The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has reported that Ukrainian citizen Ruslan Yakushev, who was amnestied along with other crewmembers of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship, is already returning home.

"Yakushev has already flown out of Russian with the assistance of Ukraine's Consulate General in Saint Petersburg," the ministry's press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

As reported, on December 25 this year, the competent Russian authorities handed Yakushev a resolution to confirm the dropping of criminal charges against him on the grounds of an amnesty.

Russian border guards seized 30 activists and crewmembers of the Arctic Sunrise on September 19, 2013, for an attempted protest against oil drilling at the Prirazlomnaya oilrig in the Pechora Sea. The environmentalists were brought to Murmansk and sentenced to two months confinement. All of them were transferred to detention facilities in St. Petersburg on November 12. St. Petersburg courts released each of the defendants on 2-million-ruble bail.

The State Duma declared an amnesty on December 18 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Russian constitution. The Arctic Sunrise crew and activists are eligible for the amnesty.