Investigation reveals a Russian factory's plan to mix decoys with a new deadly weapon in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A high-tech factory in central Russia has created a new, deadly force to attack Ukraine: a small number of highly destructive thermobaric drones surrounded by huge swarms of cheap foam decoys.

The plan, which Russia dubbed Operation False Target, is intended to force Ukraine to expend scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure, including by using expensive air defense munitions, according to a person familiar with Russia’s production and a Ukrainian electronics expert who hunts them from his specially outfitted van.

Neither radar, sharpshooters nor even electronics experts can tell which drones are deadly in the skies.

Here's what to know from AP's investigation:

Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine and as much as 75% of the new drones coming out of the factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, according to the person familiar with Russia’s production, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive, and the Ukrainian electronics expert.

The same factory produces a particularly deadly variant of the Shahed unmanned aircraft armed with thermobaric warheads, the person said.

During the first weekend of November, the Kyiv region spent 20 hours under air alert, and the sound of buzzing drones mingled with the boom of air defenses and rifle shots. In October, Moscow attacked with at least 1,889 drones – 80% more than in August, according to an AP analysis tracking the drones for months.

On Saturday, Russia launched 145 drones across Ukraine, just days after the re-election of Donald Trump threw into doubt U.S. support for the country.

Since summer, most drones crash, are shot down or are diverted by electronic jamming, according to an AP analysis of the Ukrainian military briefings. Less than 6% hit a discernible target, according to the data analyzed by AP since the end of July. But the sheer numbers mean a handful can slip through every day – and that is enough to be deadly.

Tatarstan’s Alabuga zone, an industrial complex about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, is a laboratory for Russian drone production. Originally set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan, it expanded after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and some sectors switched to military production, adding new buildings and renovating existing sites, according to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press.

In social media videos, the factory promoted itself as an innovation hub. But David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Alabuga’s current purpose is purely to produce and sell drones to Russia‘s Ministry of Defense. The videos and other promotional media were taken down after an AP investigation found that many of the African women recruited to fill labor shortages there complained they were duped into taking jobs at the plant.

Russia and Iran  signed a $1.7 billion deal for the Shaheds in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year. Soon after the deal was signed, production started in Alabuga.

The most fearsome Shahed adaptation so far designed at the plant is armed with thermobarics, also known as vacuum bombs, the person with knowledge of Russian drone production said.

The plan to develop unarmed decoy drones at Alabuga was developed in late 2022, according to the person with knowledge of Russian drone production. Production of the decoys started earlier this year, said the person, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. Now the plant turns out about 40 of the unarmed drones a day and around 10 armed ones, which are more expensive and take longer to produce.

From a military point of view, thermobarics are ideal for going after targets that are either inside fortified buildings or deep underground. They create a vortex of high pressure and heat that penetrates the thickest walls and, at the same time, sucks out all the oxygen in their path.

Alabuga’s thermobaric drones are particularly destructive when they strike buildings, because they are also loaded with ball bearings to cause maximum damage even beyond the superheated blast.

Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronics expert and more widely known as Flash whose black military van is kitted out with electronic jammers to down drones, said the thermobarics were first used over the summer and estimated they now make up between 3% and 5% of all drones.

They have a fearsome reputation because of the physical effects even on people caught outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage, according to Arthur van Coller, an expert in international humanitarian law at South Africa’s University of Fort Hare.

For Russia, the benefits are huge.

An unarmed drone costs considerably less than the estimated $50,000 for an armed Shahed drone and a tiny fraction of the cost of even a relatively inexpensive air defense missile. One decoy with a live-feed camera allows the aircraft to geolocate Ukraine’s air defenses and relay the information to Russia in the final moments of its mechanical life. And the swarms have become a demoralizing fact of life for Ukrainians.

Burrows reported from Washington D.C.

Andrii Kulchytskyi the head of the military research laboratory at the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise sits in his workspace in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

Ukrainian soldiers of the 3rd assault brigade fly an FPV exploding drone over Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Aug. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

The internal mechanism of Shahed drone is seen in Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A worker of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise shows parts of Russian weapons in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A Ukrainian officer examines a downed Shahed drone with thermobaric charge launched by Russia in a research laboratory in an undisclosed location in Ukraine Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Flames and smoke rise from a residential building after the attack of Russian drones in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A medical emergency team collects the body of a victim who died after the Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A Ukrainian officer, callsign Raccoon, shows a thermobaric charge of a downed Shahed drone launched by Russia in a research laboratory in an undisclosed location in Ukraine Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Local residents look up at the fire in a residential building after an attack of Russian drones in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A couple comforts each other while looking at the fire in a residential building after the attack of Russian drones in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

