Name: UK warship not expected to set sail to Cyprus until next week | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-04T16:43:08.000Z
Duration: 3 min 38 s
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Let's start with breaking news from here in the uk.

The BBC understands that HMS Dragon will be heading to Cyprus next week.

The Type 45 Air Defence Destroyer has begun resupplying air defence missiles at the ammunition facility in Portsmouth.

We are also learning that two Wildcat helicopters will be deployed this week as well.

With me is our defence correspondent, Jonathan Beale.

Well, so I think there was an expectation that perhaps HMS Dragon would be sent sooner.

Let's be honest, there were a lot of people who said it should have been sent sooner, but

I think it was originally earmarked for another mission.

And remember the Navy is switching the focus.

It has no warships in the Gulf in the Middle east region, which it has in the past, regularly, routinely.

There are no major British warships there now.

And it has been focusing on the Atlantic because of the threat of Russia and that's a deliberate choice.

So I think that Dragon, one of those destroyers used to protect aircraft carriers that might have been going with HMS Prince of Wales to the North Atlantic, but

now has been given a new mission and therefore has got to make preparations.

They're going to load the ammunition so it's not going to sell immediately and the probability is it will sail next week.

Those helicopters you mentioned which have fitted with missiles which can take down drones, Wildcat helicopters from based the Royal Navy's Yevilton headquarters will probably arrive in Cyprus sooner.

But things will HMS Dragon take to get there.

So it'll take the best part of a week for a ship to get from Portsmouth into the eastern Mediterranean.

So it's not going to be there imminently.

I mean the reassurance that UK military figures give is that they've got ground based air defense as well.

But we also know a drone landed inside Akrotiri and we are told that drone did not come from Iran.

They won't say though where they think that drone was fired from, but

And these Wildcat helicopters that are being sent, they're armed with drone busting.

I think that's, that's a phrase that the Ministry of Defense is actually a press release.

I think that they're Martlet missiles which can either hit a target on the surface or, you know, a low flying.

But it's the relatively slow moment is the drones that it is, yes.

And something else that officials say ballistic missiles, which they have been firing.

And we saw figures of more than 100 in the initial stages, now dropping off to well below 100.

They're saying that Iran does not have huge stocks of that.

Also, they're preserving their stocks for a later moment.

What they do have lots of is drones, cheap drones, the kind of drones that Russia has been using.

And, in fact, the Americans have almost copied the Shahi drone to launch their own attacks.

air Force and the Israeli air Force have air superiority now, and

they are pretty much flying all over the country, wherever they will, without having to worry too much about air defenses and hitting production sites, launch sites, which is going to make it much more difficult for Iran.

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UK warship not expected to set sail to Cyprus until next week | BBC News

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