The first of the Greenpeace activists arrested during an oil drilling protest in Russia has been released from jail on bail.
Ana Paula Alminhana Maciel, of Brazil, was granted bail by a court in St Petersburg and walked free after paying bail of two million roubles ($NZ73,500).
Twenty out of 30 people detained by Russian coast guards during a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling have been granted bail by Russian courts this week.
New Zealander David Haussmann has been granted bail and the other New Zealander in the group, Jonathan Beauchamp, is still to appear in court
Greenpeace says none of the activists have their passports, which were all confiscated when their ship Arctic Sunrise was seized in September.
Ms Maciel brandished a sheet of paper with the words "Free the Arctic" on it as she left a detention centre in St Petersburg. Asked how she felt, she said simply "happy" before being driven off by a Greenpeace representative.
The latest group of eight to be granted bail on Wednesday included the pilot of the Greenpeace icebreaker who steered the vessel to the Gazprom-owned Prirazlomnaya oil platform, where several activists tried to scale the structure, Reuters reports.
Peter Willcox, 60, was the skipper of Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior when it was blown up and sunk by the French secret service in Auckland harbour in New Zealand in 1985.
One of the 30 had his detention extended by three months on Monday, and all of those aboard the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker during the protest at a Russian oil rig could still face seven-year jail terms on hooliganism charges.
