Russia has asked France to allow the deployment of two Ilyushin Il-38 naval reconnaissance planes at a French base in Djibouti to facilitate its anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Wednesday.
“We have asked France to host two reconnaissance planes at its air base in Djibouti in addition to three French planes deployed there,” Serdyukov said after a meeting of the Russian-French Security Council in Paris.
Russian warships have successfully escorted more than 130 commercial vessels from various countries through pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast since 2008, when Russia joined the international anti-piracy mission in the region.