On Monday 17 November, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, Commander of EUNAVFOR Aspides, the EU’s military maritime security operation to preserve freedom of navigation in the context of the crisis in the Red Sea, regretted that his operation did not have more resources to carry out its mission.
“One of the most significant constraints is the limited number of assets. On average, in the last month we are operating with just two ships”, to provide close protection for commercial vessels, he explained at a hearing of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security and Defence. When the operation was launched in February 2022, he had asked for “10 vessels and 16 aircraft”.
Vasileios Gryparis explained that the Member States providing the ships were mainly Italy, France and Greece, and that Germany was providing air support for the operation.
In order to motivate Member States to make resources available for the operation, the Rear Admiral explained that “for all countries that have a military and have a navy, it is an opportunity to toughen and train their crews because this is the closest it can get to real combat conditions”. “The crew are under constant threat 24/7 and during the time of patrolling. So this is a good opportunity”, he explained.
According to the Rear Admiral, despite its limited resources, the mission has been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its actions. “So, until now, we have provided services and close protection to more than 1,300 ships. So we have succeeded in satisfying 99% of the requests from the shipping industry”, he explained. Vasileios Gryparis added that, from the outset, the operation had only used force when absolutely necessary. “We have downed 20 UAVs (...) destroyed two USVs and another anti-ship ballistic missiles force”, he said.
When its mandate was last extended, the mission was given new tasks, including gathering information on arms trafficking and the activities of the Russian ‘shadow fleet’, and disseminating this information to the relevant structures.
Tackling “weapons smuggling, is a very difficult task because we are focusing on providing close protection and we do not have any spare assets to track down the smugglers. And besides that, we are not allowed to enter the territorial waters and we are not allowed to conduct boarding, which is absolutely necessary in order to discover hidden arms”, stressed Vasileios Gryparis.
In addition, according to him, he says that of the 557 vessels in the EU-sanctioned fleet, around 181 are circulating in the Aspides area of operation. “We have provided elements for more than 84 vessels which since July have made a total of 302 passages through the area. These are vessels delivering Russian oil from Russian ports to Asian countries”, explained the Rear Admiral.
The ‘Aspides’ mandate runs until 28 February 2026. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)