Italy, Spain, France and others send naval vessels to protect Cyprus after Iranian strike

UK and Greece have also announced deployment of sea and air resources to island nation after drone attack on British airbase; UK’s defense secretary arrives in Cyprus

Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands will send naval assets to protect Cyprus in the coming days, Rome’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told parliament on Thursday. Crosetto said the deployment would occur in the coming days.

Britain and Greece have also announced the deployment of sea and air resources to EU member Cyprus after the runway of the British Royal Air Force base Akrotiri was attacked by an Iranian drone on Monday, as part of the US ​and ⁠Israeli air war against Tehran.

Spain’s defense ministry said it would send its most advanced frigate to protect Cyprus. The announcement comes as Madrid faces intense US pressure for refusing to allow Washington to use its bases against Iran, triggering threats of trade reprisals from US President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, the White House said Spain had agreed to “cooperate with the US military,” only for Spain to reaffirm its stance on its bases and its opposition to the war.

Spain’s Cristobal Colon frigate will join French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and Greek navy ships to “offer protection and aerial defense” and “support any evacuation of civilians,” said a defense ministry statement.

The frigate will head for the Mediterranean after a mission with the Charles de Gaulle in the Baltic Sea and is scheduled to arrive at the Greek island of Crete around March 10, the ministry said.

Italy’s Crosetto also said Italy would be sending “air-defense, anti-drone and anti-missile systems” to certain “strategic partners” in the Gulf, confirming a statement from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Britain’s defense minister John Healey arrived in Cyprus Thursday, a defense source told AFP.

British Prime minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday the UK was dispatching “helicopters with counter drone capabilities” and a warship, HMS Dragon, to Cyprus as Britain continued “defensive operations” in the region.

HMS Dragon is one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 air defense destroyers. It is fitted with a Sea Viper missile system able to launch eight missiles in under 10 seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously, Britain’s defense ministry said.

The helicopters are Wildcat helicopters equipped with Martlet missiles that can take down drones.

On Wednesday, Cyprus’s High Commissioner to the UK Kyriacos Kouros said Cypriots were “disappointed” at the level of information-sharing with residents.

“Let’s say the people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more,” he told the BBC’s “Newsnight” program.

Starmer initially refused to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran but later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases for a “specific and limited defensive purpose.”

Those bases are in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

Starmer has insisted that the Akrotiri base is not being used by US bombers.

Monday’s drone strike there caused minimal damage and no casualties, said British officials. Service personnel’s families have been moved away from the base as a precaution.

France has sent its flagship aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean in response to the widening conflict.

“I have ordered the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, its air assets, and its escort of frigates to set course for the Mediterranean,” President Emmanuel Macron announced in a televised speech Tuesday, a day after he warned of the risk of the conflict spilling over Europe’s borders.

The Charles de Gaulle carrier has been pulled out of a deployment in the North Atlantic to head for the eastern Mediterranean. It made a stopover in the Swedish port of Malmo last week.

Macron said he was also sending additional air defense units to Cyprus.

“In addition to assets already in place, Rafale jets, air-defense systems and airborne radar aircraft have been deployed in recent hours” to the region, he said.