Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine

The social media ads promised the young African women a free plane ticket, money and a faraway adventure in Europe. 

Just complete a computer game and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.

But instead of a work-study program in fields like hospitality and catering, some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war — assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.

To fill an urgent labour shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. 

The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.

That has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometres east of Moscow.

“I don’t really know how to make drones,” said one African woman who had abandoned a job at home for the Russian offer.

Drone factory grows in Tatarstan

Russia and Iran signed a $US1.7 billion ($AU 2.53 billion) deal in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighbouring Ukraine. 

Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in battle later that year.

The Alabuga Special Economic Zone was set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan. 

It expanded rapidly after the invasion and parts switched to military production, adding or renovating new buildings, according to satellite images.

Although some private companies still operate there, the plant is referred to as “Alabuga” in leaked documents that detail contracts between Russia and Iran.

The Shahed-136 drones were first shipped disassembled to Russia, but production has shifted to Alabuga and possibly another factory. 

Alabuga now has plans to produce 6,000 of them a year by 2025, according to the leaked documents and the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

That target is now ahead of schedule at 4,500, former UN weapons inspector David Albright said.

Finding workers was a problem. 

With unemployment at record lows and many Russians already working in military industries, fighting in Ukraine or having fled abroad, plant officials turned to using vocational students and cheap foreign labour.

Tourism, paintball games and a pitch on TikTok

The Alabuga Start recruiting drive relies on a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women visiting Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports.

The videos show them working — smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.

One video depicts the polytechnic school students in team-building exercises such as paintball matches, even showing the losing side — labelled as “fascists” — digging trenches or being shot with the recreational weapons at close range.

“We are taught patriotism. This unites us. We are ready to repel any provocation,” one student says.

The videos on Alabuga’s social media pages don’t mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone production, but the Special Economic Zone is more open with Russian media.

Konstantin Spiridonov, deputy director of a company that made drones for civilian use before the war, gave a video tour of an Alabuga assembly line in March to a Russian blogger. 

Pointing out young African women, he did not explicitly link the drones to the war but noted their production is now “very relevant” for Russia.

Alabuga Start’s social media pages are filled with comments from Africans begging for work and saying they applied but have yet to receive an answer.

The program was promoted by education ministries in Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as in African media that portrays it as a way to make money and learn new skills.

Initially advertised as a work-study program, Alabuga Start in recent months is more direct about what it offers foreigners, insisting on newer posts that “is NOT an educational programme” although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms.

When Sierra Leone ambassador Mohamed Yongawo visited in May and met with five participants from his country, he appeared to believe it was a study program.

“It would be great if we had 30 students from Sierra Leone studying at Alabuga,” he said afterward.

Last month, the Alabuga Start social media site said it was “excited to announce that our audience has grown significantly!”

That could be due to its hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 TikTok and Instagram followers.

The program was an easy way to make money, she said, encouraging followers to share her post with job-seeking friends so they could contact Alabuga.

“Where they lack in labour,” she said, “that’s where you come in.”

A hopeful journey leads to ‘a trap’

Human Rights Watch said Russia is actively recruiting foreigners from Africa and India to support its war in Ukraine by promising lucrative jobs without fully explaining the nature of the work.

Alabuga is the only Russian production facility that recruits women from Africa, Asia and South America to make weapons.

About 90 per cent of the foreign women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work on making drones, particularly the parts “that don’t require much skill”, Mr Albright said.

Documents leaked last year and verified by Albright and another drone expert detail the workforce growing from just under 900 people in 2023 to plans for over 2,600 in 2025. 

They show that foreign women largely assemble the drones, use chemicals, and paint them.

In the first half of this year, 182 women were recruited, largely from Central and East African countries, according to a Facebook page promoting the Alabuga Start program. 

It also recruits in South America and Asia “to help ladies to start their career”.

Officials held recruiting events in Uganda, and tried to recruit from its orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel. 

Russian officials have also visited more than 26 embassies in Moscow to push the program.

The woman who agreed to work in Russia excitedly documented her journey, taking selfies at the airport and shooting video of her airline meal and of the in-flight map.

When she arrived in Alabuga, however, she soon learned what she would be doing and realised it was “a trap”.

One possible clue about what was in store for the applicants was their vocabulary test that included words like “factory” and the verbs “to hook” and “to unhook”.

“The company is all about making drones. Nothing else,” said the woman, who assembled airframes. 

The workers were under constant surveillance in their dorms and at work, the hours were long and the pay was less than she expected.

One of the leaked documents shows the assembly lines are segregated and uses a derogatory term referring to the African workers.

Factory management apparently tries to discourage the African women from leaving, although some reportedly have left or found work elsewhere in Russia.

Surveillance, caustic chemicals — and a Ukrainian attack

The factory also draws workers from Alabuga Polytechnic, a nearby vocational boarding school for Russians age 16-18 and Central Asians age 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production. 

According to investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.

The woman who assembles drones at the factor said foreign workers travel by bus to their living quarters to work, passing multiple security checkpoints after a license plate scan while other vehicles are stopped for more stringent checks.

They share dormitories and kitchens that are “guarded around the clock”, social media posts say. 

Entry is controlled via facial recognition, and recruits are watched on surveillance cameras. 

Pets, alcohol and drugs are not allowed.

Foreign workers receive local SIM cards for their phones upon arrival but are forbidden from bringing them into the factory, which is considered a sensitive military site.

The airframe worker said the recruits are taught how to assemble the drones and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yoghurt.

Many workers lack protective gear, she said, adding that the chemicals made her face feel like it was being pricked with tiny needles and “small holes” appeared on her cheeks — making them itch severely.

“My God, I could scratch myself! I could never get tired of scratching myself,” she said.

Drone expert Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed that caustic substances are used in drone manufacturing, but it was not clear exactly which chemicals these were.

The complex itself was hit by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. 

A video it posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted to intimidate us”.

“They did not succeed,” she said.

Uganda’s Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development Betty Amongi said her ministry raised concerns with its embassy in Moscow about the Alabuga recruiting effort, particularly over the age of the women.

“Female migrant workers are the most vulnerable category,” she said.

The ministry said it wanted to ensure the women “do not end up in exploitative employment” and needed to know who would be responsible for the welfare of the Ugandan women while in Russia. 

Alabuga’s Facebook page said 46 Ugandan women were at the complex, although Ms Amongi had said there were none.

AP