HMS Dragon: Drone footage shows Type 45 Destroyer being readied in Portsmouth ahead of Cyprus deployment
Aerial footage shows HMS Dragon being readied in Portsmouth ahead of the warship’s deployment to Cyprus.
Drone footage shows HMS Dragon being readied in Portsmouth on March 4 ahead of the warship’s deployment to Cyprus.
The Type 45 Destroyer, currently being loaded with ammunition, is not expected to set sail until next week.
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The warship is being sent to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster security around RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. At about midnight on Sunday, the runway at RAF Akrotiri was hit by a drone - causing what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) described as "minimal damage".
The vessel was filmed moving to Portsmouth’s upper harbour ammunition facility late on March 3.
Officials said there was nothing that would have happened to ready a warship any earlier amid questions over Britain’s preparedness to protect its overseas bases.
They would not specify where the drone which struck Akrotiri had come from, but said assessments showed it was a Shahed type and had not been launched from Iran.
Asked by journalists why there was no Type 45 destroyer sent to the region months ago during a US military build-up, they said increasingly fragile geopolitics with many different security threats made the situation complex.