Russia's high-security economic zone: how Alabuga, the country's main drone factory, operates

Alabuga has become one of the main sources of tragedy and sleepless nights for Ukrainians living in cities.

This sprawling industrial facility, located about 1,200 km from the front line, attracts tens of thousands of people from around the world under the guise of education and training programmes. In reality, they work around the clock producing Russia's main weapon of terror – Geran strike drones, better known in Ukraine as Shahed drones.

According to Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU), Russia plans to manufacture 60,000 long-range drones and 50,000 decoy drones this year.

To achieve this, Russian authorities have built an entire town, launched an unprecedented spam advertising campaign and turned the project into what critics describe as a labour camp with total surveillance and ideological indoctrination of young people.

Ukrainska Pravda analysed Alabuga group chats, satellite images, public records and even spoke to a student at Alabuga Polytech, which serves as a key supplier of personnel for drone production. This article explains how the largest strike drone production facility in Europe operates from the inside.

Spam campaigns, "mulatto girls" and RUB 150,000

Alabuga Polytech uses an aggressive recruitment system to attract new students, ranging from mass advertising campaigns promising high salaries and comfortable living conditions to targeted searches for foreigners through social media and dating apps.

According to an Alabuga employee identified as Ilya, whose name was changed for security reasons, recruitment increasingly resembles a spam campaign. The HR department reportedly uses databases of phone numbers, email addresses and personal contacts to bombard people with calls and messages offering education in Alabuga. The main selling point is almost always money and success.

The aggressive nature of the campaign was also documented by the AlabugaGate investigation. Analysts collected data on all publicly available online advertising related to Alabuga Polytech.

They identified 745 sponsored ad placements and reviews across 550 Russian YouTube channels, with a combined 338 million views. These channels included numerous creators with audiences exceeding one million subscribers, some of them popular in Ukraine.

Advertising for the institution also appeared on other platforms. Analysts found around 5,000 videos on TikTok and 3,000 posts on Telegram, generating an estimated combined reach of 150 million views. The streaming platform Twitch was even forced to start blocking bloggers promoting such nd placements.

The messaging in the advertisements is straightforward, focusing heavily on "career success". In the videos, students openly boast about earning large salaries and making their parents proud.

"My name is Alexander, I am a second-year student at Alabuga Polytech. And I am already earning RUB 150,000 (about US$2,000) a month. You may well ask how? I work as an incoming quality control specialist at the world's largest drone manufacturing plant. The best technologies in the world are concentrated here. We are doing something important for the country. I plan to continue developing further. My parents are proud of me," one of the subjects of the videos says.

The advertising campaign is built around promises of high salaries – this message appears in practically every video, and for good reason. As Ilya explains, the special economic zone employs a large number of students from poor families across Tatarstan and other Russian regions, for whom salaries of RUB 150,000 a month or more represent a lot of money.

And the strategy appears to be working. Alabuga recruits more and more new students every year. This can be clearly seen in photographs from annual student ceremonies, where enrolment numbers have increased significantly over the past three years.

However, Alabuga not only recruits young people from Russian regions – foreigners have long become a separate and inseparable part of this environment. Representatives from nearly every continent are gathered here. Foreign labour is viewed as an essential part of the expansion plan.

For instance, according to statements by DIU, Russia planned to bring around 12,000 North Korean workers to companies in the zone by the end of 2025. A visible proportion of foreign workers consists of young women aged 18–22 from countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are recruited to work at the plant. Internal documents leaked in 2024 by the hacker group PRANA Network show that Russian officials used the derogatory term "mulatto girls" to describe them.

An investigation by the Russian outlet Protokol stated that recruiters deliberately focused on women because men from African countries were supposedly considered "too aggressive and dangerous". Foreign recruitment takes place through multiple channels, primarily via the Alabuga Start programme, which is promoted as an opportunity to gain "European experience" and education.

The situation of black women in Alabuga is vividly illustrated by a poster discovered on one of the local Telegram channels warning them against engaging in prostitution under threat of deportation. This was discovered by Ukrainska Pravda in one of the local Telegram channels.

The Associated Press previously reported that recruitment materials promised candidates free flights, accommodation, health insurance and salaries that appear very high for residents of poorer countries. Prospective workers are often told they will work in the service sector, hospitality industry or "modern manufacturing", without any mention of the facility's real activities.

The growing number of students and the recruitment of migrants are intended to help continuously expand Alabuga and increase the production of strike drones every year. According to estimates by Ukrainska Pravda, Russia has increased the number of Shahed drone launches by more than tenfold since 2024 alone.

On the ground, this expansion takes the form of large-scale construction of new workshops, accommodation centres and business centres. Satellite imagery shows the construction of 244 new accommodation buildings, not including those already completed and integrated into the educational process.

According to Ukrainska Pravda sources inside the zone, Russian authorities have also begun building a new office complex designed for 5,000 employees. Earlier, another centre had already been completed where students undergo training in terms of theory and practice, including drone assembly.

Meanwhile, the production infrastructure continues to expand rapidly. New workshops are actively being built in the northern and southern parts of the zone. The scale of the construction can be seen in the satellite images below, with new development areas marked in red.

The strict regime economic zone

These students are not just learners – they are also part of the workforce assembling drones used to bomb Ukrainian cities. The system is built around a dual training programme, with students starting factory work from their very first year. Their day is split between morning classes and afternoon shifts on the production line. This continuous cycle of study and work leads to constant overwork and burnout. Investigations by journalists have repeatedly highlighted the blatant treatment of students as cheap labour.

