01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

This program me contains

strong language.

The protest started very,

very early,

so it was more unexpected.

Very quickly, it became clear that

a lot of things were going wrong.

The Russian coastguard were

at the platform,

freaking out, trying to stop us.

I felt we were going

to get arrested,

and that would be game over.

But I'd come a long way

to do this job.

You know, you've either going to

nick me and handcuff me,

and take me back,

or we're going to carry on.

It was an incredibly daring mission.

It needed to be clone.

But the plan, I think you could say,

went to sh*t.

NEWSREADER: High drama on

the high seas tonight.

Russian forces have seized control

of a Greenpeace ship.

It felt like being in

the middle of a James Bond film.

15 years stuck in a Russian prison.

How did I get here?

IN RUSSIAN:

Dealing with Putin, this was a

different game altogether.

It's like a ticking time b*mb here.

How the hell are we going

to get them out?

When the FSB drew their firearms

they didn't take control

of our boat.

Never, at any point,

did they effect an arrest.

And we were there.

We were very close

to achieving our goal.

And we had one climber, Kruso,

up the side of the rig.

If we'd managed to get a

second climber up,

we could then lift the pod up

out of the water

and get the occupation team in

to stop production.

We had to get Sini up the

side of the rig.

I don't see myself asbrave,

cos I do feel fear quite often.

But I suppose if I think

that we should do something,

and I think that we can do it,

I just go for it.

She started climbing for her life.

Kruso had climbed

as high as he could,

and then I went after him.

Ancl they were hosing so much

water from the platform,

and it was really,

really heavy to climb.

Now we had two climbers up

on the oil rig.

The goal was in our eyes, you know,

it was right in front of us.

About this time,

they started really concentrating

on the media boat -

the boat I was on.

Watch out.

And there was a huge lunge

for Kieran, the videographer.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, f*ck off, man!

f*ck off!

f*cking

THEY LAUGH

We started putting away

from them slightly,

but they almost got him

two or three times.

I knew that film was hot property.

And I took the decision that

what we were filming

needed to get back to the ship.

We needed to get that out,

we needed to get it on the wires.

That is how we operate,

that's how we get

the message across.

And so, we set off for the Sunrise,

while the team remained

at the oil rig.

When Frank left and went

back to the ship,

I just thought it was a big mistake.

We didn't really know what

we were doing any more.

We need some kind of leadership.

I remember thinking,

"Why the hell did Frank leave?

"He's the action coordinator.

"Hold on, who's coordinating

the action?"

We went from chaos to total chaos,

basically.

Instead of being a cohesive unit,

we just became, like,

kind of individuals trying

to make our own decisions

and, at the same time,

we had two people

in quite a precarious

position up the oil rig.

They hosed and hosed this water -

and, I mean, it's water cannons

of an oil platform.

The fires are really big,

so the cannons are big,

with quite high pressure.

We would, like, shout,

but the other one couldn't hear,

and you couldn't really shout,

cos there was water coming into

your mouth and eyes, and everything.

I remember thinking,

"You can actually drown like this.

"Without being in the water,

but just being hosed."

Side to side with Kruso,

I could feel him shiver.

Like, first a bit, and then

he was just, like,

shaking more and more -

and I knew that he's not shaking

because of fear or anything,

but just because of the coldness.

Ancl then, I was like, "OK, this is

like hypothermia coming.

"We need to go down."

But in order to be able to go down,

I had to lower a rope.

Ancl I realised that it's just

the military boats below us.

If somebody holds the rope tight

below you, you can't go down.

The Russian coastguard didn't really

know how to deal with climbers.

You know, you could hear distress

coming from the climber,

you could hear them trying

to communicate with the Russians.

Ancl it was a dangerous,

dangerous situation.

They were shouting in Russian,

but I think they were, like,

telling me to come down.

Ancl I'm like, "I can't come down."

I thought, " | 'm going to go

and pick them up."

