All 30 Greenpeace activists, including an Australian man, have been charged with piracy after a protest at an Arctic oil rig last month.

"The investigators do not leave any room for intrigue," Greenpeace Russia tweeted.

The crew members from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, 26 of them foreign nationals, have all been remanded in custody for two months.

The group includes Tasmanian Colin Russell, British-born Australian resident Alexandra Harris and New Zealand man Jon Beauchamp, who is a resident of South Australia.

Piracy by an organised group carries a punishment of between 10 and 15 years in Russia.

Greenpeace has called the charges an "outrage".

The lawyers have filed appeals against the court's refusal of setting bail for the 30 crew, activists and freelancers. #FreeTheArctic30 — Arctic Sunrise (@gp_sunrise) October 3, 2013

The chairman of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, Mikhail Fedotov, told the Interfax news agency there was "not the slightest basis" for the piracy charge.

President Vladimir Putin has said that in his opinion, the activists were not pirates but had breached international law.

The group held a protest on September 18 in which several activists scaled Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Barents Sea to protest plans for drilling in the pristine Arctic.

Russian border guards then landed on the Dutch-flagged vessel from a helicopter, locked up the crew and towed the icebreaker to the northern city of Murmansk, beyond the Arctic Circle.

The activists are being held in pre-trial detention centres in Murmansk and the nearby town of Apatity.

A regional prisoners' rights activist said the activists were complaining of their holding conditions which included cold cells, chain-smoking fellow prisoners and difficulty communicating with guards who do not speak English.

Greenpeace held a similar protest at the same oil platform last year without incurring any punishment.

ABC/AFP