The United Kingdom’s Royal Navy is to send the RFA Lyme Bay, a dock landing ship, to Cyprus, the country’s defence ministry confirmed, having earlier placed its crew on “heightened readiness” ahead of a potential deployment.

According to the BBC, the ship is “equipped with an aviation platform and has medical facilities”, meaning that it “can play a role in evacuations and medical treatment” if required.

As a dock landing ship, its main function is to facilitate the delivery of troops, vehicles and ammunition, among other things, during amphibious assaults. It is currently located off the coast of Gibraltar.

The ship has made headlines in Cyprus in recent years, having been deployed to the island during the initial phases of the Amalthea humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza in 2023.

Having arrived in Larnaca and been loaded with cargo, it was hailed as the first shipment of the Amalthea plan, with the UK’s then defence minister Grant Shapps visiting the island at the time and praising the Cypriot government for facilitating the aid’s shipment.

However, the ship then went missing, and arrived in Malta some days later.

The aid was eventually delivered to Egypt’s Port Said in January 2024 and subsequently transferred over land to Gaza.

The potential deployment of the RFA Lyme Bay comes after the UK had on Monday announced the deployment of a Merlin Mk2 helicopter and an “engineering team”, as well as “further” AW159 Wildcat helicopters, in addition to the two which arrived last week.

Meanwhile, the HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer warship, 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.

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 aftermath of a drone strike on Akrotiri base.

“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.