A manufacturing plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region has significantly scaled up its production of Iranian-designed drones, using a range of Chinese components, and recruiting a low-skilled workforce of Russian teenagers and African women,

The airport in the Russian city of Kazan reopened on Saturday after temporarily closing earlier in the day following a Ukrainian drone attack, Russia's aviation watchdog said. Russian state news agencies reported the drone attack on a residential complex and other areas in Kazan,

Russia’s drone strikes on Ukraine have increased sixfold in four months. The offensive is being fueled by a facility in Russia’s southern Tatarstan region, which is ramping up production with the help of a low-skilled workforce of Russian students.

The battlefield in Ukraine has taken to the skies, as Russia floods the frontlines with waves of drones. Behind this relentless assault is a secretive factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, producing thousands of drones using Iranian designs,

In 2023, the factory produced 2,738 Shahed drones, and by the first nine months of 2024, it more than doubled this output, manufacturing 5,760 drones. According to anonymous sources, the factory is also assembling thousands of “fake” drones aimed at exhausting Ukraine’s air defense systems.