Photo of Russian intercontinental ballistic missile falsely shared as belonging to Ethiopia

Published on March 27, 2025 at 14:15
3 min read
By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia

Ethiopia recently inaugurated production facilities for drones and ammunition amid growing regional security tensions. Following this, posts on Facebook claim to show a photo of an intercontinental ballistic missile supposedly belonging to Ethiopia. However, this is false: the photo shows a missile belonging to Russia. Experts say Ethiopia does not own such a weapon.

The post, published on March 12, 2025 reads: “Ethiopia's Most Powerful Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in the World #Ethiopia”.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on March 24, 2025

The post contains two images of a large missile being transported on a snowy road. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be the same photograph used twice, but one image is flipped and cropped more tightly.

Similar posts were also shared here and here on Facebook.

On March 5, 2025, during a visit to a local ammunition factory that recently underwent an expansion, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that the country has improved its capacity to produce ammunition domestically and is now able to export its production (archived here).

Several days later, on March 8, 2025, Abiy inaugurated Sky Wing Industry, a company that manufactures unmanned drones for civilian and military purposes (archived here).

The developments came amid tensions in the conflict-ridden Horn of Africa due to landlocked Ethiopia's pursuit of access to the Red Sea, which has angered neighboring Eritrea. Abiy recently said that his country would not invade Eritrea to gain access to the sea (archived here).

However, the photos do not show an intercontinental ballistic system belonging to Ethiopia.

Russian Yars missile system

The first clue that the photo may not have been taken in Ethiopia is the snow-covered road, as snow is a rare occurrence in the country.

AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches on the image and found the original photo published more than four years ago.

The Russian defense ministry originally published the photo on February 25, 2021 (archived here).

The photo was captioned “A column of Yars mobile ground-based missile systems marches from Ivanovo Oblast to Moscow Region to prepare for a military parade on Red Square”.

Ivanovo is a region in western Russia, northeast of Moscow.

Screenshot of the original photo shared by the Russian defence ministry, taken on March 25, 2025

The photo, credited to the ministry (here and here), was also used in several reports about Russian ballistic missile systems (archived here and here).

Mark Cancian, senior defense and security advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the photo shows a Russian missile system.

"This is a doctored photo of a Russian Topol (SS-27) in the snow," Mark said. “There is no way Ethiopia has an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile].”

In the false post, the original photo was edited to add the Ethiopian flag.

The RS-24 Yars, also referred to as SS-27 Mod 2, is a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 10,500 kilometres that has been in service since 2010 (archived here).

The Arms Control Association, a US-based research and advocacy group, lists countries that own ballistic missiles. Ethiopia is not among them (archived here).

Ethiopia’s government has never mentioned owning any type of intercontinental ballistic missile.

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