Activists caused no danger to the oil platform but were protesting peacefully against Arctic oil drilling

'Earlier, the crew has repeatedly taken provocative actions that pose a threat to maritime security of ships engaged in work on the development of the continental shelf in the Russian sector of the Arctic.' (RU)

Our activists are fully trained to conduct this kind of protest peacefully and safely. They did nothing to endanger the platform or Gazprom's workers and they carried nothing more than banners and ropes. A similar protest at the same rig passed off without incident in 2012.

The real threat to the fragile Arctic environment is the giant Prirazlomnaya oil platform, which is operating hundreds of miles away from emergency vessels but right next to the habitats of polar bears, walruses and other wildlife.

International law — specifically, Article 60(5) of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea — allows the declaration of a safety zone of no more than 500m around an offshore installation. The Arctic Sunrise at no point came closer than 500m to the Prirazlomnaya. The Arctic Sunrise was also outside the excessive 3 nautical mile exclusion zone claimed by Russia, except on one occasion when it briefly entered to retrieve the safety pod that would otherwise have posed a possible navigational hazard.

The inflatable boats used during the action did come closer than 500m to conduct peaceful protest. There was no safety risk — the Prirazlomnaya sits on a big steel and concrete box designed to withstand impacts of ice floes. Indeed, it is visited daily by far larger support vessels such as a hotel ship that houses part of its workforce.

The Arctic Sunrise was in international waters not in territorial waters

'The FSB has rejected the environmental campaign group's assertion that the ship was in international waters when it was seized.' (EN)

At the time of the boarding, the Arctic Sunrise was circling Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya platform at the three nautical mile limit, inside international waters. Coordinates confirm that the ship was inside of Russia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), making this an illegal boarding by the Russian Coast Guard.

Legally speaking, the EEZ is similar to the high seas. Foreign vessels have a right to freedom of navigation there - they can enter without permission and go anywhere they want.

The ship's coordinates at the time of arrest were 69 19.86'N 057 16.56'E, showing that the vessel was clearly outside of Russia's territorial waters. This is 34 nautical miles from the Russian coast. These coordinates were received from ship's security alert system and here are the coordinates from the ship's Automatic Identification System (AIS).