Opponents of Arctic oil exploration will not be deterred by the Russian seizure of a Greenpeace vessel and crew, a high-ranking activist says after being held for three months in Russia.
"We're certainly not going to be intimidated into stopping our work to save the Arctic," Dima Litvinov, one of 30 people detained when the icebreaker Arctic Sunrise was seized in September, said late on Thursday after arriving in Helsinki.
"We will definitely continue the struggle. This is something we cannot let go."
More than 20 of the Greenpeace activists from the Arctic Sunrise received exit visas, the Interfax news agency reported.
Depending on nationality, a few others did not require visas and were able to leave Russia immediately after the hooliganism charges were dropped on Wednesday.
All aboard the Arctic Sunrise - 28 campaigners and two journalists - were detained after a few activists climbed a Russian oil rig in the Pechora Sea to protest against Arctic drilling.
The 30 men and women were granted bail last month, but the 26 foreigners among them had to remain in St Petersburg as the investigation against them continued.
A senior campaigner in Greenpeace Nordic and member of the board of Greenpeace Russia, Litvinov was among crew members from the vessel issued exit visas Thursday, after the December 18 passage through parliament of a Russian amnesty waiving hooliganism charges against them.
Even after earlier piracy charges were dropped, the hooliganism counts carried up to seven years in prison.
Litvinov called the offence "vague" and "completely not applicable to our case", but it still has not been dropped.
"When I read my amnesty release papers they're still claiming that the actions that I and my friends have committed are criminal.
"As far as I'm concerned," he said, "they don't owe me an amnesty. They owe me an apology."
The Russian-born Litvinov, who holds US-Swedish citizenship, said that Greenpeace has long opposed drilling off Alaska, Greenland and Norway: "Anytime that an oil company goes into the Arctic, they will not be unchallenged. Russia is no exception. Just because they think that they can intimidate us, they're wrong. The campaign will continue."
Last week's amnesty has also seen two members of the protest group Pussy Riot freed from prison, after hooliganism convictions for a demonstration against President Vladimir Putin inside a Moscow cathedral, and the release and pardon of former oil-tycoon and critic of the Kremlin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The gestures are seen as overtures by Russia ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics in February.
