Total CEO Plane Crash Robs Putin’s Russia of Outspoken Ally

Christophe de Margerie’s last act as chief executive officer of Total SA left no room for doubt about his feelings toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

In a Moscow speech hours before the plane crash that took his life two days ago, de Margerie said U.S. and European Union sanctions on the country were “unfair and unproductive,” and that he opposed efforts to render it “isolated from the major global economic and political process.”