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Esleman Abay

Esleman Abay

No dog in this fight: Interrogating Ethiopia’s calculated neutrality towards the Russia-Ukraine war

Sizo Nkala

Pages 657-669 | Published online: Sep 2024

ABSTRACT

Ethiopia has officially adopted a neutral position in the Russia-Ukraine war in line with the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Despite the centrality of sovereignty and territorial integrity in Ethiopia’s foreign policy, the government has avoided publicly castigating Russia for its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty. This stance constitutes a sovereignty paradox when viewed in light of Ethiopia’s demonstrated commitment to its own sovereignty which has seen it fight three wars against Italy, Somalia and Eritrea, and the country’s advocacy to institutionalize sovereignty norms at the global level. This contribution argues that Addis Ababa’s reliance on Moscow’s arms supplies and its diplomatic cover in the United Nations Security Council in the context of the Tigrayan conflict compromised its ability to defend the principle of sovereignty.

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While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has the potential to set a precedent which, if allowed to spread, will upend the so-called rules-based global order, it has not been met with universal revulsion (Lehne, Citation2023; Tellis, Citation2024). The Global North—comprising the United States, Canada, the member states of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia—emphatically denounced the war, imposed severe economic sanctions on Russia, and sent military and economic aid worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. The Global South, on the other hand, comprising countries from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, generally speaking, assumed an ambiguous position. Led by China and regional powerhouses like India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and Ethiopia, the majority of Global South states have refrained from issuing public condemnations against Russia claiming to be neutral (Rodell & Skidmore-Hess, Citation2022). Neither have Global South states joined the West’s sanctions regime against Russia. Indeed, a handful of countries—namely North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Venezuela and Eritrea—have expressed their support for Moscow (Tellis, Citation2024). It is intriguing how Global South countries struggled to find words to condemn the violation of a principle, namely sovereignty, they have spent the last 70 years defending (Staeger, Citation2023). This behavior exhibits a sovereignty paradox or a “dissonance with their own value structures” (Brosig & Verma, Citation2024, p. 4; see also Eymond-Laritza, Citation2022).

This contribution zooms in on Ethiopia’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war, which bears resemblance to the general stance of the Global South countries. The Ethiopian government has proclaimed neutrality in this conflict as demonstrated in its statements and voting patterns in the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) convened to discuss Russia’s actions. On the day of the first UNGA emergency session voting on the resolution calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine on March 2, 2022, Ethiopia was one of the 13 countries that were absent. An overwhelming 141 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed subsequently released a statement calling on Russia and Ukraine to exercise restraint but avoided criticizing Moscow. He called on “all parties involved to exercise maximum caution in engagement and refrain from further exacerbating a sensitive situation” (Tekle, Citation2022). In apparent reference to the US’ outspoken criticism of Russia, the Prime Minister said he was concerned about “the escalating rhetoric that risks further intensifying the issue” (Tekle, Citation2022). In the subsequent resolutions adopted by the UNGA on suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council, Russia’s payment of reparations to Ukraine, defending the territorial integrity of Ukraine and ending the war, Ethiopia has either abstained, voted against, or refrained from participating in the vote.

Even as the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine embarked on trips to Addis Ababa in July 2022 and May 2023, respectively, presumably hoping to secure the country’s support in recognition of its geostrategic importance, Ethiopian officials refrained from supporting either side (International Information Group, Citation2023; Paravicini, Citation2022). This happened despite the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymitry Kuleba contending that “neutrality is not the answer  …  by being neutral towards Russian aggression against Ukraine, you project neutrality to the violations of borders and mass crimes that may occur very close to you” (Associated Press, Citation2023). The Ethiopian government stuck to its neutral stance on the war even when interacting with the belligerents at the presidential level. In his interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy through a phone call on July 20, 2023 and Russian President Vladmir Putin during the Russia-Africa Summit on July 27–28, 2023, Prime Minister Abiy only talked about Ethiopia’s bilateral relations with the respective countries and reiterated the need for peaceful negotiations to end the war (Addis Media Network, Citation2023; Ali, Citation2023). Ethiopia’s statements on the war were meek compared to that of the African Union (AU) which urged Russia to “imperatively respect international law, the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Ukraine” (2022). In line with Addis Ababa, the AU also called for an immediate ceasefire and the initiation of negotiations under the United Nations framework.

