Operation “Shields” / The Greek commander requests more frigates in the Red Sea

Reinforcement with more ships of the European operation in the Red Sea to protect ships from the Houthis, the Commander of EU Operations, Commander-in-Chief Vassilios Gryparis, requests from Brussels.

Vice-Admiral V. Gryparis notes that the range of operations envisaged by the mission is very large and could be covered even more effectively with more means, without clarifying whether Greece will also send other frigates. It is recalled that the frigate “Hydra” is already in the area, which last month attacked unmanned aircraft in the Gulf of Aden.

As Vice-Admiral V. Gryparis told Euronews “At the moment we have seen a relative stabilization of the drop in the volume of ships passing through the area, we will need more time to have more valuable conclusions, but we think that because every ship can accompany certain number of merchant ships, if this number were greater we could escort more ships and therefore we could hope for a recovery of shipping traffic through these straits”.

According to Vassilis Gryparis, so far 79 ships have been protected and none of them has been affected by any attack. European forces have neutralized 9 drones, 1 unmanned surface vessel as well as 4 ballistic missiles.

“No ship is exempt. Clearly as a European Union we try to give a priority to ships of European interests either flagged or if the crew is European but so far the volume of ships that have asked us for protection and the availability of means is such that we have not refused any ship so far protection. Through this process we think we develop better relationships of trust with the shipping community and based on the fact that we have already escorted 79 ships with very close protection and none of them were attacked means that we have good rates and positive results. This in itself is a motivation for them to start trusting and slowly return to this shipping route which is also critical for the EU”, emphasizes Rear Admiral Gryparis.