The mass night attacks of “Shahed” on Ukrainian cities are accompanied by the deployment of a new production complex in Tatarstan. Its staff are African women working in difficult conditions.
Russia has significantly increased production of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to support night attacks on Ukraine. The center of production capacity is the rapidly expanding Alabuga special zone in Tatarstan.
Le Monde writes about this.
According to the investigation, hundreds of young African girls from Mali, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe and other countries are working on the production of this arsenal “for terror and destruction”. To solve the problem of labor shortage due to military contracts of Russians, the SEZ recruits foreigners aged 18-22 with minimal training – it is enough to know about 100 Russian words and have a passport.
The Tatarstan government-funded manufacturing facility uses Chinese electronic components that pass through the new Deng Xiaoping logistics center with direct rail links to China. The plant is undergoing extensive modernization, with its floor area set to double by 2025 and protected hangar units to counter drones.
Expert Yuri Fedorov calls this practice exploitation: “This could be a form of fraudulent exploitation… forced labor.”
Many female workers find themselves in appalling conditions – long changes, control and psychological pressure. They are afraid to break the contract, because they are forced to reimburse the company's expenses (tickets, Russian lessons, housing).
Ukrainian military analyst Mikhail Samus believes that the Kremlin is deliberately using cheap labor to increase Shahed's production potential: “This will allow them to produce drones en masse and at a low price.”
The massive attacks, in which Russia launched some 3,000 drones in June – 10% of all Shaheds in three years of war – demonstrate how large these flows have become.
The ideological cooperation regime includes an advertising campaign in African countries and recruitment through social networks and influencers. The salary is 426-681 euros per month – significantly more than the average income of the workers' home countries, however, they have no rights to labor protection.
The recent visit of the head of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, to North Korea may indicate plans to expand such drone-building schemes abroad.
Let us recall that military expert Ivan Stupak stated that Russia is actively using kamikaze drones “Shahed” to strike peaceful cities in Ukraine and has sufficient resources for daily shelling.
According to him, the Russian Federation is already using the sixth generation of these drones, which are distinguished by higher speed, increased flight altitude and a more powerful warhead. Such drones are more difficult to detect and destroy, in particular, by electronic warfare (EW) means.