So, we pushed our way through,

and I think maybe I should not

have gone in there, actually,

cos it really antagonised

the coastguard.

They pulled g*ns out.

I felt scared.

I don't like g*ns,

and I don't like g*ns in the hands

of young, panicking conscripts.

IN RUSSIAN:

I can see g*ns, I can hear g*ns,

and I was really worried

about the others in the boats.

g*nf*re

As soon as they fired,

it was just like,

"OK, we're now leaving."

I just remember just reversing out

and just getting, like,

four, five metres away,

ten metres away,

just so we were no longer

any kind of threat to anyone.

IN RUSSIAN:

In the end, they let go of the rope

so I could come down.

They just, like,

pulled me into the boat.

Kruso came down

and he got to the boat.

And, actually, I was so relieved

that he was there

that it took me some time

to realise that, you know,

"sh*t, we're actually, like,

being taken by the military."

After we'd dropped off the film

.. | went screaming back

towards the rig

and then basically saw most of

the ribs coming back towards me.

It was two of the crews.

We stopped them.

I said, "What's going on"?

And they said,

"Oh, they've nicked them!"

I just couldn't quite get

what they were telling me.

The Russians,

they had Sini and Kruso,

and were taking them back to

the coastguard cutter.

The likely scenario was

they were going to get taken

somewhere in Russia.

IN RUSSIAN:

Separated from the rest of us

you are in a precarious situation.

Of course, you wonder

how they're going to be treated.

Me and Kruso were taken into

the military ship.

Everyone that we see

on board were, like,

wearing their military uniforms

with balaclavas.

It's quite a hostile thing to see -

you don't see a person's face.

First, they took us into

this big room.

They, of course, took everything

we had, all our gear and equipment,

and we had to, like, undress,

so I had

I can't remember, I had some

sort of underwear on me,

but I was soaked.

Then they took Kruso away.

I don't know what

they're doing to him.

Like, are they beating him up,

are they putting him into a cell?

What are they doing?

Like, I don't know.

Then they brought in this one person

who spoke a few words of English,

and he told me that I'm going

to be brought somewhere.

A guard walks me through,

like, some corridors.

They brought me into a cabin.

There were several men

asleep in there.

The door is locked.

That's when it actually hit me

the realisation that, yeah,

something really nasty could

happen to me, as well,

and nobody would know,

or nobody could help.

When we returned to

the Arctic Sunrise,

there was a lot of adrenaline

in the air on the ship.

People were sort of starting

to come down a bit and, like,

analyse what had just happened.

Back on board, I felt that I had

f*cked up.

Yeah.

There was no pod,

there was no occupation,

there was no stopping production

coming off that rig at this time.

We hadn't achieved our goal, right?

On top of that,

they had two of our crew members.

I'd left them there,

up on the side of the rig.

This is Russian coastguard ship,

over.

With a bit of hindsight,

it was the wrong move.

They could've done with me there,

yeah.

We'd like to take this opportunity,

away from the installation,

for you to hand over our two crew

members that you have on board.

Please wait a few minutes and

I tell you about your people, OK?

But in the heat of the moment,

at the oil rig,

I felt I didn't have a choice.

I had to get out of there.

They were coming for the video.

It was dramatic footage.

It was us in the middle of

the Arctic taking action against

this oil rig, the first production

oil rig in the Arctic, you know,

a culmination of our campaign.

We'd already put our necks

way out there,

and I wanted to

I just wanted to get that back.

When Frank came back onto the ship

to make sure that footage was safe,

my job as a communications officer

was to get the news out

as quick as possible.

The environmental activist group

Greenpeace butting heads -

if you'd like to put it that way -

with the Russian coastguard,

and it got a little ugly.

g*nf*re

I believe, without the footage,

the risks associated with

drilling oil in the Arctic,

it's not being spoken about.

It's not in the media.

That footage,

it's our political power.

