Ukrainian journalists have traced more than 2,000 employees at Russian factories producing Shahed drones, widely used in attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.
The investigation, published by Slidstvo.Info in partnership with the KibOrg community, also revealed links between some factory personnel and Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
Two factories are identified as central to Shahed drone production: Alabuga in Yelabuga, Tatarstan, with roughly 1,200 workers, and Kupol in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, employing over 1,100 people. Leaked internal databases provided the information.
Journalists singled out Ildus Sagitov, an adviser to Alabuga’s general director, as having ties to the FSB.
Records show he previously served as deputy head of an FSB unit in Crimea and Sevastopol and was awarded a medal in 2014 for Crimea’s defense.
Alabuga’s general director, Timur Shagivaleyev, has been charged in absentia by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
In July, he publicly showcased the factory in a rare video broadcast from inside the plant, highlighting workers assembling jet-black, triangle-shaped attack drones.
“This is the world’s largest factory producing unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and the most secretive one,” said Shagivaleyev.
The plant, employing more than 1,200 people, including teenage apprentices, is reportedly producing drones at nine times the originally planned capacity to support Moscow’s escalating aerial attacks.
Investigators say more than 13,000 Shahed drones were produced under his oversight and sent to Russian forces.
According to Slidstvo.Info, since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s SBU has registered over 1,600 criminal investigations related to drone attacks on civilian infrastructure, which have killed at least 253 people.