Ethiopia says it has taken delivery of 12 Russian-made Su-35 fighter jets and will later receive four S-400 air defence systems from Moscow, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on Wednesday 28 October. Abiy said on X that the deliveries marked a milestone in Ethiopia's efforts to strengthen national security and pre-emptively deter aggression, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had helped ensure the fourth-generation jets were delivered a year earlier than scheduled. The announcement came while Abiy was in Russia for the third Russia-Africa Summit.

What Ethiopia says it received

The Su-35 is Russia's most advanced fighter in export service after the Su-57, a single-seat, twin-engine multirole jet built for air combat and ground attack, with thrust-vectoring engines and a long-range Irbis-E radar. Sukhoi calls it a 4++ generation design, a heavily upgraded fourth-generation aircraft that stops short of fifth-generation stealth features. The S-400 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system designed to shoot down aircraft and some missiles, with a battery typically including radars, a command post and several launcher vehicles. Abiy did not disclose the value of the agreement, when the S-400 systems would be delivered or where the aircraft and air defence batteries would be based.

What remains undisclosed

The announcement should be read as Ethiopia's account of the delivery: reports differ on the handover detail, with Aviation Week reporting that two aircraft were formally handed over at Zhukovsky Airport near Moscow, and a leaked 2025 Rostec document had listed only six Su-35s for Ethiopia, so the total size of the order remains unstated. The context is a sharp deterioration in Ethiopia's security position, with renewed fighting in the northern Tigray region last month rekindling a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people between 2020 and 2022, and ties with Eritrea severed, with Addis Ababa accusing Asmara of backing the rebels, a charge Asmara denies.

Sources: Reuters and Defence Blog.