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25 Greeenpeace activists arrested in Arctic protest

Two Greenpeace members climbed Gazprom's drilling platform in the Pechora Sea on Wednesday.

Russian coast guard yesterday boarded Greenpeace’s vessel “Arctic Sunrise” and arrested 25 activists from the “Save the Arctic” campaign who tried to hinder the work of Gazprom’s drilling platform “Prirazlomnaya”.

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On Wednesday morning Greenpeace activists climbed Gazprom’s oil drilling platform in the Pechora Sea to stop it from becoming the first company to produce oil from the region. Two climbers were arrested and the Russian Coast Guard fired warning shots across Greenpeace’s ship, as BarentsObserver reported.

The two arrested activists were later released and brought back to the “Arctic Sunrise”.

Yesterday evening the vessel was boarded from a helicopter by Russian Coast Guard soldiers armed with guns and knives, Greenpeace reports through its Twitter account. All members of the international crew were arrested. According to Russian media, the vessel will be brought to Murmansk, but Greenpeace’s latest Twitter message says that “According to the Coast Guard on Russian radio, our ship has not been arrested. They are still deciding what to do with our activists”.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the activists’ actions “provocative” and accused the Arctic Sunrise of “threatening the safety of the ships involved in the development of the Russian sector of the Arctic shelf.” Moscow has given a letter of protest to the Embassy of the Netherlands – the country where the ship is registered, Russia Today writes.