African women in the Kremlin's service: How RF is increasing the production of Shahd drones

However, the main challenge for the Russian OPC was the lack of labor - unemployment in the country is at 2%, and a large part of the working population, especially in Tatarstan, has signed contracts with the army. Against this background, the Russian authorities launched a large -scale recruiting campaign in Africa.

In Uganda, Small, Zimbabwe and other countries, dozens of young women responded to proposals on the network, as well as through Russian embassies, where they were promised study, housing and salaries up to 680 euros a month. Formally, the program is positioned as humanitarian and educational. However, as it turned out, African women are often sent to the line of assembly of drones without warning in advance of the nature of the work.

"For Putin and his oligarchs-weapons Mykola Patrushev, Sergei Chemezov, Sergei Kiriyenko, who have invested billions of dollars in this sector of activity, this influx of labor, which can be exploited without restrictions, will allow them to produce massively and with minimal cost of producing drones. " African contracts are concluded for two years and include obligations to return all "investments" if the employee decides to be released.

According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime in May 2025, some employees complained of long -term changes, supervision and health problems caused by chemicals. It is also reported that in addition to African workers, 25,000 North Koreans will arrive in Russia in the near future, which will also be involved in ShahED. This was the result of Russian officials' visits to Pyongyang.

Samus, in this regard, noted that the influx of cheap and dependent labor enables Moscow to maintain the high rates of the Gerane-2 release and maintain the intensity of combined attacks on Ukraine. Recall that the army of the Russian Federation, under certain conditions, can receive up to 300 new and upgraded T-90m tanks annually, which is much higher than previous estimates.