Highlights
- Ethiopia seeking to modernize its armed forces fostered by cooperation with Russia.
- Ethiopia’s increased cooperation with Russia is set to improve the country’s peacekeeping and counterterrorism capabilities
- Ethiopia received Russian-made Pantsir-S1 air defense systems in 2019
Ethiopia has been looking to modernize and enhance the capabilities of its armed forces exploiting the bilateral cooperation with Russia to acquire its defense projections. The need to modernize the armed forces is fueled by the ever-growing threat to Ethiopia’s sovereignty posed by armed groups such as al Shabaab, ISIS as well as local militias.
Russia and Ethiopia held a success defense cooperation meeting in November 2019 the same month that Russia’s state-owned arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, Russia finished delivering Pantsir-S1 air-defense missile-gun systems to Ethiopia.
Significantly, Ethiopia hopes to revitalize its forces majorly to facilitate its efforts in peacekeeping and counterterrorism efforts majorly in Somalia which has been struggling al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab. While the extent of Russian involvement is still ambiguous, it has been making strides in reinvigorating its relations with various African countries. Ethiopia is set to benefit from the cooperation with Russia immensely seeing as the latter is a trailblazer in the defense sector.
“The Pantsir missile system is a family of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems. Pantsir-S (NATO reporting name SA-22 Greyhound) is a combined short to medium range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon system.”
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