Russia deceitfully recruits Global South women for drones assembly

Russia is recruiting young women from African, Asian, and Latin American countries for the assembly of strike drones used in the war against Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.

In doing so, Russian recruiters promise young women aged 18 to 22 years purported training or work in Europe.

“…Some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones,” the journalists write.

Free airfare, financial assistance, and internships in Europe were promised to the female recruits. To qualify, candidates only needed to complete a computer game and a Russian-language knowledge test.

The Kremlin has started recruiting women from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. This campaign is also being expanded to other countries in Asia and Latin America as the Russians attempt to fill an urgent labor shortage amid the war.

“Some of the women complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching,” the recruited women told AP in interviews.

Currently, about 200 African women working in Tatarstan are engaged in drone production alongside Russian vocational school students aged 16 to 18 years.