Royal Navy upholds United Nations sanctions against North Korea

HMS Richmond was deployed to waters surrounding Japan from early to mid-September to conduct monitoring and surveillance operations to report on illicit maritime activities.

That included keeping close watch on ship-to-ship transfer of goods with North Korean-flagged vessels prohibited by United Nations Security Council resolutions.

It is all part of work to uphold several UN sanctions targeting the Pyongyang regime and the unlawful generation of revenue, aim at the dismantling its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes.

The UK has carried out 14 such operations in the past seven years, with the Royal Navy’s permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific – in the form of patrol ships HMS Spey and Tamar – usually carrying out the patrols.

Plymouth-based frigate HMS Richmond is in the region with the UK Carrier Strike Group led by aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.

The Type 23 is part of the escort fleet attached to the group, but recently broke away with visits to South Korean port Busan and latterly these United Nations patrols, which also supported Japan’s information gathering activities on vessels suspected of violating the UN resolutions. 

The Carrier Strike Group has just begun the second half of its global mission and is limbering up for Exercise Bersama Lima 25 around the Malay Peninsula.

For more than 50 years, five Commonwealth nations – Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK – have pledged to work together under the Five-Power Defence Arrangement to ensure regional security in Southeast Asia.

The nations meet regularly to ensure they can operate effectively together and Bersama Lima 25 is the latest effort involving sea, air and ground forces in a warfighting scenario focused on the defence of Malaysia and Singapore.