African women hired to build drones used in Ukraine war complain about pockmarked with chemicals. How it is not possible to determine what the chemicals were, according to drone expert Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed that caustic substances are used in their manufacture.

In addition to dangers from chemicals, the complex itself was hit by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. A video it posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted to intimidate us.”

“They did not succeed,” she said.

Although one woman said she loved working at Alabuga because she was well-paid and enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing a different culture, most interviewed by AP disagreed about the size of the compensation and suggested that life there did not meet their expectations.

The programme initially promised recruits $700 a month, but later social media posts put it at “over $500.”

The airframe assembly worker said the cost of their accommodation, airfare, medical care and Russian-language classes were deducted from her salary, and she struggled to pay for basics like bus fare with the remainder.

The African women are “maltreated like donkeys, being slaved,” she said, indicating banking sanctions on Russia made it difficult to send money home. But another factory worker said she was able to send up to $150 a month to her family.

Four of the women described long shifts of up to 12 hours, with haphazard days off. Still, two of these who said they worked in the kitchen added they were willing to tolerate the pay if they could support their families.

The wages apparently are affecting morale, according to plant documents, with managers urging that the foreign workers be replaced with Russian-speaking staff because “candidates are refusing the low salary.”

Russian and Central Asian students at Alabuga Polytechnic are allowed visits home, social media posts suggest. Independent Russian media reported that these vocational students who want to quit the programme have been told they must repay tuition costs.

AP contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and the offices of Tatarstan Governor Rustam Minnikhanov and Alabuga Special Economic Zone Director General Timur Shagivaleev for a response to the women’s complaints but received no reply.

Human rights organisations contacted by AP said they were unaware of what was happening at the factory, although it sounded consistent with other actions by Russia. Human Rights Watch said Russia is actively recruiting foreigners from Africa and India to support its war in Ukraine by promising lucrative jobs without fully explaining the nature of the work.

Russia’s actions “could potentially fulfil the criteria of trafficking if the recruitment is fraudulent and the purpose is exploitation,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noting that Moscow is a party to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.

The AP contacted governments of 22 countries whose citizens Alabuga said it had recruited for the program. Most didn’t answer or said they would look into it.

Betty Amongi, Uganda’s Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, told AP that her ministry raised concerns with its embassy in Moscow about the Alabuga recruiting effort, particularly over the age of the women, because “female migrant workers are the most vulnerable category.”

The ministry said it wanted to ensure the women “do not end up in exploitative employment,” and needed to know who would be responsible for the welfare of the Ugandan women while in Russia. Alabuga’s Facebook page said 46 Ugandan women were at the complex, although Amongi had said there were none.

How accurate are the drones?

Bolstered by the foreign recruits, Russia has vastly increased the number of drones it can fire at Ukraine. Nearly 4,000 were launched at Ukraine from the start of the war in February 2022 through 2023, Albright’s organisation said. In the first seven months of this year, Russia launched nearly twice that.

Although the Alabuga plant’s production target is ahead of schedule, there are questions about the quality of the drones and whether manufacturing problems due to the unskilled labour force are causing malfunctions. Some experts also point to Russia’s switching to other materials from the original Iranian design as a sign of problems.

An AP analysis of about 2,000 Shahed attacks documented by Ukraine’s military since July 29 shows that about 95 per cent of the drones hit no discernible target. Instead, they fall into Ukraine’s rivers and fields, stray into NATO-member Latvia and come down in Russia or ally Belarus.

Before July, about 14 per cent of Shaheds hit their targets in Ukraine, according to data analysed by Albright’s team. The large failure rate could be due to Ukraine’s improved air defences, although Albright said it also could be because of the low-skilled workforce in which “poor craftsmanship is seeping in,” he said.

Another factor could be because Russia is using a Shahed variant that doesn’t carry a warhead of 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of explosives. Moscow could be launching these dummy drones to overwhelm air defences and force Ukraine to waste ammunition, allowing other UAVs to hit targets.

The Alabuga Start recruiting drive relies on a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women visiting Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. The videos show them working – smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.

One video depicts the Polytechnic school students in team-building exercises such as paintball matches, even showing the losing side – labelled as “fascists” – digging trenches or being shot with the recreational weapons at close range.

“We are taught patriotism. This unites us. We are ready to repel any provocation,” one student says.

The videos on Alabuga’s social media pages don’t mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone production, but the Special Economic Zone is more open with Russian media.

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

Alabuga Start’s social media pages are filled with comments from Africans begging for work and saying they applied but have yet to receive an answer. The programme was promoted by education ministries in Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as in African media that portrays it as a way to make money and learn new skills.

Initially advertised as a work-study programme, Alabuga Start in recent months is more direct about what it offers foreigners, insisting on newer posts that “is NOT an educational programme,” although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms. When Sierra Leone Ambassador Mohamed Yongawo visited in May and met with five participants from his country, he appeared to believe it was a study programme.

“It would be great if we had 30 students from Sierra Leone studying at Alabuga,” he said afterward.

Last month, the Alabuga Start social media site said it was “excited to announce that our audience has grown significantly!”

That could be due to its hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 TikTok and Instagram followers. She did not respond to an AP request for comment. The programme, she said, was an easy way to make money, encouraging followers to share her post with job-seeking friends so they could contact Alabuga.

“Where they lack in labour,” she said, “that’s where you come in.”

• An AP report