A memory card smuggled out of a Russian jail in a match box and a letter from Beatles icon Sir Paul McCartney to Vladimir Putin helped end an international scandal. That might sound like a plot in a Hollywood movie, but it is actually the reason why British Greenpeace activists are not rotting in a Siberian prison. In 2013 a group of 30 environmentalists from around the world, including five Brits, set their sights on a Russian oil company, Gazprom , that was about to start drilling in the Barents Sea.
Their plan was relatively simple, attach a pod to the side of the oil rig which they could protest from, not only would they halt production, they’d draw the world’s attention to the impact of fossil fuels and stop what they believed was an international oil rush in the Arctic. But instead they were shot at by the Russian coastguard and caught up in a scandal after their ship was raided by gun-toting counter-terrorism soldiers and the entire crew arrested on piracy charges, jailed for two months with the threat of a further 15 years behind bars. Now the dramatic inside story on how their environmental mission turned into a nightmare is being told for the first time in a new six part BBC Two series, On Thin Ice: Putin v Greenpeace, which starts on Sunday.
Using incredible unseen footage captured by the protestors and testimony from many involved, the series lifts the lid on what was really going on behind the headlines. Ben Stewart, who was head of communications for Greenpe.
