British Merlin helicopter deploys to Cyprus

A British Merlin Mk2 utility helicopter and an “engineering team” are to arrive in Cyprus on Tuesday, with the United Kingdom and multiple other countries continuing to bolster their military presence in and around the island after it was hit by an Iranian-made drone last week.

The UK’s Royal Navy said that the helicopter “provides a defence against aerial threats”, given that it can fly up to a mile high, and as such “look ‘over the horizon’” and offer “advance warning of incoming drones or missiles”.

Royal Navy representative captain James Hall, meanwhile, said that the engineering team “already has experience of providing force protection from similar threats”, having deployed to the Red Sea last year during transits led by the carrier strike group of the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier.

“This will also compliment the defensive measures provided by the [AW159] Wildcat aircraft and HMS Dragon, when she arrives in the region next week, providing a layered capability for the protection of UK forces,” he said. 

The HMS Dragon is a Type 45 destroyer warship, and is currently being readied at the port of Portsmouth, with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer having announced its planned deployment to the waters around Cyprus last week. 

Two Wildcat helicopters were sent initially to Cyprus, and both arrived on Friday. On Monday night, the British defence ministry announced that “further” such helicopters have since been deployed to the island, but did not specify how many.

Additionally, last Thursday, British Defence Secretary John Healey visited the island and held a meeting with his Cypriot counterpart Vasilis Palmas, before promising that “top experts” had arrived on the island “to help coordinate the air defences”.

However, Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak on Sunday accused him of lacking “strategic acumen” due to perceived delays in the deployment of British assets to the region in the drone strike’s aftermath.

“Given how much notice we had of these strikes, why was no ship moved to the Mediterranean to help protect our interests and allies? It is frankly embarrassing that the French appear to be doing more to protect Cyprus than we are, even though Cyprus is only a target because of our sovereign bases there,” he said.

His reference to France came ahead of a visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Cyprus on Monday, and with the French frigate Languedoc having arrived in Cyprus within 72 hours of the drone strike,

The frigate is due to be joined in Cyprus’ vicinity by the aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle.

Macron was joined in Cyprus by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with Greece having deployed four F-16 fighter jets to the island last Monday, as well as two frigates, including the Kimon, which was described by Mitsotakis during his visit to the island as the “pride of the Greek fleet”.

In addition to France, Greece, and the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Turkey have all also confirmed the deployment of military assets to Cyprus and its vicinity in the last week.