This is also confirmed by Ilya, a source speaking to Ukrainska Pravda, who points to deep frustration among students with their learning conditions and, in some cases, open hostility towards HR and management. Particularly infuriating is the system of fines and penalties, which can result in students having their pay docked.

For the average student, backing out or dropping out is far from straightforward. Alabuga demands repayment for tuition, uniforms, accommodation and other expenses, as outlined in the enrolment contract. "I'm still paying my fine; I was charged almost RUB 100,000 [around US$1,400]," a medical student expelled from Alabuga told Radio Liberty's Russian Service.

Life and work in the special economic zone are subject to strict control. Alabuga has its own security service (hereinafter referred to as the SS), which is responsible for preventing theft, monitoring compliance with safety regulations, organising evacuation procedures, monitoring access to the premises and so on.

Ilya explains that the SS also monitors dissent and has the tools to do so, including almost unrestricted access to students' digital lives.

Ukrainska Pravda has obtained a standard document signed by students. It states that they consent to inspections of personal devices, effectively enabling the administration to monitor phone content, correspondence and social media activity.

The justification given for this level of access is striking. Phones may be checked to "counter the spread of information that harms spiritual and moral development". The Alabuga administration therefore assumes responsibility for the students' spiritual development.

According to student Ilya, psychologists are deployed across the facility to monitor staff morale and patriotic sentiment.

"Psychologists are present at every facility without exception – standing alongside security guards near the Face ID systems," Ilya says. "They can stop anyone at any time for spot checks. Each of them carries a questionnaire on deviant behaviour and patriotism."

The presence of such psychologists is further confirmed by an archived Alabuga job advertisement found on a recruitment website. The listing states that the psychologist would be responsible for "monitoring student behaviour and implementing measures to prevent social maladjustment".

"Stalin is in your DNA", ideological indoctrination and paintball

The management of the special economic zone also subjects students to aggressive ideological indoctrination. As Ilya explains, the compound is filled with motivational posters, flags and symbols that have clear Soviet and militaristic overtones.

A report by Zvezda, a Kremlin-aligned TV channel, once offered a glimpse of this environment. Visible on the wall was a poster declaring: "Kurchatov, Korolev and Stalin live in your DNA" – a reference to Soviet nuclear scientist Igor Kurchatov, rocket engineer Sergei Korolev, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, under whose rule millions died through repression and famine.

The facility regularly hosts classes on what it calls "military and patriotic education". One lecture was delivered by military historian Aleksei Isayev, who works at the Institute of Military History at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia. Speaking to an audience of 4,000 students, Isayev discussed the Soviet liberation of Donbas from Nazi German forces in 1943.

One of the most striking "patriotic" events held in Alabuga is, oddly enough, a paintball tournament. Users on social media communities related to the event describe it as featuring "re-enactments of the battles for Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol". Student Ilya told Ukrainska Pravda that during the so-called "re-enactment", 10 professional players are positioned on elevated ground, each given three "lives". They play the role of the "Nazis", while around 100 students are on the opposing side. Their task is to wipe out the "Nazis" within 50 minutes and raise a Soviet flag on the hill, thereby "liberating" the city.

In an investigation into Alabuga, which also uncovered that Russian ads about Alabuga have travelled as far as Time Square in New York, liberal Russian media outlet Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) cites Sergei Alekseyev, deputy head of Alabuga, as saying:

"The aim of paintball is to weed out the weaklings and wimps at the initial stage. They have to weed themselves out. The students have to suffer; it has to hurt them," he said.

Alabuga's military

Alabuga operates its own "military" unit, the Special Projects Service (SSP), which is responsible for defending the facility against Ukrainian drones. Among the tactics used is "drone-based air defence", a method already familiar to Ukraine.

Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that Alabuga launched a volunteer recruitment drive for the SSP in the summer of 2025 to train anti-aircraft drone operators – hundreds of students enrolled in the training.

Alongside drone-based air defences, satellite images reveal numerous Pantsir-S1 and Tor anti-aircraft missile systems positioned around the Alabuga facility. Their numbers continue to grow. These structures, referred to as "air defence towers", are used to deploy air defence systems and likely serve as positions for mobile fire groups as well.

Overall, the author of this article verified 23 air defence positions around Alabuga. The actual number is likely greater, although confirming additional sites would require higher-quality satellite imagery.

All in all, Alabuga is one of the most heavily defended known facilities in Russia's military-industrial complex. That is unsurprising, considering its importance for long-range attacks targeting Ukraine's energy sector.

In addition to active air defence systems, Alabuga has also implemented passive protection measures. Following the first Ukrainian UAV strikes on the facility in April 2024, workers began installing metal-framed anti-drone structures and protective roofing over production buildings. These measures are part of a passive anti-drone defence system designed to lessen the effectiveness of UAV attacks.

Only three Ukrainian UAV strikes on Alabuga have been recorded to date, with two failing to reach their intended targets. Yet the growing number of Ukrainian drones means every air raid compels Russia to carry out evacuations, bolster facility protection and commit increasing numbers of air defence systems to the site.

The regular evacuations triggered by Ukrainian UAV attacks have even become the subject of student memes.

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In 2025 alone, Alabuga created 25,000 new jobs. The exact number of employees at the site is not publicly disclosed, but it is likely to number in the tens of thousands – a figure that continues to grow each month.

Built using Iranian technology, Alabuga has, in a matter of years, become one of the key pillars of Putin's regime. It is a vast industrial facility that selects, trains and ideologically indoctrinates loyal personnel to continue the Kremlin's aggressive policy for decades to come.

Translated by Myroslava Zavadska and Artem Yakymyshyn

Edited by Susan McDonald