Available Downloads
This joint report was originally published by the George W. Bush Institute on October 14, 2026.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created a demand for drones that Moscow could not initially meet. Its answer was an arrangement to manufacture the Iranian-designed Shahed on Russian soil. This report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in cooperation with the George W. Bush Institute, contends that the burgeoning labor force that powers the Alabuga drone factory has become a site of gross human rights abuses and human trafficking.
The report analyzes the North Korean regime’s state-sponsored trafficking and how these drones are enabling and intensifying the unprovoked war in Ukraine. It also illustrates how China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—collectively referred to as CRINK—are increasingly supporting one another and how CRINK cooperation challenges America’s leadership and the rules-based international order.
This report was made possible by general support to CSIS and the George W. Bush Institute.