Funding The War Machine: Who Pays for Abiy’s War?

Discord:   / discord   X @Adulisreviho On 28 October 2026, Abiy Ahmed announced twelve Russian Su-35 fighter jets for Ethiopia, and four S-400 air defence batteries. Neither government has published a price, or who pays. So we followed the money we can see: the IMF, the World Bank, Ethiopia's creditors and its own budget, from the lenders' own documents. They wrote the conflicts into their reports, and they kept paying out, while war spread outside Addis Ababa and a palace rose on a hill above it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Twelve jets 0:29 The jets 1:37 The lenders 3:37 What they knew 4:49 Outside Addis 6:05 Inside Addis 7:58 Toward Eritrea 8:36 Who pays? SOURCES IMF approval, 29 Jul 2024 (PR 24/291, in Country Report 24/253): https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/... IMF Country Report 24/253 (defence spending, para 8): https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/pub... IMF Country Report 24/318 (Table 2a): https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/pub... IMF Country Report 25/188: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/pub... IMF Country Report 26/174 (fifth review): https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/pub... World Bank Program Document, Jul 2024: https://documents.worldbank.org/curat... World Bank Board, 25 Jun 2026 (chair summary): https://documents.worldbank.org/curat... Ethiopia's Ministry of Finance on the creditor MoU (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/202605180... ENA on the Su-35s: https://www.ena.et/web/eng/w/eng_9827641 Interfax on the handover: https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1125494 AP on Turkey's S-400 contract: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/tu... SIPRI Military Expenditure Database: https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex OHCHR update on Ethiopia, 2023: https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/21... WHO chief on attacks on civilians (Anadolu): https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/who-c... Addis Fortune on the corridor: https://addisfortune.news/promised-ho... The Continent on the palace: https://continent.substack.com/p/the-... The Reporter on the palace: https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/2... UN document S/2026/797: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/... Satellite images: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2020-2026; areas are our measurements. Footage and photos: Russian Ministry of Defence and kremlin.ru (CC BY 4.0), Wikimedia Commons contributors (CC licences as credited on screen), Pexels, VOA and US AFRICOM (public domain). Generic shots are marked "illustration" on screen. #Ethiopia #Eritrea #IMF #WorldBank #AbiyAhmed #AdulisReview