Trafficked Kenyan girls working in Russia drones factory amid hellfire
By Print Reporter, May 17, 2025In a case reminiscent of human trafficking, several Kenyan girls are being exposed to danger as they work in drones’ manufacturing factories in Russia.
An investigation by a global body that fights transnational organized crime indicates that Kenyans are among hundreds of mostly African girls aged 18 – 22 duped with promising jobs but now find themselves in crossfire in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
“The women had not been told they would be working in weapons production before they arrived at the site. Some were led to believe they would be enrolling on a work-study programme. They described long hours under constant surveillance and health issues caused by working with caustic chemicals,” says Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC)
The girls are also paid less than what they had been promised, according to the report titled: “Who Is Making Russia’s Drones?”
The women from Africa were employed in a factory in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, working alongside Russian vocational students (some as young as 15), in the weapons factory.
The women often did not realise they would be making weapons until after arrival as during recruitment they were told that they would be joining a work-study program in fields such as hospitality.
The working hours are longer and the payment is not the USD700 (about Sh91,000) promised; besides, it is subject to a lot of deductions, including accommodation.
“In the factory, the women experienced labour rights violations, including long hours, surveillance, lower wages than those promised to them, difficulties leaving the factory, restrictions on talking to the media or other “outsiders” about their work, and occupation health and safety violations, including working with chemicals that injured their skin,” the report states.
Reached for comment, Labour and Social Protection Cabinet Secretary Dr Alfred Mutua said Alabuga was never registered in Kenya and neither is the government aware of its activities in the country.
Mutua, however, declined to be drawn into its alleged sinister operations, insisting that Kenya does not want to be dragged into the Russia-Ukraine war.
“As a country, we are not going to allow ourselves to be dragged into a war that does not concern us. Since no Kenyan has so far complained, I will not comment any further on the issue,” Mutua told the People Wikendi by telephone.
It’s not clear the number of Kenyans working at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a large industrial and engineering complex in the Tatarstan region, south-west of Russia, where thousands of attack and reconnaissance drones are produced for use by the Russian military.
As of December 2024, 14 Kenyans were working at Alabuga, and two had returned home. Over 400 Kenyan women had applied for passports to leave the country to join the Alabuga Start programme.
Owing to labour shortage, the management of the Alabuga have been reportedly staffing the drone production facilities with migrant workers recruited through an international programme called Alabuga Start.
This recruitment drive targets young women, aged 18–22, primarily from Africa but also Latin America, South Asia and former Soviet countries.
The report by GI-TOC highlights the risk faced by Kenyans as the government actively pursues a strategy of labour export.
Last March, the government said it had successfully secured 200,000 foreign job opportunities for its citizens since June 2024, in a broader strategy aimed at creating one million jobs annually.
The drones produced at Alabuga are central to Russia’s arsenal, as it has been launching attacks on Ukraine using Shahed-type drones almost daily.
“The fact that recruits work in drone production facilities also brings them unwittingly into the arena of the Russia–Ukraine conflict without their informed consent. They are not on the front line, but Ukrainian drones have targeted the SEZ site in a bid to cut off Russian supply chains, injuring workers there,” says the report.
Alabuga SEZ has been a target for Ukrainian drone strikes aiming at cutting off Russia’s drone production several times. It was hit by Ukrainian drones in April 2024, an incident in which several African workers were wounded.
“The strike hit one of the dormitories in which Alabuga (migrant workers) are housed. Alabuga Start released a video message from a Kenyan worker, in which she said that she and her co-workers were undaunted by Ukrainian threats,” says the GI-TOC report.
A few days later, Ukrainian intelligence reported that a warehouse at the Alabuga site stocking drone parts had burned down in what it described as a ‘mysterious’ fire. Ukrainian drones again targeted the site on April 23, 2025.
That apart, the girls – primarily from Africa but also Latin America, South Asia and former Soviet countries – are subjected to racism, harassment, excessive surveillance by Alabuga management and punitive working conditions.
Apart from Kenya, other African countries where the Alabuga Start recruits are drawn from include Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana.
The programme, which continues apace, has expanded in its geographic scope, from being initially focused on African recruits when it was launched to becoming a global recruitment operation targeting 84 countries.
During recruitment, the girls aren’t provided with information that they would work in drone-manufacturing facilities.
“Withholding the information about drone production at Alabuga SEZ from migrant workers means they are unable to make an informed decision about the potential risks involved in the work – a risk that includes retaliatory military strikes – and makes them party to a conflict they otherwise have no connection to,” the report states.
The UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, which is the primary international instrument for addressing organized crime, including human trafficking, defines trafficking in persons as the act of recruiting or transporting someone, by means of coercion or deception, for the purpose of exploitation.
“Alabuga clearly engages in some level of deception about the nature of the work it offers to its recruits,” which, based on this UN Convention, is reminiscent of human trafficking,” says the report.
According to the GI-TOC, Russia is a leading example of states that are engaged in a space where the licit and illicit meet and do business together, as some governments deploy organized crime groups and corporate entities engaged in dubious, potentially criminal, activities as instruments of statecraft.
“Alabuga SEZ … straddles this intersection where criminality, business and the state reportedly meet,” the report states.
Agents of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations are said to have questioned officials at the immigration department about how Alabuga recruits had been granted passports in order to leave the country.
However, it is not clear whether action would be taken to halt the recruitment, for it has clearly become a more politicized issue.
Kenyan and Tanzanian officials have reportedly held discussions with Russian authorities about creating a bilateral labour agreement like their Ugandan counterparts, under which the Alabuga Start programme would fall.