It is reported that one of the main recruiters is a special economic zone of Alabug in Tatarstan.
In May, the South African branch of the Women's Business Aality BRICS signed an agreement on what will find for Alabuga and the construction company Etalostroi Ural 5600 employees in 2026.
In Alabuga, in particular, there is a plant for the production of shock drones of Shahed. Last October, Associated Press wrote that women from Africa countries (at the age of 18–22 years), Asia and Latin America as part of the Alabuga Start program are attracted to work at the military plant. Some participants in the program only arrived in Tatarstan realized that they would collect Shahed.
According to Bloomberg, in April 2025, in search of employees, representatives of Alabuga Start came to one of the schools of Johannesburg and distributed materials there with advertising in the Russian Federation.
At the same time, officially in the materials of Alabuga Start there are no references to work at the drone production plant.
The Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa informed Bloomberg that the country's government “is actively investigating reports of foreign programs that are recruiting South Africans under a false pretext”, however, the South African authorities “have not discovered reliable evidence that the proposals for work in Russia do not correspond to the declared goal.”
At the same time, the South African government “drew attention to the alleged recruitment of youth by Alabug, summarized the department.
