Ethiopia says it has received 12 Russian Su-35 jets and will buy four S-400 batteries as fighting continues in the north

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on 28 October that Ethiopia has taken delivery of 12 Russian Su-35 fighter jets and will also acquire four S-400 air defence batteries. He made the announcement on X while visiting Moscow for the Russia-Africa Summit, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters. The Ethiopian government is fighting renewed battles in northern Tigray and a separate rebellion in the Amhara region.

Abiy said the aircraft arrived a year earlier than expected under an existing agreement with Moscow, and thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for helping to speed up the delivery. He gave no date for the arrival of the S-400 systems. In a second post later the same day, he described the jets as newly deployed and said they would defend Ethiopian airspace. He said the new equipment would strengthen Ethiopia’s ability to “preemptively deter aggression”.

What is known, and what is not

The announcement rests on the Ethiopian prime minister’s own statements. The reports available to Geopolitiki do not include a separate confirmation from the Russian Ministry of Defence or a Russian state arms exporter, and no independent body has verified the delivery. The posts on X could not be opened directly, so their wording is taken from the Al Jazeera and Reuters reports.

According to Al Jazeera, the Russian and Ethiopian governments signed a military cooperation agreement in Addis Ababa in July 2021, aimed at improving the Ethiopian armed forces’ training and technology. The Russia-Africa Summit, which opened on 28 October, brings together delegations from African countries for talks on trade, investment and security.

The war in the north

The announcement comes while the conflict in northern Ethiopia continues. Federal forces and allied militia took the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, in early October after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front withdrew, as Geopolitiki reported in Ethiopian government forces retake Mekelle as TPLF withdraws from Tigray capital. Addis Ababa has since appointed a six-month caretaker administration for Tigray, but Al Jazeera reports that the fighting has not stopped: a TPLF commander called for continued resistance in a television broadcast last week, and the group claimed attacks on government-aligned troops in north-western Tigray on 28 October. These claims come from the parties themselves and were not independently confirmed in the reports read.

Eritrea and Ethiopia have accused each other of aggression, as Geopolitiki reported in Ethiopia and Eritrea accuse each other of war: Addis Ababa tells the UN of an “all-out invasion”, Asmara cites a “war of aggression”. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement issued by his spokesperson, reported by UN News on 10 October, that he was “gravely concerned” by the renewed fighting in the Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions. He urged all parties to stop hostilities and the signatories of the 2022 Pretoria Agreement to return to dialogue under its framework, and he asked countries with influence over the parties to support de-escalation and avoid any action that could fuel the conflict.

Al Jazeera adds that the renewed war has effectively undone the Pretoria agreement, which ended two years of fighting in 2022. Government forces are also fighting Fano, an Amhara armed group that has been fighting federal troops since 2023. The details of the Su-35 and S-400 deals, including price, timetable and any training arrangements, have not been published by either government in the sources read.

Source: statements by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as reported by Al Jazeera and Reuters.