Warning shots have been fired after

Greenpeace activists attempted

to scale an oil platform

in the Arctic.

Two of them were arrested.

The action was aimed to protest

against the potential threat

to the environment

On top of that,

without that footage and that proof,

it's our word against their word.

The Greenpeace view is

that Russia has overreacted,

all while Greenpeace was doing

what it is known for doing

around the world - that is climbing

things they probably shouldn't

be climbing just to get media

attention, but doing so peacefully.

The Russian view is they

believed they were dealing with

a security threat of some sort,

and they didn't know precisely

what security threat

they were dealing with.

IN RUSSIAN:

Putin is making a symbolic tour

of the region.

Russia's Arctic military bases

far outnumber the US installations.

Arctic Sunrise, Arctic Sunrise,

this is Russian coastguard ship.

Please can you stay in this position

for question about your people?

I don't know information

of our chiefour ministry.

Do you understand me? Over.

Yes, yes, I understand that you are

waiting information from ashore,

from the relevant authorities,

about the holding

of our two crew on board.

We will stand by here, er,

for the short-term future.

Over.

In terrorism?

Russian coastguard,

this is a ridiculous accusation.

We are an unarmed vessel,

the platform was not attacked.

You have no right to issue

threats to use weapons

against an unarmed vessel

in international waters.

This is, in fact,

equivalent to an act of w*r.

The coastguard started to open fire.

They called them warning shots

g*nf*re

and they were actually dangerous.

There's the large red tank on

the back of the helideck.

That's full of gasoline.

If you sh**t it, the ship will burn.

We're in international waters

right now.

We're in international waters.

You have no right to

forcibly board this vessel.

The border guard demanded

to come on board our ship.

They sent a rib over,

but we're in international waters,

and we felt that there's

absolutely no legal basis

to come aboard the ship.

So, we decided that,

"No, we're not going to allow

that to happen."

Eventually, they do come alongside,

and they throw

a boarding hook on us.

So, we just kind of, like,

throw the hook off

and like, "No, I'm sorry."

You're not allowed on board!

No, no, no, no!

"You're not allowed on board here,

you don't have permission, right?

"So, bye."

Phil.

What's going on right now?

Basically, the coastguard are

trying to board us now,

and we're resisting being boarded.

So, we've gone to lockdown now.

All the doors are locked and bolted,

so that if they get onto the ship,

they can't get in, and then

we can keep sailing.

We're in a standoff.

We're just being tailed by

the coastguard vessel

and we're sailing around in circles.

It's, like, a bizarre moment.

We don't really know what to do.

But we can't leave

cos they've got our guys.

At this point, we've all been up

for clays and clays and clays, right?

Or it feels like clays and clays.

Probably just, like,

a couple of clays but, you know,

it's been pretty intense.

So, I'm taking a bit of a break

in the mess.

A bunch of us were.

I think it was around kind of

like, early evening time,

eating our dinner and just taking

a bit of a break from the work.

There was nothing happening, really.

The sun was just

starting to go down

and the tannoy from the bridge,

a voice comes over it and says

that there's a beautiful sunset,

have a look at it.

Glanced out of the porthole,

I saw this helicopter.

Christian came running in.

He was shouting,

"There's a helicopter,

there's a helicopter."

And it started getting bigger

and bigger and bigger

and nearer and nearer.

At that point,

like, reality just stops,

and you're in the middle of

this movie, right?

Cos there's this giant

helicopter with a big red star

on the belly hovering

right above the helideck, right?

I just knew what it was -

instantly knew that

we were about to be boarded.

And | happened to have

a GoPro camera in my pocket.

So, I was out of the mess

like a shot.

We've got to film this.

You know, this is legally important.

We're in international waters,

this is an ill*gal boarding.

Without that footage

it's just their word against ours.

I stood there on the top,

and just a bit taken back

for a while.

It's like finding yourself in

the middle of a James Bond movie.

