A Greenpeace ship hoping to monitor a Soviet-era dump for nuclear waste was pursued by a Russian coastguard vessel on Sunday which warned that shots would be fired if the ship refused to stop.


The Greenpeace ship. Solo, is on a mission to check radiation levels off the coast of Novaya Zemlya, a Russian nuclear testing site that is considered to be the world's largest nuclear dump at sea.


"The Solo has been told to keep out of coastal waters, but we will continue the expedition", Eleanor O'Hanlon, Greenpeace's Moscow representative said Sunday. "We are not seeking confrontation, but we must challenge them".


After making radio contact with Solo on Sunday afternoon, O'Hanlon said the coast-guard ship, Ural-062 was trailing behind the Solo at a distance of 2 miles.


Earlier Sunday she said three flares were fired at the Solo as she attempted to cross the Kara Straits and the captain, Albert Kuiken refused to alter the ship's course. Kuiken said he was not breaking any laws, since his ship was sailing in international waters and therefore had the right of free passage.


O'Hanlon said that the group had applied for permission from the Russian authorities for the trip in waters closed to foreigners, but failed to get any response.


The ship is carrying an international crew of 34 and plans to monitor radiation in a place where it is widely believed that Soviet authorities disposed of 15 nuclear reactors from 12 submarines and three icebreakers between 1964 and 1982. In total 17, 000 containers of nuclear waste have also been dumped.


The radioactive waste is said to have released 1 billion curies, the measurement unit of radioactivity. By contrast, the worst nuclear accident in history at Chemobyl in 1986 released 40 to 86 million curies.


Although Russian officials contend that tests show no waste has been discharged since 1986, the environmental group wants to conduct its own studies. Greenpeace fears that radioactivity might leak at a later date and contaminate large areas of the Arctic, including rich fishing grounds.


On board, Greenpeace campaigner John Sprange called Novaya Zemlya, a "dead legacy of the nuclear age".


"Some 132 nuclear tests and 15 dumped nuclear reactors there are protected by military secrecy", he said. "The Cold War is now over and the world needs to know the environmental consequences of the nuclear age".


O'Hanlon supported his statement, saying that the environment is so urgent an issue that secrecy is not justifiable in any way.


She added that the ship would remain in the Kara Sea until Thursday and continue to the Port of Arkhangelsk, ending the three-week trip in Amsterdam.