Russia's Alabuga Start program offers training and jobs to Latin American women under the pretense of employment in the hospitality or logistics sectors, only to ultimately hire them to assemble drones used against Ukraine.
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Introducing yourself in a video, holding a valid passport and learning 100 words of Russian: That is all it takes to be hired by Russia for its Alabuga Start program, which recruits young women aged 18 to 22 from 77 countries across Africa, Asia and now Latin America.
As described on its website, Alabuga Start, a "relocation program to Russia for work experience," theoretically offers training and jobs in seven professional fields, including hospitality, vehicle operation and logistics. However, the women recruited and employed in the city of Yelabuga, in Tatarstan, located 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow, unknowingly contribute to Russia's war effort. Once there, far from the initial promises they received, they are put to work assembling drones used against Ukraine: Iranian Shahed-type drones, which are licensed to Russia, upgraded and then named "Geran-2" and "Geran-3."
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Since 2022, the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), in Yelabuga, has become Russia's main center for Shahed-type drone production. Despite a shortage of local labor and Western sanctions, production has intensified since 2024. No current study can precisely estimate the scale of recruitment in Latin America, which began as early as June 2024, according to openly available data. However, according to The Reporter, an Ethiopian newspaper, since 2022, 200 women from various African countries, where the program was first promoted, have joined it.
Since then, the program has established new recruitment channels in 13 Latin American countries, particularly in 2025, backed by advertisements on social media platforms, including AI-generated content and partnerships with local influencers. In Ecuador, Club Deportivo El Nacional, one of the country's four largest football clubs, featured the Alabuga Start logo on its 2025 jersey. In Mexico, the program signed a partnership with the town of Abasolo – population 10,000 – and four Colombian influencers even visited the SEZ in summer 2024 to promote the program.
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This practice of supplementing the recruitment of Russian citizens has raised concerns abroad about how Moscow has been able to project its message, "even at a time when the Russian military is exhausted by the ongoing war of aggression," said political scientist Marie Mendras, author of La Guerre Permanente. L'Ultime Stratégie du Kremlin ("Permanent War. The Kremlin's Ultimate Strategy").
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Although recruitment in Latin America started more recently than in Africa and appears less significant so far, several voices have spoken out against it, calling out the fact that it seems to constitute labor exploitation, or even human trafficking. For those who travel to Russia, the program, which lasts at least two years, promises "guaranteed stability and social security, official salary and confidence in the future," according to its website. The offer is particularly economically attractive for many, with starting salaries above $500 (€440) per month, hostel accommodation for just $40 and a one-way ticket to Moscow, all covered by the program.
However, the program's African recruits have shared a very different reality on social media platforms: relentless work schedules, exposure to dangerous chemicals and restrictions on their freedom of movement. After these accounts, the Associated Press published an investigation in October 2024, in which one woman said she and others were "maltreated like donkeys, being slaved." Once these Russian practices were exposed, Alabuga Start's Meta, TikTok and Google accounts were deleted, slowing the program's spread in Latin America, which had been intended to become Moscow's next major recruitment pool.
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Beyond the industrial workforce Moscow has recruited through Alabuga Start, it has also been recruiting fighters from Latin America for its war in Ukraine. In 2026, more than 5,000 Cubans have been sent to fight on the Donbas front.
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The Kremlin has succeeded in convincing people through the influence network it has established in South America since the Cold War. "Moscow believes that countries which were once within the USSR's sphere of influence are its 'near abroad' and that it has the right to control them. To confront the United States, Russia must do so in the American 'near abroad,' meaning Latin America," said Farah, adding, "If you look back at Russian disinformation operations in the region, they really took off in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, so influence and war efforts are clearly linked."
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That year, the Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and Russia Today (RT) launched a Spanish-language channel and opened offices in Latin America. These extensive influence networks, which include local content creators, media outlets and agents, have become highly developed. Will they succeed in maintaining a steady recruitment base of Latin American labor? That seems unlikely. "Russia is no longer a superpower. It keeps up the pressure through these operations. Interference is the weapon of the weak, for a declining power," said Mendras.
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