African women reveal Putin’s trap to be recruited

Advertisements on social networks They promised young African women a free plane ticket, money and a distant adventure in Europe. Simply complete a game computer and a test vocabulary 100 word Russian.

But instead of a study and work program in fields such as hospitality and catering, which is what they wanted, there was another thing: after reaching the steppes of the Russian region of Tatarstan, they learned that They would work in a weapons factory, assembling thousands of attack dronesdesigned by Iran, to be launched against Ukraine.

To cover the urgent labor shortage work 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 South Asian countries like Sri Lankareveals the AP agency. The campaign is now expanding to other parts of Asia and Latin America.

Moscow has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production into the inexperienced hands of some 200 African women who work alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone plant in Tatarstanabout 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow. “I really don’t know how to make drones”says an African woman who had abandoned her job in her country because of the Russian offer.

Russia and Iran signed an agreement 1.7 billion dollars in 2022after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine. Moscow began using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) imported from Iran in combat later that same year.

The Alabuga Special Economic Zone was created in 2006 to attract business and investment to Tatarstan. It expanded rapidly after the invasion and some parts were destined for military production, adding or renovating new buildings, according to satellite images.

Although some private companies still operate there, the plant appears as “Alabuga” in leaked documents detailing contracts between Russia and Iran. The Shahed-136 drones were first shipped disassembled to Russia, but production was moved to Alabuga and possibly another factory.

Alabuga now plans to produce 6,000 of them a year by 2025according to leaked documents and the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. That goal is now ahead compared to what was planned, with 4.500said former UN weapons inspector David Albright.

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 vocational students and cheap foreign labor.

Tourism, paintball games and a field on TikTok

The Alabuga Start recruitment campaign is based on a strong social media campaign with carefully edited videos with upbeat music showing African women visiting cultural sites in Tatarstan or playing sports.

The videos show them working, smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while operating cranes, and putting on protective gear when applying paint or chemicals.

A video shows students of the polytechnic school in team-building exercises, such as soccer matches paintballand even shows the losing side, labeled “fascist”, digging trenches or being shot with recreational weapons at close range. “They teach us the patriotism. That unites us. We are ready to repel any provocation,” says a student.

The videos on Alabuga’s social media pages they do not mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone productionbut the Special Economic Zone is more open with Russian media.

In March, Konstantin Spiridonov, deputy director of a company that made drones for civilian use before the war, showed a video of an Alabuga assembly line to a Russian blogger. Pointing to the young African women, He did not explicitly link drones to war, but noted that their production is now “very relevant” to Russia..

Alabuga Start social media pages are full of comments from Africans asking for work and they say they submitted their request but have not yet received a response.

The program was promoted by the Ministries of Education of Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as by the African media, which presented it as a way to earn money and learn new skills.

Alabuga Start, initially advertised as a work and study programin recent months has been more direct about what it offers foreigners, insisting in more recent posts that “It is NOT an educational program”although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms.

When Sierra Leone’s ambassador, Mohamed Yongawo, visited the country in May and met with five participants from his country, he appeared to believe it was a study programme. “It would be fantastic if we had 30 students from Sierra Leone studying in Alabuga,” he said later.

Last month, social media site Alabuga Start said it was “enthusiastic to announce that our audience has grown significantly.” This could be due to the hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram.

The show was an easy way to make money, he said, encouraging his followers to share his post with friends looking for jobs so they could get in touch with Alabuga. “Where they lack labor,” he said, “that’s where you come in.”

A hopeful journey leads to a “trap”

Human Rights Watch claimed that Russia is actively recruiting foreigners from Africa and India to support its war in Ukrainepromising them lucrative jobs without fully explaining the nature of the work.

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

About 90% of foreign women Recruited through the Alabuga Start program work on drone manufacturing, particularly on parts “that don’t require a lot of skill,” Albright said. Documents leaked last year and verified by Albright and another drone expert detail that the workforce will grow slowly less than 900 people in 2023 to plans for more than 2,600 in 2025.

They prove that they are women foreigners the ones that They assemble the drones, use chemicals and paint them. In the first half of this year, 182 women were recruited, mostly from countries in central and eastern Africa, according to a Facebook page promoting the Alabuga Start program. It also recruits in South America and Asia “to help women launch their careers.”

The officials carried out recruiting events in Uganda and tried to recruit from their orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel. Russian officials also They have visited more than 26 embassies in Moscow to promote the program.

The woman who agreed to work in Russia enthusiastically documented her trip, taking selfies at the airport and recording videos of her plane meal and the flight map. However, when he arrived in Alabuga, He soon found out what he was going to do and realized that it was “a trap.”.

A possible clue as to what awaited the applicants was their vocabulary test, which included words like “factory” and the verbs “engage” and “disengage”.

“The company is exclusively dedicated to manufacturing dronesnothing more,” said the woman, who assembled fuselages. The workers were under constant surveillance in their bedrooms and at work, The hours were long and the pay was less than expected.

One of the leaked documents shows that the assembly lines are segregated and use a derogatory term to refer to African workers.

Apparently the factory management is trying deter african women to leave, although some are said to have left or found work elsewhere in Russia.

The factory also attracts workers from the Alabuga Polytechnic, a nearby vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 which promotes its graduates as experts in drone production.

According to the investigative media Protokol and Razvorot, some of them They are only 15 years old and have complained about poor working conditions.

The woman who assembles the drones in the factory said that Foreign workers travel by bus to their homes to work, passing through multiple security checkpoints after scanning their license plate, while other vehicles are detained for stricter controls.

They share bedrooms and kitchens that are “guarded 24 hours a day”, say posts on social media. Input is controlled by facial recognition and recruits are monitored by surveillance cameras. No pets, alcohol or drugs allowed.

Foreign workers receive local SIM cards for their phones upon arrival, but they are prohibited from taking them to the factorywhich is considered a sensitive military site.

The fuselage worker said that recruits are taught how Assemble the drones and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yogurt.

Many workers lack protective equipmentshe said, adding that the chemicals made her feel like her face was being pricked with small needles and that “little holes” appeared in her cheeks, causing intense itching. “My God, I could scratch myself! I would never get tired of scratching,” she said. “A lot of girls are suffering“.

Drone expert Fabian Hinz, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, confirmed to AP that drones are used in the manufacture of caustic substancesbut it was not clear exactly what chemicals these were.

The complex itself was attacked by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. A video posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted intimidate us“. “They didn’t get it“he stated.

Uganda’s Minister of Gender, Labor and Social Development, Betty Amongi, said her ministry expressed its worry to his embassy in Moscow about Alabuga’s recruiting effort, particularly about the age of the women. “Migrant workers are the most vulnerable category”he stated.

The Ministry said it wanted to ensure that women “they will not end up in exploitative jobs” and I needed to know who would be responsible for the well-being of Ugandan women while they were in Russia.

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