It turns out Vladimir Putin never was one of the good guys. A controversial view, I know, but one that not many would dispute anymore. There are so many stories about Putin and the harm he has done the world (not least Russia itself) that it's hard to know where to start but in On Thin Ice:Putin v Greenpeace (BBC2/iPlayer) we start with the 2013 Greenpeace expedition to the Arctic to protest Russian offshore oil drilling.
The story is told via archive footage and a series of interviews with those on board the Greenpeace boat, the Arctic Sunrise (including the comms officer, the campaign leader, the action co-ordinator, an engineer, and a member of the climb team) and various others including a Russian political activist, Gazprom's Head of Comms, a former Russian MP in Gennady Gudkov, Martin Sixsmith - a former BBC Moscow correspondent, and, er, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and once the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green.
Not totally sure why he's there. Oh, and in case you're worried - yes On Thin Ice does feature THAT footage of Putin doing a very long walk on a very big red carpet as well as some of him doing some topless fishing. None of which detracts from the fact that he's an utterly despicable cunt.
We begin with the Greenpeace team, all thirty of them - activists, crew, and journalists - from all over the world including Russia itself, meeting on the ship in Kirkenes, Norway where, after about a week's training, they set sail for the Prirazlomnoye oil rig in the Pechora Sea south of Novaya Zemlya in Russia's frozen north.
A cruel irony of climate change is that the melting ice caps in the Arctic had only recently made huge oil and gas reserves accessible for the first time. Other countries also wanted to drill for oil there but Russia got there first and built a platform that would be operated by the state sponsored Gazprom. In Russia, oil and gas IS power and Putin's success is so dependent on Gazprom's that some consider Putin and Gazprom to be interchangeable. Putin, to some, IS Gazprom.
If the Russians were to succeed with Prirazlomnoye, it seemed inevitable that that would trigger an Arctic oil rush and Greenpeace were desperate to do whatever they could to put a stop to that. The plan was to occupy the oil rig and stop production for as long as possible. The Arctic Sunrise had arrived in the Pechora with a survival capsule that could house two to three people with provisions for five to seven days. A survival capsule that was absolutely not for claustrophobics.
Launching, and winching, the capsule (or pod) on to the oil rig would be quite a tricky process and would involve at least two people climbing ropes up the side of the rig. But by the time the Arctic Sunrise arrived, the Russian coastguards - in the form of the FSB (the Russian Border Service and successor to the KGB) - were already there. They had advance knowledge of the protest and were intent on protecting the rig.
Putin demanded a non-conciliatory response from the coastguards from the start and it wasn't long before dinghies were colliding and men in body armour and balaclavas started appearing. Soon, on Putin's orders, guns were fired. Intended as warning shots but, undoubtedly, incredibly dangerous. Firing guns near working oil rigs isn't wise.
The climbers, halfway up the rig, were hosed with water cannons. Both climbers got stuck and one got hypothermia so they had to come down (as more guns were fired) where they were captured by the Russian military. Oil production continued and some in Russia speculated that Greenpeace were US agents. Which was quite interesting considering that in 1985, in the case of the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace were accused of being KGB agents.
The Arctic Sunrise team were accused of terrorism and a standoff came to an end when the crew of a Russian helicopter abseiled on to the deck of the Arctic Sunrise and, using their Kalashnikovs to persuade the Greenpeace activists, did their best to confiscate all the cameras on board and to destroy all the Greenpeace evidence.
One brave activist, however, hid his camera down his pants and even as they took control of the Arctic Sunrise, the Russians failed to find that particular camera. The Greenpeace crew were, however, disconnected from the outside world after all the satellite phones had been disabled by the Russians. Feeling in control, the FSB sailed the Arctic Sunrise to Murmansk.
A five day journey. The Greenpeace crew, on board, expected to arrive in Murmansk, get told off, and get sent home. So they spent that five day journey playing Scrabble, Uno, and charades, drinking beer, and watching movies. Spoiler alert:when they arrived in Murmansk they were not sent home.
Instead, the Russians disingenuously claimed the pod was a bomb and took all thirty members of the Arctic Sunrise to a detention centre in the city, all the time surrounded by photographers. Each of them were taken to court and then put in prison where they were strip searched and threatened with beatings before being sentenced. Initially, to two months (or longer) for piracy with a potential of their sentences being extended for up to fifteen years. A bloody long time.
Back at Greenpeace HQ in Islington, they were working to free their colleagues and had started a #FreetheArctic30 campaign as well as liaised with Martin Sixsmith. Kumi Naidoo, then the International Executive Director of Greenpeace International, offered to serve time in a Russian prison in lieu of the Arctic 30 if they were freed.
It never came to that because as this offer was being made there was a dramatic turn of events. It was announced that drugs (heroin) had been found on the Arctic Sunrise and now the Arctic 30 were being accused of being drug users or even dealers. Arctic junkies.
Planting drugs on those you wish to discredit is such a long established KGB/FSB tactics that Russian politicians have been known to sew their pockets up specifically so drugs can't be planted on them. Not long after the drug story had broken however there was another worrying twist in the tale. One of the Arctic 30 had had a heart attack.
The final brace of episodes of On Thin Ice are primarily devoted to Greenpeace's work to try and free the Arctic 30 but the pace doesn't let up as we're whisked through a story that takes in the International Maritime Court in Hamburg, United Nations tribunals, Murmansk punk bands, cryptic letters about Thomas the Tank Engine, the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a UEFA Champions League fixture between Basel and Schalke, Paul McCartney (who really must have felt he was Back In The USSR), and a matchbox with a secret compartment.
By the end of it all, Greenpeace had, ultimately, made their point - if not in the way they had intended to - but, more pertinently, so had Russia and so had Putin. Nobody has ever protested on a Russian oil rig again since the events in this film. Emboldened by his victory, Putin has gone on to have his rivals imprisoned, tortured, and assassinated, to interfere in foreign elections, to invade neighbouring countries, and to start lethal wars that have killed tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people. It might be cold in the Arctic but nowhere near as cold as whatever passes for Putin's heart.
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