Independent evidence archive assembled and reviewed by the author. Core dataset provided with the participation of Alexey Gubanov. Each case is manually structured, tagged and signed — not an auto-generated database.
Independent investigative archive · Document #001
Russia's Alabuga recruitment network lived on YouTube for years — even after U.S. sanctions*
From 2022 through 2026, Russian creators helped carry a state-linked recruitment campaign for Alabuga Polytech across YouTube — selling education, careers and opportunity to young audiences as an entry point into the Alabuga ecosystem. U.S. Treasury sanctioned SEZ Alabuga, linked it to Geran-2 / Shahed-type UAV production, and stated that students from an affiliated polytechnic university were used to assemble attack drones.
* U.S. sanctions refer to SEZ Alabuga and related sanctions materials, not necessarily every entity using the Alabuga brand.
606 collected URLs
527 locally archived videos
448 structured evidence cases
320 channels
79 unavailable, private or removed videos
Channel subscriber counts are non-unique snapshots from local archive metadata, not unique reach.
Built for journalists, platform teams, sanctions lawyers, compliance reviewers and U.S. and EU policymakers.
The campaign's strength was its disguise. Alabuga Polytech was sold to young audiences as education, salaries and a future career — not as a route into a sanctioned war-production ecosystemUS·EU·UK.
Russian YouTube creators carried that pitch as ordinary content: vlogs, gaming streams and lifestyle integrations. The point was not open military recruitment; it was normalization through trusted creators.
The timeline is the scandal. OFAC sanctioned SEZ Alabuga in February 2024OFAC — promotion continued, as documented in this archive's 2022–2026 evidence setEvidence. EU measures targeting Russian special economic zones expanded in October 2025EU — promotion continued. U.S. Treasury had already described students from an affiliated polytechnic university being used to assemble attack dronesTreasury — promotion still continued.
After Twitch's 2026 ban wave over Alabuga promotionsTwitch, scrutiny moved to YouTube: users and journalists identified hundreds of Russian creators who had promoted the same ecosystemYouTube. Soon after, videos from that record began disappearing, being edited, made private or removed from public viewArchive. This archive preserves the public record that began to disappear — and shows a recruitment system that can no longer be dismissed as isolated creator content.
If this case is ignored, Moscow gets the lesson: the model worked.
§ 02 — Representative cases
Representative evidence cases
12 cards
Reviewer-context excerpts selected from the archive. They are entry points for review, not final editorial clips. Sorted by channel subscriber snapshot, descending.
Videos from these channels appear in the preserved archive. Not all videos are confirmed paid promotions; archived integrations vary in form, including sponsored segments, organic mentions, contest or tournament references, and recruitment-style language.
This archive does not claim that every video was paid promotion. It does not claim that every creator knew the full military context. It does not make a final legal determination. It preserves structured evidence for review.