Russia engages over 1,000 teenagers in making Shahed UAVs — Center for National Resistance

This is reported by the Center for National Resistance.

Activists of the Cyber Resistance group provided the Center for National Resistance with data confirming the involvement of minors in the manufacture of weapons for the Russian Federation.

The documents include a list of adolescents enrolled in the Alabuga Polytechnic Institute, which includes children's passports and parental consent. Information confirming the localization of the production of Iranian Shahed-136 (Geranium-2) strike UAVs by Russia in the so-called Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan was published.

Alabuga Polytechnic is an educational cluster based on the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. Its goal is to train future employees of enterprises. 

"And given that Alabuga has become a military facility, the actual task of Polytech is to train personnel for the Russian military-industrial complex," the Center for National Resistance emphasizes.

“The document that preceded the visit of First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov (who also serves as the chairman of the government commission on the development of unmanned aerial systems) states that the planned production capacity of Geranium-2 drones is 10 thousand units for 2024. For the sake of secrecy, the production of the drones is called the Dolphin Project,” the report says.

Photo: Center for National Resistance

The documents show that 1,300 students a year can study at the Polytech - minors who are undergoing internships and studying from grades 9 to 11. Cyber Resistance activists provided the Resistance with a database of such children, which includes 1,209 names and phone numbers of students enrolled in 2023. 

"Particularly cynical is the fact that among this list of children, the Center for National Resistance recorded one child who was taken by the Russians from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. This is confirmed by the Ukrainian phone number," the statement emphasizes.

It is known that 670 teenagers are assigned to projects of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone of Industrial and Production Type JSC. They are studying and undergoing internships in various educational fields, from programming to law.

The project, called "boats," includes 539 students studying electrical installation, air navigation, industrial equipment for laboratory and chemical analysis, industrial robotics, and numerical control.

The Resistance adds that "motor boats" is a code name for the production of Russian drones.

• On February 4, it was reported that the Russians plan to introduce a module in schools in the temporarily occupied territories to study technologies, design features, and assembly of UAVs for military purposes.