Polar bears take action against Arctic oil drillers in Russia

Early this morning, a team of intrepid polar bears from Greenpeace visited Gazprom's flashy headquarters in Moscow. At the same time, activists from Greenpeace in Germany set up a leaking oil derrick outside the Gazprom offices in Berlin.

Why, you ask, would such a sensible creature as a polar bear take such extreme action in the heart of one of the world's biggest cities?

Simple. To demand that Gazprom, one of the world's biggest energy companies, scrap its reckless plans to drill for oil in the pristine waters of the Russian Arctic.

Just the other week, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo and a team of activists took direct action to stop Gazprom's hulking oil platform Prirazlomnaya preparing to drill in the Pechora Sea. This rusting monstrosity could be the first ever platform anywhere on the planet that will produce commercial quantities of oil from the offshore Arctic.

Our Russian bears set up their very own Arctic sanctuary outside the Gazprom HQ, with activists locked on to gates, amid snow flurries and curious onlookers. In Berlin, a leaking oil pipe is spewing fake oil all over ice, reminding Gazprom just how difficult it would be to clean up an accident in the frozen north.

As I write, 10 activists in Moscow have been arrested by police. We're doing our best to get them out as quickly as possible, but they've done this because the creeping industrialisation of the Arctic by the likes of Gazprom and Shell has to stop.

Not only would a spill in the Arctic be impossible to clean up, we cannot afford to release vast amounts of new greenhouse gases if we're serious about tackling global climate change. As sea ice in the high north reaches record low levels, the message couldn't be clearer: the Arctic is in crisis and we must act to save it.

This means creating a sanctuary at the top of the planet to protect this unique region forever. It means banning all oil drilling and keeping the Arctic off-limits to industrial fishing. We can do it, but we need your help.