The Russian government is set to dismiss the Monday ruling made by an international arbitration panel ordering Russia to compensate the Netherlands for seizing a Greenpeace ship protesting at Russia’s oil platform in the Arctic Ocean in 2013, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
“The Russian Federation did not participate in these proceedings and sticks to its stance that this arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction in this case,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement posted on its website.
The Arctic Sunrise ship, carrying a Dutch flag, was seized by Russian officials, along with the 30 Greenpeace protesters, crew and journalists on board, during a protest against a Gazprom offshore platform. The vessel and detained activists were released several months later.
Zakharova said that the decision, issued by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, “in general, we are seriously concerned that the verdict, in effect, encourages less than peaceful protest activities at sea.”