Satellite images show Russia’s big exploding drone factory is expanding with new buildings, defenses, and, apparently, paintball fields

Satellite images of Russia’s biggest drone factory show expansion at one of the country’s most important weapons plants, but they also reveal what appear to be paintball fields — a strange addition hinting at life at the facility.

The fields seem to be connected to Alabuga Polytechnic, a college closely tied to drone production at the Yelabuga factory. Research into the school indicates it has held paintball tournaments as part of its military-patriotic education program.

The feature speaks to how Russia is not only churning out deadly weapons at Yelabuga but also training and socializing a new generation of workers and recruits in support of its war machine.

US commercial satellite imaging company Maxar Technologies captured imagery in late August that appears to show paintball fields on the outskirts of the Yelabuga drone factory in Russia’s southern Tatarstan region. The images, obtained by Business Insider, reveal large fields with objects resembling small fortifications, along with a row of parked cars and several small buildings.

It is unclear when the suspected paintball fields began to take shape at the facility. They were not visible in April 2023 imagery of Yelabuga, but some elements of the site appear in place as of July of this year.

According to reports published in July by the Institute for Science and International Security and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Alabuga Polytechnic — which opened just three years ago — uses paintball both as part of its “military-patriotic education” program and, at times, as a form of student punishment.

Russia’s defense ministry and its embassy in the US did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Alabuga.

Expanding the drone production facility

The Yelabuga factory is the primary location where Russia manufactures its own variants of the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone, weapons used in nightly attacks against Ukraine. The facility has emerged as an important element of Moscow’s war machine and has expanded significantly since it opened two years ago.

Among the recent developments at the Yelabuga facility has been the construction of rows of small structures likely to support personnel. These buildings did not exist in a June 9 image of Yelabuga, but they are visible in one on July 12.

Imagery captured on July 12 also shows three Pantsir medium-range air defense systems around the Yelabuga factory. Ukraine has attacked the site — some 620 miles away — with drones on multiple occasions.

According to Maxar, construction on the air defense sites began in 2024, and they were completed this year.

Kyle Glen, an investigator with the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience who has tracked the developments at Yelabuga, said the factory’s mass expansion has coincided with a significant increase in the number of drones launched at Ukraine over the past year.

Glen told Business Insider the expansion includes what he has assessed to be new factory complexes, accommodation blocks, and parking infrastructure. This construction, which has “accelerated” throughout the year, could reflect an increased workforce at Yelabuga, he added.

The work at Yelabuga underscores Russia’s growing investment in its one-way attack drone capabilities. It has been ramping up its production of Shahed-style drones — thousands of these weapons modeled after the Iranian version are being made each month — and building new launch sites to stage attacks against Ukraine.

Russia has demonstrated that it can launch hundreds of Shahed-style drones, recognizable by their delta-wing shape and the whining sound they make when they dive down at targets, at Ukrainian cities in one bombardment. An attack over the weekend consisted of over 800 long-range strike and decoy drones, the latter of which are meant to exhaust Kyiv’s already-strained air defenses.

Recent Western assessments suggest that Russia may eventually be able to launch 2,000 of them in a single night. To contend with the growing drone threat, Ukraine is racing to mass-produce interceptor drones as a low-cost air defense solution.

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