Ethiopia’s unwillingness to publicly condemn Russia’s invasion amounts to a sovereignty paradox in light of its consistent commitment to upholding the norm of sovereignty. Addis Ababa is a founding signatory to several international treaties and declarations such as the UN Charter of 1945, the 1955 Bandung Conference, the 1961 NAM and Organization of African Unity (OAU) Charter of Citation1963, which all underline the values of respect for the sovereignty of independent states. Employing a qualitative research method and relying on a mixture of primary and secondary sources including newspaper reports, speeches, scholarly literature, press releases and public reports, this article probes Ethiopia’s neutral stance on the war. The case of Ethiopia has the potential to shed light on the dynamics behind Africa’s general response to the Russia-Ukraine war. The first section unpacks Africa’s international relations predicament to place Ethiopia’s foreign policy into context. The second section shines the spotlight on Ethiopia’s foreign policy principles and its role in promoting equal sovereignty as a global norm. The third section outlines the rationale for Ethiopia’s neutrality and how such a stance is a contradiction of its principle of respect for sovereignty. The concluding section summarizes Ethiopia’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war and reflects on its implications.

Africa’s international relations

In the midst of an event such as the Russia-Ukraine war whose outcome has the potential to redefine the future of the global order, pondering Africa’s place in this evolving order is a pertinent undertaking. Indeed, Ethiopia’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war can be better understood in the context of Africa’s position in international politics. This position, which is one of dependency and disadvantage, was brutally reiterated by the devastating economic impact of the Russia-Ukraine war caused by the disruption of critical global supply chains (Hatab, Citation2022). Africa finds itself having to navigate a geopolitical environment eerily resembling the Cold War era when fledgling African states, just emerging from decades of colonization, were forced to choose between the US (liberal) and the Soviet Union (communist) camps (Grovogui, Citation2002; Volman, Citation1993).

Although still having to contend with the structural limitations such as marginalization in global governance, economic dependency and political instability that have historically undermined its sovereignty on the international stage (Clapham, Citation1999b; Jackson, Citation1986), this new episode of global geopolitical rivalry comes at a time when Africa is redefining its international relations. The continent’s visibility on the global stage is on the rise as exemplified by its ascendancy in 2023 to the permanent membership of the Group of 20 (G20), the forum that brings together the world’s largest economies. Pan-African diplomatic etiquette also evolved into the Common African Position (CAP) diplomacy. Since it first appeared in Africa’s international relations discourse in 2014 as African countries sought to speak with one voice on the post-2015 global development agenda, the CAP has become a mobilizing tool for African unity in deciding crucial global issues on multilateral platforms. If successfully harnessed, CAP diplomacy can be a panacea to the fragmentation which undermined African agency on the international stage in the past (Harman & Brown, Citation2013).

Sensing Africa’s need for a consolidated voice, the Russia-Ukraine war became the first non-African security crisis since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 the African Union has actively addressed (Staeger, Citation2023). While the AU’s first statement on the war in February 2022 enjoined Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, it also refrained from condemning Russia like the majority of its member states (AU, Citation2022). Its subsequent discourse on the conflict has emphasized the socio-economic impact of the war on the continent rather than sovereignty. For the first time, the AU Chairperson was dispatched to meet the warring parties of a conflict outside of Africa in an effort to restore peace, although he ended up meeting the Russian President Vladmir Putin only. Before his trip to Russia, then AU Chairperson, former Senegalese President Macky Sall, was quoted as saying: “We do not want to be aligned on this conflict  …  Even though we condemn the invasion, we’re working for a de-escalation, we’re working for a ceasefire, for dialogue  …  that is the African position” (Mhaka, Citation2022). Wary of the counterproductive geopolitical repercussions of picking sides as demonstrated by lessons from the Cold War, the organization has adopted a neutral stance on the conflict focusing instead on African interests. Just as the AU, Ethiopia, too, has sought to navigate the situation to maximize its national interests while downplaying the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The centrality of sovereignty in Ethiopia’s foreign policy

