine are – and get a feeling of what your company is contributing to by its business activities and investment in Russia.
Together with my colleagues from the Ukrainian environmental organisation Ecoaction we will be glad to accompany you on a city tour, visiting the sites of the latest rocket strikes and bomb craters. We would love to show you the playgrounds hit by Russian rockets, apartment buildings struck by Russian cruise missiles and destroyed energy infrastructure. We will certainly also visit Butcha, Hostomel and Irpin to tell you more about the war crimes committed by the Russian army.
In case you can arrange one or two more days in Ukraine, we would love to bring you to Chernihiv to also experience the silence after the explosions at the sites where civilians were killed by Russian bombers that, according to reports from the Spiegel and ZDF, were fueled by jet fuel from Gazprom which Wintershall Dea supplies with gas condensate.
You might be interested in seeing the full picture of the impact your company has with its engineering skills deployed in the Russian fossil energy sector. You most certainly heard of the allegations about your company’s complicity in Russian war crimes in Ukraine. But I am sure, visiting the actual sites will help you to make a better informed and faster decision about a rapid end of your Russian business.
I am pretty sure, you have a better oversight over the exact funds your company contributed to the Russian GDP directly and indirectly, of which about 4% are spent for military expenses. Plus the profits you made this year in Russia which are five-fold compared to the profits made in 2021.
Ecoaction is also actively working on the green reconstruction of Ukraine. We can tell you more about our vision and ideas. Wintershall Dea should not make use of any profits from Russia and should compensate Ukraine for any of these profits plus direct or indirect payments made in Russia. We can also advise you how your reparations could be best used to rebuild Ukraine.
Please be assured that we as Ecoaction will do all possible to ensure your safety whilst staying in Ukraine. Be prepared, however, to spend time in bomb shelters and encounter several hours a day without electricity and heating.
Please reach out so that we can soon arrange a date for your visit.
With kind regards,
Kostiantyn Krynytskyi
Head of Energy Department
NGO Ecoaction
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