African women tricked into making Russian drones: ‘My skin was peeling’

On her first day on the job, Adao realized she had made a big mistake.

“We got our uniforms, and we didn’t even know what exactly we were going to do. From the first day of work we were taken to the drone factory. We walked in and saw drones everywhere and people working. Then they took us to our different workstations.”

Adaw, 23, originally from South Sudan, says she was lured last year to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, with the promise of a full-time job.

She applied to join Alabuga Start, an employment program targeting women aged 18 to 22, mostly from Africa, but also increasingly from Latin America and Southeast Asia. It promises participants vocational training in areas including logistics, catering and hospitality.

But the program is accused of using deception in its recruitment practices, forcing young recruits to work in dangerous conditions for lower than advertised wages. It denies all these accusations, but did not deny that some employees were helping to build drones.

The Alabuga Start (AS) program recently made international headlines when influencers in South Africa advertising the program were accused of promoting human trafficking. The BBC contacted the influencers involved and the promoter responsible for linking them to the programme, but no one responded to our requests.

According to some estimates More than 1,000 women were recruited from all over Africa To work in weapons factories in Alabuga. In August The South African government launched an investigation It warned its citizens against registering.

Adau asked the BBC not to use her title or likeness because she did not want to be associated with the programme. She says she first heard about it in 2023.

She says: “My friend posted on her Facebook page about a scholarship in Russia. The announcement was made by the Ministry of Higher Education in South Sudan.”

I contacted the organizers via WhatsApp.

“They asked me to fill out a form with my name, age and why I wanted to join Alabuga. Then they also asked me to choose three areas in which I would like to work.”

Adau says she chose being a tower crane operator as her first choice. She has always been interested in technology, and once even traveled abroad to participate in a robotics competition.

“I wanted to work in fields where women don’t usually work. It’s very difficult for a woman to come across fields like operating tower cranes, especially within my country.”

The application took a year due to the long visa process.

In March of last year, it finally arrived in Russia.

“When I first got there, it was very cold, and I hated it. We traveled at the end of winter. The second time we left the airport, it was very cold.”

But the drive to the private Alabuga estate left her with a good first impression.

“I was so impressed. It was everything I thought it would be.” [going to be]. “I saw a lot of factories, cars, agricultural companies.”

Adau took language lessons for three months before starting work in July. That’s when things started going downhill.

She says she and the other participants were not given the option of working at the drone factory. They signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) so they couldn’t even discuss their work with their families.

“We all had a lot of questions. We all signed up to work in technical fields – production operations, logistics, tower crane operator – but we all ended up working in a drone factory.”

Alabuga denies using deception to recruit workers. “All the areas in which our participants work are listed on our website,” she said in response to our questions.

Workers were not allowed to take photos inside the facility, but the BBC showed Adau footage broadcast on Russian state-owned television station RT of a factory in Alabuga that makes Iranian Shahed 136 drones. She assured us that this is where she works.

“The reality of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone is that it is a war production facility,” says Spencer Faragaso of the Institute for Science and International Security.

“Russia has publicly admitted that it is producing and building Shahid 136 drones there in videos it has released publicly. They are showing off the site. They are bragging about its accomplishments.”

Like Addow, many of the women she interviewed who worked on the program said they had no idea they would be making guns, Spencer says.

“On the surface, this is an amazing opportunity for many of these women to see the world, gain work experience and earn a living wage. But in reality, when they are brought to Alabuga, they have a harsh awakening that these promises are not kept, and that the reality of their work is very different from what they were promised.”

Adao says she knew immediately she couldn’t continue working at the factory.

“It all started with: All the lies we were told from the time we applied. I felt like I couldn’t work with people who would lie to me about these things. And I wanted to do more with my life than work in a drone factory.”

She handed in her notice but was told that there was a two-week notice period during which she had to work. During that time, she coated the outer shell of the drones with chemicals that she said burned her skin.

“When I got home, I checked my skin and it was flaky. We were wearing protective gear, white cloth clothes, but the chemicals were still getting through it, making the cloth tough.”

Alabuga says all employees have been provided with the necessary protective clothing.

This was not the only danger. On April 2, 2024, just two weeks after Adaw arrived in Russia, the Alabuga Special Economic Zone was targeted by a Ukrainian drone air strike.

“That day, I woke up to the sound of a fire alarm, but this was unusual. The windows on the top floor of the hostel had been smashed, and some of the girls woke up to the sound of an explosion. So we went out.”

As they started walking away from their hostel into the cool morning air, Adao said she noticed others starting to run.

“I see some people pointing up, so I looked up at the sky, and I saw a drone flying in the sky. That’s when I started running too. I ran so fast that I left the people who were running before me behind me.”

The BBC verified the footage that Adaw sent us from the day of the attack and confirmed that it was taken on the same day and at the same location as the attack. The deepest Ukrainian drone strike inside Russian territory at that time.

“The drone shot down the hostel next to us. That building was completely destroyed and our building was damaged as well.”

Months later, when she discovered she was working in a drone factory, she thought about the attack and realized that was why they were being targeted.

“Ukraine knew that African girls who came to work in drone factories were living in that hostel that was bombed. It was in the news. When Ukraine was accused of bombing civilian homes, they said: ‘No, these are workers working in drone factories.’”

A small number of women left without notifying the program after the drone attack, prompting organizers to confiscate the workers’ passports for a period of time.

When asked why the attack on the hostel and existing reports about Alabuga being a drone production center in Russia did not raise her suspicions, Adao said the staff repeatedly assured her that the recruits would only work in the areas in which they had registered.

“The claims that we would build drones seemed to me like anti-Russian propaganda,” she explained.

“There is a lot of fake news when it comes to Russia, which is trying to make Russia look bad. The Special Economic Zone had people working there from Europe and America, but they all left after the Ukrainian-Russian war because of sanctions on Russia. So when Russia started looking for Africans to work there, it seemed like they were just trying to fill the jobs left by the Europeans.”

After Adao handed in her notice, her family sent her a ticket home, but she says many women cannot pay for the return flight and end up stuck there – especially since their wages are much lower than advertised. Adau was supposed to receive $600 (£450) a month, but he only received a sixth of that amount.

“They deducted money for our rent, Russian lessons, Wi-Fi, our commute to work, and our taxes. Then they also said if we skip a day of work, they’ll deduct $50. If we set off the fire alarm while cooking, they’ll deduct $60. If we don’t turn in our Russian homework, or if we skip class, they’ll deduct your paycheck.”

Alabuga Start told the BBC that salaries depend partly on performance and behavior in the workplace.

We spoke to another woman on the show who did not want to reveal her name for fear of retaliation on social media. She says she had a more positive experience in Alabuga.

The woman, who was not named, told the BBC: “To be honest, every company has rules. How can they pay you your full salary if you miss work, or don’t perform well? Everything is logical, no one submits to what they don’t want. Most of the girls who ended up quit and didn’t follow the rules. Alabuga doesn’t hold anyone hostage, you can leave at any time.”

But Adow says working for the Russian war machine has been devastating.

“It was a terrible feeling. There was a time when I went back to my hotel and cried. I said to myself: ‘I can’t believe this is what I’m doing now’. It was a terrible feeling to have a hand in building something that took so many lives.”