The Alabuga plant (special economic zone near Yelabuga, Tatarstan, over 1,300 km from the front) is the main production site for Shahed/Geran drones and the Gerbera decoy. Since May 2026, new production halls have been under construction on an expansion site of roughly 340 hectares in the southern part of the zone — visible in satellite imagery, and therefore a usable, early indicator of future employment volumes.
The Garpiya-A1 — an attack drone related to the Shahed — is produced by IEMZ Kupol (part of state arms maker Almaz-Antey). Between July 2023 and July 2024, more than 2,500 were built.
A second, equally important indicator is the supply chain. Despite the Iranian origin of the Shahed design, Russian production leans heavily on Chinese components:
| Platform | Foreign dependency |
|---|---|
| Geran-3 (jet) | Chinese Telefly JT80 turbojet engine; per Ukrainian intelligence, 45–50 foreign parts in total |
| Garpiya-A1 | Chinese Limbach L-550E engine |
Production figures, factory expansions and the origin of critical components (engines, chips) are all observable signals that become visible weeks to months before an increase in employment — exactly the kind of indicator that belongs in an event matrix, covered in section 11.4.