A Ukrainian officer shows a thermobaric charge of a downed Shahed drone launched by Russia in a research laboratory in an undisclosed location in Ukraine Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Serhii Beskrestnov, more widely known as Flash, a Ukrainian electronics expert, who hunts drones for the military, stands near his kitted-out black van in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hanna Arhirova)

Flames and smoke rise from a residential building after the attack of Russian drones in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

HAINES CITY, Fla. (AP) — Not long ago, Polk County’s biggest draw was citrus instead of people. Located between Tampa and Orlando, Florida’s citrus capital produces more boxes of citrus than any other county in the state and has devoted tens of thousands of acres to growing millions of trees.

But last year, more people moved to the county than to any other in the United States, almost 30,000.

Bulldozed citrus groves in recent years made way for housing and big box stores that could one day merge the two metropolitan areas into what has half-jokingly been dubbed, “Orlampa.”

The migration — and property sprawl — reflects a significant kind of growth seen all over the country this decade: the rise of the far-flung exurbs.

Outlying communities on the outer margins of metro areas — some as far away as 60 miles (97 kilometers) from a city’s center — had some of the fastest-growing populations last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those communities are primarily in the South, like Anna on the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area; Fort Mill, South Carolina, outside Charlotte, North Carolina; Lebanon outside Nashville; and Polk County’s Haines City.

For some residents, like Marisol Ortega, commuting to work can take up to an hour and a half one-way. But Ortega, who lives in Haines City about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from her job in Orlando, says it’s worth it.

“I love my job. I love what I do, but then I love coming back home, and it’s more tranquil,” Ortega said.

The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau, as rising housing costs drove people further from cities and remote working allowed many to do their jobs from home at least part of the week.

Polk County’s Hispanic population has grown from one-fifth to more than one-quarter of the overall population over the past five years, driven by Puerto Rican migration from the island after 2017’s Hurricane Maria and then from New York during the pandemic.

The county has grown more diverse with the share of non-Hispanic white residents dropping from 61% to 54%, and it has also gotten more educated and wealthier, according to the Census Bureau. Despite the influx of new people, the county’s Republican leanings have remained relatively unchanged.

Yeseria Suero and her family moved from New York to Polk County at the start of the decade after falling in love with the pace of life and affordability during a visit. Still, there were some cultural adjustments: restaurants closing early, barbecue and boiled peanuts everywhere, strangers chatting with her at the grocery store. Suero is now involved with the tight-knit Hispanic community and her two boys are active in sports leagues.

“My kids now say, ‘Yes, ma’am,’” she said.

Recent hurricanes and citrus diseases in Florida also have made it more attractive for some Polk County growers to sell their citrus groves to developers who build new residences or stores.

Over the past decade, citrus-growing there declined from 81,800 acres (33,103 hectares) and almost 10 million trees in 2014 to 58,500 acres (23,674 hectares) and 8.5 million trees in 2024, according to federal agricultural statistics.

“It hasn’t been a precipitous conversion of citrus land for growth,” said Matt Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, a grower’s group. “But certainly you see it in northern, northeastern Polk.”

Anna, Texas, more than 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, is seeing the same kind of migration.

It was the fourth-fastest growing city in the U.S. last year and its population has increased by a third during the 2020s to 27,500 residents. Like Polk County, Anna has gotten a little older, richer and more racially diverse. Close to 3 in 5 households have moved into their homes since 2020, according to the Census Bureau.

Schuyler Crouch, 29, and his wife wanted to buy a house in a closer-in exurb like Frisco, where he grew up, so they could settle down and start a family. But prices there have skyrocketed because of population growth.

In Anna, they fell in love last year with a house that was more reasonably priced. They both work in Frisco, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away, and it has become their go-to for eating out or entertainment instead of downtown Dallas, even though not long ago Frisco itself was considered a far-flung outpost of the metro area.

Still, Crouch said he has noticed the exurbs keep getting pushed further north as breakneck growth makes affordable housing out of reach in neighborhoods once considered on the fringes of the metro area.

“The next exurb we are going to be living in is Oklahoma,” he joked.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.

Marisol Ortega, a Polk County resident that commutes to her job in Orlando walks at a park Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

The newly-constructed The Brightly Apartments rises from what was formally a citrus grove nearby Haines City, Florida Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Schneider)

Marisol Ortega, a Polk County resident that commutes to her job in Orlando walks at a park Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)