Soviets Detain Greenpeace Protest Ship

The Soviet coast guard fired warning shots at a Greenpeace ship today, detained the vessel carrying anti-nuclear activists and accused it of violating the Soviet border.

The conflict occurred after the MV Greenpeace, a 190-foot converted salvage tug ship, sailed into Soviet waters in the Barents Sea to protest nuclear testing at the Novaya Zemlya archipelago north of the Arctic Circle.

Four of 28 Greenpeace activists on the vessel left the ship in rubber dinghies early today, several hours before it was boarded by coast guard officers, and landed on one of the islands near the Soviet nuclear test site, the environmental organization’s Copenhagen office said. The four activists’ fate was not known.

A Greenpeace representative in Denmark said that Andrei Zolotkov, a member of the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies, and six local Soviet politicians and journalists were aboard the environmental group’s boat when it was detained by the coast guard.

Tass news agency quoted the KGB intelligence agency as saying that the Greenpeace vessel was detained “for deliberate violation of the state border of the U.S.S.R., failure to obey border authorities, landing people at unpermitted places and an attempt to enter an area closed to navigation.”

The vessel was flying Dutch flags when it was detained off Novaya Zemlya, Tass said.

“In order to detain the Greenpeace ship, border guards had to fire warning shots,” the KGB said. “The ship will soon be escorted to the Kola Gulf, where an inquiry will take place.”

The coast guard on Sept. 21 briefly detained a Norwegian research ship taking water samples in the same area, seven miles off the main Novaya Zemlya island, which is the Soviet Union’s No. 2 nuclear test site and has been inhabited only by Soviet military personnel since the 1950s.

Greenpeace representatives said the protest in Soviet waters was part of the group’s “Let’s Disarm the Sea” campaign.