By Abdikarim H. Abdi Buh

Ethiopia is preparing to enter the nuclear age with Russia’s help, but the country’s most immediate crisis is not an energy shortage. It is political fragmentation and renewed armed conflict. That creates a striking contradiction.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is pursuing an ambitious nuclear programme designed to give Ethiopia a stable source of electricity beyond its heavy dependence on hydropower. Yet as Addis Ababa looks decades into the future, armed conflicts are again spreading across the country, former enemies are joining forces against the federal government, and the political future of Abiy’s administration is becoming increasingly uncertain.

The question is no longer simply whether Ethiopia can build a nuclear power plant. Can a politically unsettled state safely and sustainably pursue such an ambitious strategic project while parts of the country remain at war?

Nuclear Ambition

Ethiopia and Russia have been advancing plans for Ethiopia’s first nuclear power plant through cooperation with Russia’s state nuclear company, Rosatom.

The two countries signed an intergovernmental nuclear cooperation agreement in 2017, ratified by Ethiopia in 2021. In September 2025, Rosatom and Ethiopian Electric Power signed an action plan to advance the project, including detailed technical work, preparation of a feasibility-study roadmap and steps toward a future intergovernmental agreement.

For Abiy’s government, nuclear power represents more than electricity. Ethiopia generates the overwhelming majority of its electricity from hydropower, leaving the economy exposed to variations in rainfall and water availability. Nuclear energy could eventually provide a large, continuous source of electricity for industrialisation and economic expansion.

Abiy himself has described nuclear power as part of Ethiopia’s effort to build reliable energy, industrial capacity and technological capability.  But the strategic ambition comes at a politically difficult moment.

A Country Being Pulled Apart

Ethiopia is confronting armed conflicts involving competing ethnic, regional and political forces.

The Tigray conflict that devastated the country between 2020 and 2022 has again erupted into serious fighting. In September 2026, clashes intensified between federal forces and Tigrayan forces and spread toward neighbouring Afar and Amhara. Tigrayan forces also seized airports, prompting Ethiopian Airlines to suspend flights to the region.

The crisis has become even more complicated with the emergence of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, a coalition bringing together seven armed groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Amhara Fano and the Oromo Liberation Army.

These groups have very different histories and, in some cases, have previously fought each other. Yet they now share a common objective: challenging and removing Abiy’s government and establishing a transitional political order.

The significance is difficult to overlook. The conflict is no longer confined to one region or one ethnic constituency. It is becoming a wider confrontation over the political structure and future direction of Ethiopia.

The Abiy Question

Abiy came to power in 2018 promising political reform and reconciliation. His early rapprochement with Eritrea earned him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. But the years since have been dominated by conflict.

The Tigray war shattered relations between Addis Ababa and the TPLF. Fighting subsequently spread to Amhara, while armed conflict has continued in Oromia. Now former adversaries have formed an alliance against the federal government.

That does not mean the alliance is certain to defeat Abiy or that his government is about to collapse. The coalition itself contains deep ideological, territorial and historical contradictions, and analysts have questioned whether its members can maintain unity beyond their shared opposition to the federal government. But it does mean that Ethiopia’s political trajectory has become considerably harder to predict.

Could Nuclear Power Become a Burden?

Nuclear energy can offer Ethiopia long-term advantages: dependable electricity, industrial capacity and diversification away from exclusive reliance on hydropower. But nuclear infrastructure also requires something electricity alone cannot provide: long-term institutional stability.

A nuclear programme demands strong regulators, secure infrastructure, highly trained personnel, reliable financing, effective emergency systems and political institutions capable of maintaining policy continuity across governments. That is where Ethiopia’s current crisis becomes relevant.

If political instability deepens, if regional governments and armed movements continue challenging federal authority, or if Abiy’s government eventually faces a major political transition, the nuclear project could become caught in disputes over financing, security, institutional control and national priorities.

The nuclear programme itself is not evidence of political instability, nor is there evidence that it is currently unsafe. The issue is whether Ethiopia’s political and institutional environment can sustain such a complex undertaking over the decades required to build and operate a nuclear facility.

The Bigger Contradiction

Ethiopia is therefore pursuing two very different futures at the same time. One is technological: nuclear power, industrialization, expanded electricity generation and greater energy independence. The other is political: armed conflict, ethnic and regional tensions, competing visions of federal power and an emerging alliance determined to challenge the government in Addis Ababa.

The first requires decades of stability. The second threatens to consume the immediate political horizon. Ethiopia’s nuclear ambition may ultimately become one of the country’s most important development projects. But nuclear power cannot resolve the political conflicts now threatening the country’s unity.

The decisive question for Abiy Ahmed may therefore be less about whether Ethiopia can enter the nuclear age than whether he can create the political stability necessary for Ethiopia to reach it. A nuclear future requires more than reactors, engineers and billions of dollars. It requires a state stable enough to outlive its political leaders. And that is precisely the uncertainty Ethiopia is confronting today.

The key factual distinction is important: the Russia-Ethiopia agreement is an advancing nuclear-power project, not evidence that construction of the first plant has already begun. The September 2025 action plan called for further project development, feasibility work and preparation for a future intergovernmental agreemen

Meanwhile, the political-security backdrop has materially deteriorated in September 2026: seven-armed groups have announced an alliance against Abiy’s government, and fighting has spread from Tigray toward Afar and Amhara.

Abdikarim H. Abdi Buh
Email: abdikarimshak@gmail.com