The imperatives of sovereignty and territorial integrity have been the foremost preoccupation of modern Ethiopia’s successive regimes (Keller, Citation1987; Tekle, Citation1989). Despite changing circumstances at the domestic, regional and global levels, the fundamental goals of the country’s international relations have not changed (Negera, Citation2018; Quinn & Akyol, Citation2021). Ethiopia’s successful resistance against colonization after the resounding defeat of the Italian army in 1896 was perhaps the most emphatic demonstration of its resolve to defend its sovereignty (Keller, Citation1987). Having defeated a colonial power, Ethiopia had to co-exist uneasily with the French and British empires in the Horn of Africa successfully protecting its territorial integrity. When Italy attacked and occupied Ethiopia between 1936 and 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie invoked Article 10 of the League of Nations Covenant, which committed the League to defending the territorial integrity of its members under aggression (Spencer, Citation1937). Implicit in Ethiopia’s plea with the League was its belief in the sovereign equality of both great and small powers. Further, Article 2 of the UN Charter, of which Ethiopia was one of the 51 founding signatories, stressed sovereign equality and the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of another state (UN, Citation1945).

Addis Ababa was also a founding participant at the inaugural Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, the NAM in 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and the OAU in 1963—all of which emphasized the principle of sovereignty (Anghie, Citation2017; Keller, Citation1987). Selassie was particularly instrumental in incorporating sovereignty and territorial integrity as part of the founding principles of the OAU, which was also a way of pre-empting regional threats to Ethiopian sovereignty (Clapham, Citation1999a; Organization of African Unity, Citation1963). Even as Emperor Selassie’s regime sought security under the patronage of the US in the early years of the Cold War, this was calculated to deter the encroachment of great powers like Britain and France on Ethiopian territory (see Tekle, Citation1989). The strategy of using major power patronage to protect Ethiopian sovereignty was also employed by Haile Mengistu Mariame’s military regime that successfully courted the Soviet Union when it assumed power in 1974. The subsequent military support from the Soviets helped Ethiopia push back against Somalia’s attempt to annex the Somali-dominated Ogaden region in 1977 (Mesfin, Citation2012; Ndzendze et al., Citation2022; Tekle, Citation1989). Moreover, the Mengistu regime’s support for the UN Security Council’s use of force to reverse Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 underlined the centrality of sovereignty to its foreign policy (Perlez, Citation1990). As such, both the imperial and the military regimes not only physically defended Ethiopian sovereignty but were also actively engaged in reinforcing the norm of equal sovereignty as the guiding framework of global order.

When it got into power in 1991 in the context of the post-Cold War, the Meles Zenawi-led Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary and Democratic Front (EPRDF) was no less committed to protecting the country’s sovereignty. It had to go to war with Eritrea in 1998 to defend its borders and invaded Somalia in 2006 to remove the extremist Islamic Court Union regime from power and thus stem the spread of Islamic extremism to Ethiopia (Hengari, Citation2013; Stigant & Knopf, Citation2018). In 2002, the EPRDF government adopted the Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy of 2002, which identified democracy and development, national pride and prestige, and pursuing national interest within the framework of globalization as the three foundations of the country’s foreign policy (Ministry of Information, Citation2002). The foreign policy document focused more on building Ethiopia’s internal sovereignty through economic development and poverty alleviation than worrying about external threats (Chala, Citation2020; Negash, Citation2023).

Moreover, one of the important outcomes of the EPRDF foreign policy was the strategic diversification of the country’s partnerships with major powers such as Russia, the US, China, the European Union and Middle East powerhouses like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. However, in its intensified interactions with the major powers, Ethiopia has resolutely safeguarded its sovereignty. Verhoeven and Woldemariam (Citation2022) note that as one of US’ regional anchor states, Ethiopia has received huge amounts of aid from the US only surpassed by Israel, Afghanistan and Jordan in the last decade. The US provided US$1.93 billion in bilateral development assistance in 2022 in sectors such as health, water and sanitation, agriculture and nutrition (US Department of Agriculture, Citation2022). Nonetheless, in its relationship with the US, Ethiopia has always asserted its right to make its own decisions concerning national security and consistently reminded Washington that they were sovereign equals (Verhoeven & Woldemariam, Citation2022). In a similar way, although China has become Ethiopia’s major economic benefactor bringing in massive amounts of foreign direct investment, infrastructure development and development finance, Addis Ababa has retained its strategic autonomy to make decisions in accordance with its national interests (Chiyemura, Citation2020; Kibsgaard, Citation2020). The EPRDF also managed to weather the pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for economic reforms by ensuring that the state remained in control of strategic sectors. Even where it ceded control, it was ceded to people with close ties to the ruling elite (Labzae & Planel, Citation2021). As such, sovereignty also took precedence in the post-1991 dispensation in Ethiopia.

