MOSCOW, November 6 (RAPSI) – Greenpeace activists are conducting a protest on the Moscow River, demanding the release of the the seized Arctic Sunrise ship’s crew.

“Today at 13:00 Moscow time, the hearings into the Arctic Sunrise case in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg will start. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs abstained from the proceedings. Greenpeace boats were lowered in the Moskva River. The purpose of the protest is to attract attention to the Arctic Sunrise case,” – the Greenpeace message reads.

On October 21, the Netherlands filed a request with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to inflict interim measures which must be taken before the trial on the merits to protect the interests of the party in the dispute.

The Arctic Sunrise ship was seized by Russian border guards on September 19 in international waters, within Russia's exclusive economic zone, a day after two Greenpeace activists scaled the Prirazlomnaya drilling rig in the Pechora Sea, the southeastern part of the Barents Sea.

The platform, owned by Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Russian energy giant Gazprom, is the first ice-resistant stationary oil platform in the world set to produce offshore Arctic oil.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic because they say that it is currently impossible to sufficiently clean up potential oil spills in the region, and that such drilling cannot be economically viable.