I think someone had to shout at me,

"Alex," like, kind of,

"Wake up," kind of thing.

So, that's when I kind of ran into

the radio room with Colin,

the radio operator.

We locked the door behind us.

I knew I had to get

this message back to Greenpeace,

what was happening.

I stayed on deck, and one of them

started abseiling down,

straight onto the deck,

and then one more came down

and another came down,

another came down, and soon enough,

there's these green men,

all armed to the teeth,

balaclavas, pointing Kalashnikovs

here, there and everywhere.

These guys were a different breed

from the regular coastguard.

This was some sort of, I don't know,

anti-t*rror1st team,

or something like that.

Ancl they start spreading

throughout the ship.

My first thought is, like,

"I've got to get to the bridge."

I start sort of running

towards the bridge, right,

and I'm looking up.

There's Frank up there.

As I'm running up, I kind of

see Frank sort of disappear.

I got a knee in my back

and I was spread-eagled out.

I feel this arm on my shoulder,

kind of shoving me down.

I fall on top of Frank, and I feel

this foot kind of step down.

We certainly did not see that level

of violent response before.

I'm out on the deck filming.

I knew that I had

to get out of there.

We only had minutes before they had

complete control of the ship,

and we wouldn't be able

to transmit anything after that.

I needed to get that footage

of them boarding the ship

to the radio room

as quick as I could.

The moment the FSB boarded our ship,

in that moment,

I knew exactly what to do.

I rushed to the bridge to

turn on this GoPro.

I see Dennis,

he's a photojournalist,

trying to enter.

He was, like, violently being

pushed to stay outside.

I pulled my phone

out of my back pocket

and started to film what

was happening.

Ancl that's worrying,

because we were clays away from land.

If somebody got seriously hurt,

we're screwed.

The first thing I did when

I got in the radio room,

I called Greenpeace International,

and I said, "We've been boarded.

"Don't expect to hear

from us any time soon."

Put the phone down

and the next thing I know,

Phil's at the window.

I've got the GoPro and I show Alex.

The window opens inwards,

and it's got these screw things

that you undo.

It hasn't been opened in years,

and it's kind of, like, all rusty.

I'm trying to undo the screws.

Nothing's happening.

And, like, I could see this look

of panic on Phil's face.

I look over, and one of those guys,

he's seen me

and he starts running at me.

And then, all of a sudden,

he was gone.

I felt like I failed.

I felt like that was

the evidence that showed that

the boarding was ill*gal.

That would never be seen again.

This soldier came like the wind.

He's already saying,

"Camera, camera."

I turned away from him,

I just shoved the camera

straight down my underwear.

I don't think he saw.

I walk away from him

as fast as I can.

I'm immediately surrounded

by dudes with g*ns,

saying, "Camera, camera."

f*cking hell, you know,

and they're probably going

to get it.

This guy starts frisking me,

and he gets to my ankles,

and he's pretty much done everything

apart from where the camera is.

What the f*ck do I do now?

I've got to try something.

I just interrupted this guy.

" | t's not up my hood, it's not up

my sleeves, it's not in my pockets.

"I haven't got a camera."

So, I just pushed through them

and storm off,

fully expected to be just flattened.

For some reason

they just let me walk away.

I guess they assumed I'd dropped it,

or I had got it through

the porthole.

I was sending as many

messages as possible

to the team on the ground,

and then all of a sudden

BANGING ON DOOR

masked men on the other

side of the door.

They told us to open up -

in Russian - but we knew

what they meant.

We didn't open up, so they started

banging the door down.

Yeah, I was terrified.

I think me and Colin just kind of

looked at each other and thought,

"Oh, God, here goes."

Next thing I know is just g*ns

pointed at my head.

Never had a g*n pointed

at me before. First time.

The commandos seemed

very stressed out.

There was something frantic

and panicky about them.

But after a few minutes,

it was clear that

we're not in control of

the Arctic Sunrise any more.

They are.