On Thin Ice: Putin v Greenpeace (2024) s01e02 Episode Script

1
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 shit.
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 bomb 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, fuck off, man!
Fuck off!
Fucking
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 guns out.
I felt scared.
I don't like guns,
and I don't like guns in the hands
of young, panicking conscripts.
IN RUSSIAN:
I can see guns, I can hear guns,
and I was really worried
about the others in the boats.
GUNFIRE
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,
"Shit, 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
fucked 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.
GUNFIRE
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 war.
The coastguard started to open fire.
They called them warning shots
GUNFIRE
and they were actually dangerous.
There's the large red tank on
the back of the helideck.
That's full of gasoline.
If you shoot 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 illegal 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-terrorist 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 illegal.
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 guns,
saying, "Camera, camera."
Fucking 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 fuck 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 guns
pointed at my head.
Never had a gun 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.