The Royal Navy frigate, Richmond, will be visiting Mallorca next week and the British ambassador to Spain, Sir Alex Ellis, will be ensuring that she receives an extra special welcome. She is the first Royal Navy warship to visit Palma for many years. The Richmond is returning home after a long deployment to the Pacific where she has formed part of a Royal Navy task force led by the aircraft carrier, Prince of Wales. It has been a hugely successful trip for the frigate which has a long and illustrious history in the Royal Navy. She served in the Second Gulf war and has been involved in numerous actions involving the Royal Navy.
In August 2025, some debate erupted over whether to send the HMS Richmond through the Taiwan Strait during her deployment to the Far East. September 12, she passed through the Taiwan Strait in company with the USS Higgins.
Richmond, as part of the UK strike group, along with HMS Prince of Wales (R09), RFA Tidespring (A136), HNoMS Roald Amundsen (F311) of the Royal Norwegian Navyand JS Akebono (DD-108) of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, took part in Exercise Konkan 2025, a bilateral and biennial maritime exercise conducted the Royal Navy and the Indian Navy, between 5 anda 8 October 2025.
On 8 October, the Indian Air Force deployed its Su-30MKIand Jaguar aircraft for a one-day exercise with the group. Following the conclusion of the exercise, Richmond and Prince of Wales conducted a port call at Indira Dock, Mumbai and Goa, respectively. The visits coincided with the two-day visit of the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to India to meet the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in Mumbai.
The exercise included an aerial exercise conducted between Royal Air Force’s F-35B and Vikrant’s MiG-29K fleet. This was followed by a combined submarined hunt operation which included Royal Navy Merlin Mk2 helicopters operating from Prince of Wales and Richmond and Indian Navy P-8I Neptune aircraft trying to detect an Indian submarine.