A group of Africans recruited for jobs in Russia have revealed that they were enticed with promises of a better future, only to end up building drones intended for attacks against Ukraine.
Reports indicate that the young Africans recruited from Africa countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria were made to play a trail video game and were shortlisted by and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.
To fill an urgent labour shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 not only from the earlier mentioned African countries but also the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Some of the women, in an engagement with Associated Press(AP), 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 itchy.
An AP investigation revealed that the operation has been going on at an industrial complex holding some of Moscow – the capital’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of Moscow.