Ethiopia Told the UN Security Council Eritrea Had Invaded Its Territory. Eritrea Told the Council That Was a Declaration of War. This Week Their Leaders Sat at the Same Moscow Summit, Hosted by a Country Chasing a Navy Base at the Port Their Armies Are Fighting Near.

Ethiopia told UN Security Council members on 9 October that Eritrean troops had advanced up to 60 kilometres into Tigray, while Eritrea's foreign minister called that accusation itself a "declaration of war" and sought Chapter VII measures against Addis Ababa, according to Reuters reporting carried by Arab News and Devdiscourse. The exchange followed a 1 October rupture in which Ethiopia expelled ten Eritrean diplomats and Eritrea severed all ties, and ACLED recorded Ethiopian drone strikes near Adigrat followed by an Eritrean withdrawal, neither confirmed by the Associated Press. Despite the rupture, Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki both travelled to Moscow for the third Russia-Africa Summit on 28-29 October with separate meetings scheduled with Vladimir Putin, whose government has already offered to mediate between them while separately pursuing a naval facility at Eritrea's port of Assab, the same port at the centre of the two countries' dispute.

29 October 2026 · 9 min read