The photographs look like any official handover: dark suits, a red rope barrier, a framed certificate held up for the cameras. Behind the smiling delegation, though, stands a grey-and-white fighter with the Ethiopian tricolour on its twin tails. On Wednesday 28 October, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told his followers on X that Ethiopia had just taken delivery of its first twelve Su-35 combattenti.

He added a second announcement in the same breath. Ethiopia, Abiy said, will also receive four batteries of Russia's S-400 long-range air defence system. No delivery date was given for those.

The timing was no accident. Abiy was in Moscow for the third Russia-Africa Summit, held on 28 and 29 October, and the Ethiopia Su-35 deal instantly became the most visible piece of hardware to come out of it. For a country that has flown second-hand Flankers since the late 1990s, it is the biggest jump in air power in a generation.

A year ahead of schedule

Abiy's written statement was precise about the numbers and vague about everything else. In accordance with an earlier agreement with the Russian government, he wrote, Ethiopia had that day taken delivery of the first twelve Su-35 “4++ generation” fighter jets. He thanked Vladimir Putin personally for getting the aircraft to Ethiopia “a year ahead of our agreed schedule.”

He framed the purchase as deterrence. A stronger, readier military, he said, would allow Ethiopia to “preemptively deter aggression.” In an Amharic post with a short video of the jets, he declared that the new warplanes leave Ethiopia readier than ever to protect its airspace.

What the statement left out about the Ethiopia Su-35 deal matters just as much. Neither Addis Ababa nor Moscow has disclosed the price, how it is being paid, where the aircraft will be based, or whether twelve is the whole order. The word “first” in Abiy's statement hints that it may not be. Leaked documents from the Russian state conglomerate Rostec had earlier pointed to an Ethiopian order for six Su-35s, so the delivered batch is already twice that figure.

From Su-27 to Su-35

Ethiopia knows the Flanker family better than almost any air force in Africa. It bought Su-27s in the late 1990s, and in February 1999, during the border war with Eritrea, those jets shot down Eritrean MiG-29 in one of the very few air battles ever fought between the two Soviet designs.

That fleet has aged. TWZ estimates that around 10, and perhaps as many as 15, second-hand Su-27s remain, including two-seat trainers. In January 2024 they were joined by a pair of Su-30Ks, jets originally built for India that had spent years in storage in Belarus before being refurbished for Ethiopia. Reports earlier in 2026 also showed Russian-built Yak-130 trainers in Ethiopian service.

The Su-35 is a different animal. It is the most developed member of the Su-27 line, with thrust-vectoring AL-41F1S engines, the powerful Irbis-E radar and a much wider choice of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. For pilots who already fly Flankers, the cockpit and the handling will feel familiar. The maintenance, the weapons and the training pipeline will not.

Ethiopia Su-35s built for Egypt?

How Russia found twelve spare Su-35s in the middle of its own war is the question every analyst asked first. One plausible answer leads back to Cairo. Egypt ordered around two dozen Su-35s, and production for Cairo began in 2020, but the deal collapsed under the threat of US sanctions under the CAATSA law and a US offer of F-15s.

Some of those orphaned jets have already found a new home. Algeria began receiving Su-35s in 2025, and at least some of them are understood to come from the Egyptian batch. TWZ suggests the Ethiopian aircraft could also be left over from the abandoned Egyptian contract. Neither government has confirmed where the airframes came from.

If true, there is a twist worth savouring. Egypt and Ethiopia have spent years at odds over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile. Fighters once painted for Cairo would now be flying for Addis Ababa.

Firstpost's report on Ethiopia's Su-35 delivery and the planned S-400 purchase.

S-400s and a tense neighbourhood

Four S-400 batteries would give Ethiopia a long-range umbrella over its bases, cities and infrastructure, including the dam. Ethiopia already operates Russian Pantsir-S1 short-range systems, and Defense Express has reported Chinese FK-2000 systems in its inventory too. The S-400 would sit at the top of that layered defence, if it arrives.

The neighbourhood explains the urgency. Ethiopia borders Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti, and relations with Asmara remain tense more than two decades after the border war. At home, Al Jazeera reports that federal troops entered the Tigray capital, Mekelle, on 4 October after Tigray People's Liberation Front fighters withdrew, while a separate insurgency by the Fano militia continues in the Amhara region.

There is also a practical catch, which TWZ spells out. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian industry has had to prioritise its own Su-35S fleet, and Western sanctions restrict access to key components. A jet is only as good as its spare parts. Abiy says his air force now leads sub-Saharan Africa. Keeping it there depends on Moscow's ability to keep twelve demanding jets flying.

Sources: Abiy Ahmed (X), Addis Standard via AllAfrica, Al Jazeera/Reuters, TWZ, Army Recognition, Defensehere, Wikipedia