… The social media ads promised the young African women a free plane ticket, money and a faraway adventure in Europe. Just complete a computer game and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.

But instead of a work-study program in fields like hospitality and catering, some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.

In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women 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 itching.

To fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria…

Officials held recruiting events in Uganda, and tried to recruit from its orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel…

That could be due to its hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 TikTok and Instagram followers. She did not respond to an AP request for comment…