Sir Paul McCartney appeals to Russia’s Putin for release of Arctic 30

Greenpeace activists are pictured on board a zodiac near the Arctic Sunrise in Russia’s Arctic waters, where they were protesting offshore oil drilling this past September. (GREENPEACE PHOTO)

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has made an appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin for the release of 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists.

The group has been detained for nine weeks following a protest against oil exploration in the Russian Arctic and now face charges of hooliganism and piracy.

In the Oct. 14 letter – which was only made public Nov. 14 – McCartney begins “Dear Vladimir,” and goes on to make a friendly plea for Putin to intervene on behalf of the prisoners.

“I hear from my Russian friends that the protesters are being portrayed in some quarters as being anti-Russian, that they were doing the bidding of Western governments, and that they threatened the safety of the people working on that Arctic oil platform,” McCartney wrote.

“I am writing to assure you that the Greenpeace I know is most certainly not an anti-Russian organisation. In my experience they tend to annoy every government! And they never take money from any government or corporation anywhere in the world.

“And above all else they are peaceful. In my experience, non-violence is an essential part of who they are,” McCartney said.

McCartney goes on to ask Putin to help release the Arctic 30, as they’ve come to be known, in time for them to reunite with family for Christmas.

This is not McCartney’s first show of public support for Greenpeace’s work in the Arctic; he was among the first supporters of the organization’s call for an “Arctic Sanctuary” last year, which would see the Arctic Ocean protected from oil drilling, industrial fishing and military activity.

But McCartney has yet to receive a response from Putin in this most recent letter, tweeting instead a response from the Russian ambassador who told him their situation “is not properly represented in the world media.”

On Sept. 18, two activists aboard Greenpeace’s ship were arrested trying to scale the Gazprom Arctic oil platform, Prirazlomnaya, in the Pechora Sea off the Arctic coastline of northwest Russia.

The rest of the group was seized on Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise vessel Sept. 19, by Russian special forces who later boarded the ship.

That group includes two Canadians: Ontario resident Paul D. Ruzycki and Quebec resident Alexandre Paul.