Moscow Sells Ethiopia Fighter Jets as Tigray Burns Again

Twelve Su-35 fighter jets. Four S-400 air defence batteries to follow. Somewhere in Tigray, a family is hiding in a basement because the sky above them belongs to the government that wants them gone. Their lives did not make it into the press release from Moscow.

At the Russia-Africa Summit, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Ethiopia has taken delivery of its first twelve Su-35s, with four S-400 batteries still to come. Vladimir Putin praised the "friendly relations" between the two countries and said they "stand together in international affairs." Abiy thanked Putin for delivering the jets a year ahead of schedule and said the equipment would let Ethiopia "preemptively deter aggression." Read those words again. A government that is bombing its own citizens is speaking the language of defence, and a Kremlin that has spent four years slaughtering Ukrainians is applauding the sale.

Let us be precise about what is happening. Fighting between the federal army and Tigrayan forces intensified in late September 2026, effectively unravelling the Pretoria Agreement of November 2022. That deal ended a two-year war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, many of them through starvation, disease and denial of medical care, not only bullets. The fighting has since spread. Government troops and allied forces have entered Mekelle, Tigray's capital, after the TPLF withdrew. Addis Ababa has installed a six-month caretaker administration. The rebel leadership says it will keep fighting. Meanwhile an insurgency simmers in Amhara, and Ethiopia and Eritrea trade threats that have the region holding its breath.

Now consider what the new jets mean on the ground. Air power is the weapon that hits the places civilians cannot run from: markets, clinics, displacement camps, farming villages. During the last Tigray war, human rights investigators documented airstrikes that killed civilians, and survivors described the terror of aircraft overhead with nowhere to hide. More aircraft means more sorties. More sorties means more graves. Benedict Manzin of the risk consultancy Sibylline has pointed out that air defences like the S-400 are best against conventional threats, and that small, cheap drones can overwhelm even sophisticated systems, as Ukraine has shown. That is true. But the Ethiopian government does not need to defeat drones over Addis Ababa. It needs to dominate the skies over Tigray, and the S-400 is a shield for the pilots doing the bombing.

Russia's motives are not hidden, and they should not be softened. Manzin is right that Moscow is in the arms business, and that weapons sales sustain long-term dependency through training, maintenance and spare parts. SIPRI data shows Russia supplied 15 percent of Africa's major weapons imports in 2021 to 2025, trailing the United States at 19 percent and China at 17 percent. Bilateral trade with Ethiopia exceeded $1.3 billion in the first nine months of this year, more than double the total for all of 2025. Putin, facing Western sanctions over Ukraine, is looking for markets, votes and friends. Abiy, facing war on multiple fronts, is looking for jets. Both men are shopping, and the bill is being sent to the people of Tigray, Amhara and the Afar region.

We have heard the familiar line before. Everyone engages a bit, and Ethiopia maximises its gains. Manzin used that phrase, and it is an accurate description of how African governments now operate: the United States, China, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf states, all competing for ports, minerals, bases and loyalty on our continent. This is the new scramble for Africa. The colonisers of the nineteenth century wore pith helmets. Today's contestants arrive with arms catalogues, infrastructure loans and memoranda of understanding. The method changed. The outcome for ordinary Africans did not. When a government gets the weapons, the foreign partner gets the revenue and the influence, and the citizen gets the funeral.

Let us be honest about Ethiopia's own responsibility. Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his reconciliation with Eritrea. He has since presided over a catastrophic war in Tigray, a crackdown on dissent, and a military posture that treats every political grievance as a security threat. A democracy does not respond to a rebel alliance with a bigger air force. A democracy responds with an inclusive national dialogue, independent investigations, unhindered humanitarian access and a credible constitutional path. Those are the tools that actually end wars. Fighter jets only end lives.

So what must happen? First, the African Union must stop outsourcing its conscience. The AU Peace and Security Council should demand immediate enforcement of the Pretoria Agreement, including the withdrawal of forces from Mekelle and the restoration of basic services across Tigray. Second, the AU and the United Nations should establish an independent investigation into alleged airstrikes on civilians in Tigray, Amhara and the Afar region, with findings published and perpetrators named. Third, every African parliament should demand full disclosure of arms contracts, including prices, delivery schedules and end-use guarantees. If a deal cannot survive public scrutiny, it should not be signed.

Ethiopia itself has examples worth studying. Botswana built one of Africa's most stable democracies on diamonds, strong institutions and an independent judiciary, and it did so without a single decade of mass atrocity. Mauritius has demonstrated that rule of law and open markets create prosperity that no foreign military contract can buy. Senegal showed in 2024 that a peaceful transfer of power is possible when citizens and courts refuse to accept a rigged order. These are the templates. Strong property rights, transparent public procurement, a free press and courts that can rule against the government are not Western luxuries. They are the foundation of peace that lasts.

To the citizens of Ethiopia, the diaspora in Washington, London, Dubai and Toronto, and every African who has watched this war from a distance: demand that your leaders stop buying the means to kill their own people. Write to your MPs. Pressure your foreign ministries. Share the evidence. Refuse the propaganda that says a bombed-out town is a "security operation." And to Moscow, Beijing, Washington and every other capital circling the Horn of Africa: you do not get to call your arms sales partnership while Tigrayan mothers bury their children under the rubble of your hardware.

Ethiopia deserves better than a government that buys jets and a rebellion that offers only more war. It deserves peace, accountability and a state that protects its people instead of hunting them from the sky. The jets have been delivered. The question now is whether we will allow them to be used.

Based on reporting by ALJAZEERA