That said, Ethiopia’s track record of commitment to sovereignty is far from impeccable if one considers the EPRDF government’s failure to condemn violations of sovereignty in the case of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, NATO’s imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya in 2011 and the Arab Alliance’s invasion of Yemen in 2015 (Adebayo, Citation2012; De Waal, Citation2013). However, as Sarkar (Citation2022) argued, public pronouncements can be a poor guide to understanding Ethiopia’s foreign policy decision-making processes, which is often shrouded in secrecy. It is possible that these violations of sovereignty may have been privately condemned. Since coming into power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy’s major foreign policies have been guided by the imperative to safeguard Ethiopia’s sovereignty, including in the rapprochement with Eritrea, the management of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations with Egypt, the handling of the relationships with major powers over the Tigray conflict and the decision to join the BRICS group. Thus, with sovereignty and territorial integrity having been fundamental principles of Ethiopia’s foreign policy since the mid-19th century, its unwillingness to condemn Russia’s blatant assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty amounts to a sovereignty paradox. The next section will explain the most important reasons behind Ethiopia’s position.

Explaining Ethiopia’s neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine war

There are several reasons for Ethiopia’s refusal to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine war. First, the government claimed neutrality in accordance with the principles of the NAM (see Stojanovic, Citation1981). Staeger (Citation2023) points out that although Russia’s actions were a violation of the NAM principles of respect for sovereignty, “African states have prioritized their equidistance from the great powers involved in the Ukraine crisis above Russia’s violation of these principles” (p. 565). In most of the Global South, including in Ethiopia, the Russia-Ukraine war is not viewed as an isolated war. It is perceived as one of the many arenas of competition between the US and China/Russia for the future of the global order (Alden, Citation2023). In its statement, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry pointed out that “what distinguishes this conflict from the other conflicts like World War II is the identity of the forces behind it. These forces are armed with nuclear weapons” (ENA, Citation2022; see also Norton, Citation2022; Sullivan, Citation2022). Hence, by refusing to pick sides, developing countries like Ethiopia hope to avoid locking themselves into alliances with no long-term strategic value. Agreeing to isolate Russia (and China), as the West is trying to persuade developing countries to do, would create a world in which the West reigns supreme leaving countries like Ethiopia with limited room for maneuver on the international stage (Sidiropoulos, Citation2022).

Second, historical relations with Russia have been a major determinant of some countries’ positions on the war (Alden, Citation2023). History plays a critical role in shaping countries’ perceptions towards each other. Ethiopia’s 125-year history of largely cordial diplomatic relations with Russia also influenced its position on the war. Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) played a crucial role in providing military aid to Ethiopia in the 1970s and 1980s during the reign of Mengistu when the West had disappeared from the scene (Keller, Citation1987). Although Russia no longer possesses the economic muscle of the now-defunct Soviet Union, its historical cooperation with Ethiopia still elicits feelings of camaraderie.

Third, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ethiopian government had been locked in a deadly civil war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in northern Ethiopia since November 2020, which reportedly killed 600,000 people and displaced circa 2 million (Pilling & Schipani, Citation2023). The US criticized the Ethiopian government’s handling of the conflict accusing it of being complicit in massive human rights violations and imposed sanctions on actors believed to be perpetrating human rights abuses in both the Ethiopian government and the TPLF. Ethiopia was also suspended from the US African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2022. However, Ethiopian authorities strongly denounced the sanctions regime as a violation of its sovereignty (Cascais, Citation2021). In contrast to Washington’s interventionist approach, Moscow and Beijing opted to give the Ethiopian government space to deal with the conflict as it saw fit (Lederer, Citation2021). Hence, when the US and its allies attempted to mobilize UN member states to support resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is not surprising that Ethiopia refused to lend its support. Addis Ababa’s neutral stance towards the war was a payback for Russia’s diplomatic cover on its questionable handling of the Tigrayan conflict.

