Hundreds of African women in the Republic of Tatarstan were tricked into manufacturing Russian drones

An image composed in the colors of the Russian flag and the flag of South Sudan, with silhouettes of drones and the silhouette of an unidentified woman.

- author, Minnie Jones
- Author title, BBC Africa correspondent
November 10, 2025

On his first day on the job, Adao realized he had made a huge mistake.

“We received our uniforms, and we didn’t know exactly what we were going to do. From the first day on the job, they took us to the drone factory. We walked in and saw drones everywhere and people working. Then they took us to our different stations.”

Adaw, a 23-year-old woman from South Sudan, says she was lured last year to the Yelabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, by the promise of full-time work.

He had applied to the program The beginning of Yelabugaa recruitment strategy for 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, food services and hospitality.

But the program is accused of using deceptive hiring practices and forcing young employees to work in dangerous conditions for wages lower than they advertised. They deny all these accusations, but they do not deny that some employees helped manufacture the drones.

Program The beginning of Yelabuga He was recently in international headlines when Influencers South African nationals who advertised the program were accused of promoting human trafficking.

The BBC tried to contact Influencers concerned and with the promoter responsible for connecting them to the programme, but none of them responded to our requests.

It is estimated that more than 1,000 women from across Africa were recruited to work in the weapons factories in Yelabuga. In August, the South African government launched an investigation and warned its citizens against conscription.

Adaw asked the BBC not to use her title or photo, because she did not want to be associated with the programme. He says he first heard about it in 2023.

“My friend posted a message on her Facebook page about a scholarship in Russia,” she says. “The announcement came from the Ministry of Higher Education in South Sudan.”

An official note from the Republic of South Sudan announcing jobs in Russia. — photo caption, Adau joined the program after seeing this official Russian-sponsored announcement.

Contact the organizers via WhatsApp.

“They asked me to fill out a form with my name, age and why I wanted to join Yelabuga. 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 areas where women don’t usually work. It’s very difficult for a woman to find activities as a tower crane operator, especially within my country.”

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

An electronic image of a plane ticket, showing a flight from Juba to Istanbul on March 16. — photo caption, Flight ticket from Addau to Tatarstan.

In March last year, it finally arrived in Russia.

“At first, when I got there it was very cold, and I hated it. We traveled towards the end of winter. The moment we got off the plane, it was very cold.”

But the road trip to the exclusive Yelabuga region left a good first impression.

“I was very impressed. It was everything I imagined it would be. I saw a lot of factories, cars and agricultural businesses.”

Adao 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 a choice whether they wanted to work at the drone factory. They signed confidentiality agreements, so they couldn’t even discuss their work with their families.

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

Yalabuga denies that he used deception to recruit workers. “All areas in which our participants work are described on our website,” he said in response to our questions.

Workers were not allowed to take photos inside the facilities, but the BBC showed Adaw a video broadcast by Russian state broadcaster RT of a factory in Yelabuga that is building Iranian Shahed 136 drones. She assured us that this is where she works.

“The reality of the Yelabuga 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 produces and manufactures Shahid 136 drones there in the videos it has released publicly. They brag about the place. They brag about their accomplishments.”

A black drone with Russian writing on its wings lies in the grass. — photo caption, Russia admitted that it manufactures Shahed 136 drones, like the one that was shot down in Ukraine.

Spencer says many of the women who worked in the program, like Alao, said they had no idea they would end up manufacturing weapons.

“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 Yelabuga, they are very surprised that these promises are not fulfilled, and that the reality of their work is far from what they were promised.”

Adao says he knew immediately he wouldn’t be able to continue working at the factory.

“It all started to make sense: all the lies we were told from the moment we applied. I thought I couldn’t work with people who were lying to me about these things. And I wanted to do something more with my life than work in a drone factory.”

He handed in his resignation notice, but was told he had to work in two weeks. He says that at that time he painted the outer shell of the drones with chemicals that burned his skin.

“When I came home and checked, my skin was peeling. We were wearing hazmat suits and white cloth coats, but the chemicals had seeped in, hardening the fabric.”

Yelabuga confirms that all employees have been provided with the necessary protective suits.

Man extending his arm. It has a large stained area. — photo caption, A colleague of Adau’s arm was burned by chemicals.

This was not the only danger. On April 2, 2024, just two weeks after Adaw arrived in Russia, the Yelabuga Special Economic Zone was the target of a Ukrainian drone attack.

“I woke up to a fire alarm that day, but this was unusual. The windows of the hostel upstairs were shattered, and some of the girls woke up to the sound of an explosion. So we went out.”

As they started to walk away from the lodge in the cool morning air, Adao said she saw others running.

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

The BBC verified the video Adow sent us from the day of the attack and confirmed that it was filmed on the same day and in the same location as the deepest Ukrainian attack on Russian territory up to that point.

People running in panic in the snow. A plume of smoke rises in the background. — photo caption, Photos taken by Adau on the day of the attack with a Ukrainian drone.

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

Months later, when he learned that he was working in a drone factory, he thought about this attack and realized why he had been targeted.

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

Some women left the program without warning after the attack, prompting organizers to temporarily confiscate staff passports.

When asked why the attack on the hostel and reports that Yelabuga was a Russian drone production center did not raise her suspicions, Adao explained that staff had repeatedly assured her that female staff would only work in areas where they were employed.

“The accusations that we would build drones seemed to me like anti-Russian propaganda,” he said.

“There is a lot of fake news when it comes to Russia, which is trying to make Russia look bad. The SEZ used to have people working there from Europe and America, but they all left after the war between Ukraine and Russia because of the sanctions imposed on Russia. So, when Russia started looking for Africans to work there, it seemed like they just wanted to fill the positions left by the Europeans.”

A two-storey building, with Russian language on its facade, was destroyed by an explosion. — photo caption, A building in Yelabuga was destroyed after a Ukrainian drone attack deep inside Russian territory on April 2, 2024.

After Adao handed in her resignation notice, her family sent her a ticket home, but noted that many women could not afford the return flight and ended up stuck there, among other things, because their salaries were much lower than advertised. Adau was supposed to earn $600 a month, but he only got a sixth of that.

“They charged us money for rent, Russian lessons, Wi-Fi fees, transportation to work, and tax fees. Then they told us that if we missed a day of work, they would deduct US$50. If the alarm went off while cooking, they would take US$60. If we didn’t turn in our homework in Russian lessons, or if we missed the lesson, they would deduct it from our paycheck.”

Program The beginning of Yelabuga He told the BBC that salaries depend partly on performance and behavior in the workplace.

We spoke with another woman on the show who did not want to reveal her identity for fear of retaliation on social media. She notes that she had a more positive experience in Yelabuga.

The anonymous woman told the BBC: “To be honest, every company has rules. How can they pay you full salary if you miss work or don’t perform well? Everything is logical, no one has to do what they don’t want to. Most of the girls who ended up quitting missed work or didn’t follow the rules. Yelabuga doesn’t hold anyone hostage, you can leave whenever you want.”

But Adow asserts that working for the Russian war machine was devastating.

“I felt terrible. There was a time when I went back to my dorm and was crying. I was like, ‘I can’t believe this is what I’m doing now.’ It was a terrible thing to have a part in building something that took so many people’s lives.”