Russian state TV touts ‘boys and girls’ assembling attack drones bound for Ukraine
The Russian Defense Ministry’s television channel, Zvezda, recently reported that “boys and girls” who left school after ninth grade for vocational college are now working on attack drone assembly in Tatarstan. The report included footage from a drone production site in the “Alabuga” special economic zone. The facility’s general director, Timur Shagivaleev, called it “the world’s largest factory for producing attack drones.”
“Factory workshops are frequently decorated with posters declaring ‘Kurchatov, Korolev, and Stalin live in your DNA!’ — a message intended to remind young employees that they carry within them a fragment of their great ancestors’ DNA,” Zvezda’s correspondent explains, pointing to a large wall poster. Describing the facility’s atmosphere, he tells viewers:
Hundreds of machines, thousands of employees, and in every direction — young people abound. Boys and girls work here and study here as well — at a college established by the very people who organized the production of “Geraniums” [the Russian army’s term for domestically assembled “Shahed” drones]. They recruit students after ninth grade, and then hire them at the factory once they’ve finished vocational college.
In July 2023, the media outlet Protocol and the YouTube channel RZVRT reported that Russia had erected a mass drone assembly plant in Tatarstan’s “Alabuga” special economic zone to build attack drones from Iranian components. Students were reportedly involved in the assembly work, including teenagers at Alabuga Polytech College. Journalists estimated that the young workers earned roughly 35,000 rubles ($450) per month.