The Traffic

Migrant Battalion: How African Governments Enable Russia’s Recruitment of Young Women for Its Drone War

For months, the world has whispered about it. Now, evidence shows it’s no rumour: Russia has been recruiting hundreds of young African women — many barely out of their teens — to build drones in its Alabuga Special Economic Zone, 1,000 km east of Moscow. Behind the sleek recruitment posters and “scholarship” promises of good pay and training lies a darker truth: exploitation, surveillance, and a one-way ticket into a war machine.

A six-month transnational investigation by ZAM, NAIRE, and partners in Nigeria, across seven African countries, reveals not just Russian manipulation, but the complicity of African governments and officials in feeding their citizens into this dangerous pipeline.

Official Hands, Dirty Work

The findings are chilling: high-ranking African officials are not only aware but actively involved.

In Cameroon, a ruling party insider who sits on the Cameroon-Russia Business Council has already ferried 13 recruits to Alabuga — and boasts he’ll send “a hundred more this year.”

In Nigeria, the Ministry of Education itself advertises the “scholarships” on its official website.

In Kenya and Nigeria, ambassadors have openly promoted the initiative in Moscow and on-site in Alabuga.

In Uganda, embassy staff and even a parliamentarian escorted a batch of recruits.

In Rwanda, the green light came with “orders from above.”

In Malawi and Zambia, silence or deliberate blind eyes allow recruitment to proceed unchecked.

Even ministers from the DRC, along with ambassadors from Somalia, Angola, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Mali, have been photographed at Alabuga — lending state legitimacy to what amounts to a trafficking operation.

Life in Alabuga: Chemical Burns and Locked Doors

What awaits these young women is far from the glossy Telegram adverts.

Investigations by Associated Press revealed that most of the women are assembling Shahed-136 attack drones, used by Russia in its war on Ukraine. They handle toxic chemicals so corrosive that one worker described the sensation as having her face pierced by “thousands of tiny needles.” She showed burns and holes on her skin.

“I curse the day I ever started making those things,” she told reporters.

The Institute for Science and International Security corroborated this, noting leaked documents where African recruits were derogatorily labeled “mulattoes,” confined to “low-skill” modules, and monitored under strict surveillance. Satellite imagery shows Alabuga expanding rapidly — with housing for 41,000 workers, suggesting Russia plans to scale up massively.

Propaganda and Erasure

To lure more recruits, Russia floods social media with polished testimonials — often scripted, sometimes fake. A comic strip uncovered by investigators featured an African-looking girl coaxed by a black-uniformed “Sergeant Maya” to stop worrying about sending money home and embrace her “new family.” After the exposé flagged its militarised overtones, the strip mysteriously vanished — reappearing with a new, white “HR Maya” in civilian dress. The message stayed the same: submit and assimilate.

Governments Counting the Cash

This isn’t just about Russia. African governments have long facilitated similar exploitative “labour exports” — whether to Gulf States for domestic work, to Israel for farm and security labour, or now, to Russia for drones.

In Malawi, officials even bragged that sending workers to Israel had “generated $735,000” in revenue. When complaints of abuse surfaced, the Labour Minister scolded workers for “abandoning posts” and warned their behaviour made Malawi “less marketable.”

The message from governments is consistent: citizens are commodities, not lives.

Boys for the Battlefield

Though Alabuga recruits are mostly women, young men are also being siphoned off. Investigators spoke with Burundian men who were initially sent to the factory — only to be coerced into frontline combat in Ukraine. Others have been offered recruitment “bonuses” of $1,000 per head to enlist Malawian students.

African fighters in Russian uniforms have surfaced online, confirming suspicions that Alabuga is not just a drone factory — it is a staging ground for a Migrant Battalion.

The Deafening Silence

Despite evidence — including drone strikes that have targeted Alabuga — most African governments remain silent, indifferent, or complicit. Only Botswana has confirmed that its Interpol office is investigating. South Africa has promised to “look into it,” even as its BRICS-linked organisations continue to funnel recruits to Russia.

The reality is stark: African leaders are selling their youth — young women especially — into what amounts to indentured servitude inside a foreign military-industrial complex.

By Haruna Yakubu Haruna