Takeaways from an AP investigation of Russia recruiting Africans to make drones for use in Ukraine

Associated Press

Russia has recruited about 200 women ages 18-22 from across Africa to work in a factory alongside Russian vocational students, including teenagers, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine. In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women said they were misled that it would be a work-study program and described long hours under constant surveillance, broken promises about wages, and working unprotected with caustic chemicals. An AP investigation analyzed satellite images of the complex and its internal documents, spoke to a half-dozen African women who ended up there, and tracked videos in the online recruiting program to piece together life at the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone.