Thread by @Cult_Unstained

🏛️ BP, Russia and the @BritishMuseum 🧵

In 2014, the Russian state invaded Crimea.

In 2017, the Russian Ambassador and Cultural Attaché met with the museum's Director and Chair - and staff from their sponsor BP - before the press launch of its new #Scythians exhibition...

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That exhibition involved collaboration between the British Museum and Russia's State Hermitage Museum - which BP also sponsored.

For years, BP strategically sponsored cultural orgs in both the UK and Russia - and the ties between them - to strengthen its influence.

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And at that time, BP was actively seeking ways to get around sanctions so that it could push ahead with drilling in a shale deposit - in partnership with the Russian state oil company Rosneft - by reclassifying that shale deposit as ‘limestone’!

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And notes from a meeting between the British Ambassador and BP in June 2017 recorded how the oil firm's then CEO had boasted that its business in Russia was good and that its relations with Rosneft were "strong".

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And despite the Russian government's actions in Crimea in 2014, the UK's Department for International Trade *actively* promoted and helped UK firms to "break into the Russian Oil & Gas Sector" over the following years - including this workshop in 2017. 👇

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New research from @Global_Witness and others has now revealed how just 8 of the world's biggest energy firms - including BP - were responsible for $100bn flowing to the Russian government since that invasion of Crimea in 2014. globalwitness.org/en/press-relea…

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After that invasion of Crimea, BP sought to protect its profits and strengthen its ties to Rosneft, rather than take a stand against repression.

And the Department for International Trade actively promoted *greater* UK involvement in Russian oil and gas extraction.

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Meanwhile, the @britishmuseum provided a high-profile backdrop for BP to meet with the Russian Ambassador and others behind closed doors, to use cultural sponsorship to boost its business interests in the country.

Read our investigation from 2018 here 👇
cultureunstained.org/crudeconnectio…