In addition, there were also major differences between the West’s and the Global South’s proposed solutions to the conflict which contributed to the latter’s largely neutral stance. The imposition of unilateral sanctions on Russia by the West had a negative impact on development in the Global South, where countries were understandably more worried about the global food and energy inflation than the violation of the territorial integrity of a faraway country (see Klingebiel, Citation2022). Unlike the West, many Global South countries favored a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, although the strategies on how to achieve this differed (Gowan, Citation2023). The Ethiopian Prime Minister added his voice in calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict instead of actions that would escalate it (Tekle, Citation2022). The sanctions regime and the West’s nonchalant attitude about its impact on developing countries reflected a misalignment of priorities which made a united response to the Ukraine war almost impossible (Abrar et al., Citation2022; Alden, Citation2023; Seshadri, Citation2023). A sizeable number of non-western countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for critical products such as energy, fertilizers and cereals as well as arms. The sanctions against Russia jeopardized Ethiopia’s food security as Ukraine and Russia supplied 20 and 1 percent of Ethiopia’s wheat imports before the war respectively (US Department of Agriculture, Citation2022). Hence, countries like Ethiopia lamented that not enough attention was paid to the economic impact of the imposition of sanctions on Russia (Guyer, Citation2022). Ethiopia’s GDP was estimated to have shrunk by over 7 percent in 2022, partly as a result of the war, including the sanctions imposed on Russia (Tamru & Gebrewold, Citation2022). Russia is also the source of 49 percent of Africa’s arms imports and is Ethiopia’s biggest arms supplier. Its arms helped the government suppress the rebellion in Tigray. Therefore, the strategic significance of Ethiopia’s relationship with Russia trumped any concerns about the violation of the sovereignty norm, the gospel of which Ethiopia has been one of the most fervent crusaders (Khanyile, Citation2022).

Conclusion

This contribution has explored the sovereignty paradox that has characterized Ethiopia’s response to the Russia-Ukraine war. Ethiopia’s failure to publicly condemn Russia’s blatant breach of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is contrary to its foreign policy which has consistently advocated the same values. Ethiopia is a founding signatory of treaties and international agreements including the UN Charter, the Bandung Conference and its Five Principles of Co-existence, the OAU Charter and the AU Constitutive Act, which all endorse sovereignty and territorial integrity as the fundamental elements of the normative framework that underpins the global order. Throughout the Imperial, Dergue, EPRDF and the current Prosperity Party regimes, the protection of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity has been the uppermost preoccupation of the country’s rulers. The 2002 Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy adopted by the Ethiopian government identifies national survival as the singular objective of the country’s foreign policy, intricately intertwined with the country’s sovereignty. The document not only emphasizes the sacrosanctity of the country’s sovereignty but the respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries as well. Hence, its apparent indifference to the sovereignty of Ukraine in terms of withholding support for Ukraine and failing to condemn Moscow constitutes a sovereignty paradox.

However, Addis Ababa’s position is also influenced by geopolitical dynamics. The Russia-Ukraine war coincided with the deadly civil war between the TPLF and the Federal Government forces which began in late 2020. In the context of US and EU pressure and isolation over the Ethiopian government’s handling of the conflict, Ethiopia was forced to lean on Russia and China’s diplomatic cover in the UN Security Council. Hence, Moscow’s diplomatic cover, combined with its status as Ethiopia’s biggest arms supplier amplified its geostrategic importance to Ethiopia. Under these circumstances, salvaging its international legitimacy and ensuring its national security by not jeopardizing its weapons supply contracts with Moscow took precedence over a principled stance in defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Further, Addis Ababa’s non-alignment is strategic in the sense that it still leaves the door open to restore ties with the West and is in line with its foreign policy principle of diversifying its global partnerships.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thorough and helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no funding for the research undertaken in this contribution.

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