Operating from a heavily fortified underground command center near the front lines, Ukraine’s top drone warfare official is orchestrating an ambitious strategy to completely sever Crimea’s connections to Russia through targeted unmanned aircraft attacks.
The intensifying drone campaign across Russian-held territories has severely disrupted military supply chains and fuel deliveries, forcing officials to implement fuel restrictions in Crimea last month.
Robert Brovdi, who leads Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, reported that the operations have slashed traffic along the Novorossiya highway by over two-thirds in recent weeks. This critical roadway serves as Russia’s primary military supply line through occupied southern Ukraine into Crimea.
Brovdi, widely recognized by his military nickname “Madyar” in reference to his Hungarian heritage, predicted complete Ukrainian dominance over the route within 30 days.
“We will isolate Crimea in the near future,” Brovdi stated during an interview from his compact workspace within the bunker, while drinking black tea and chain-smoking cigarettes.
Russia took control of the Crimean peninsula along with large portions of eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Brovdi compared targeting vehicles on the vulnerable highway to being “as easy as shooting partridges in an open field.”
Russia’s defense ministry declined to provide comment on the story. President Vladimir Putin admitted last week that Ukraine’s drone strikes were inflicting damage but maintained they presented no danger to Russia’s economic stability.
Defense experts indicate Ukraine’s campaign of medium-range attacks within Russian-controlled areas has disrupted supply lines to the front – bringing Russian advances nearly to a halt last month – and compromised air defense systems, creating opportunities for longer-distance strikes that have damaged oil facilities and weapons manufacturing deep within Russia.
Brovdi explained that one of his key objectives was compelling Moscow to withdraw forces rather than advance them.
“We will create conditions that will make it extremely difficult for any military personnel or those working in the defence industry to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or use the access routes to them.”
During more than four years of conflict, Brovdi has reinvented himself from a prosperous grain merchant into one of Ukraine’s most successful military leaders. Since assuming control of Ukraine’s drone operations last June, the 50-year-old has dramatically expanded their scope.
Medium-range combat missions grew 28 times over the past year, while deep penetration strikes into Russian territory increased nearly four times during the same timeframe, according to the drone forces leader.
During the first five months of this year, his units eliminated 174 Russian air defense systems valued at approximately $5.4 billion, Brovdi reported, opening pathways to additional targets.
Through systematic attacks on Russia’s military personnel, petroleum infrastructure, and arms manufacturing, Brovdi aims to cause losses severe enough to damage Moscow’s capacity and determination to continue the conflict.
“We’re opening the door to vast spaces where the pain of the war, which is felt in nearly every Ukrainian town, should be felt, including in the consciousness of residents,” said Brovdi, wearing a black cap and black T-shirt.
He emphasized that Ukraine has not and will not target civilians or civilian infrastructure directly. Russia has recently alleged that Kyiv killed dozens of civilians in occupied Ukraine.
Michael Kofman, senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment, said improvements in drone technology made Ukraine’s goal of isolating Crimea achievable over time. However, accomplishing the larger strategic objective of pushing back Russian forces would still need a coordinated ground campaign.
Kofman noted that Russia’s own specialized drone unit, called Rubicon, was actively working to counter Ukraine’s current superiority in medium-range drones.
Found guilty in absentia by Russia on terrorism charges in March, Brovdi ranks among Moscow’s top priority targets. His aerial warfare operations are directed from a deep underground facility near the battle zone. The Reuters journalists were transported to meet Brovdi in a vehicle with darkened windows and escorted underground.
Lines of sleeping quarters border a hallway leading to a room packed with numerous monitors showing live battlefield intelligence. Vibrant artwork by prominent Ukrainian artists – some from Brovdi’s personal collection – decorates the walls alongside captured Russian drones.
Brovdi, originally from western Ukraine, enlisted as a volunteer when Russia’s invasion began in 2022. He built his “Madyar’s Birds” unit, now Ukraine’s most formidable drone brigade, from the ground up.
Each attack is recorded, confirmed and documented. Wall-mounted displays show a comprehensive scoreboard, continuously updated. Between 10 and 12 terabytes of data are stored daily for future artificial intelligence applications.
Brovdi, who mixed dark humor throughout his remarks, described the conflict in commercial language.
“This is our accounting from previous business projects, which we adapted just for military purposes: changed grain carriers, wagons and grain to types of weapons, ammunition, and our clientele is a little different,” he explained.
Through data analysis, Brovdi seeks to eliminate “the human factor” from combat: “a person can be tired, can be biased, can make mistakes.”
After his unit achieved one of the military’s highest elimination rates, Brovdi became central to Kyiv’s approach of directing drone capabilities against individual Russian troops to offset Ukraine’s personnel limitations.
In the first five months of 2026, drone forces eliminated more than 50,900 Russian military personnel and struck over 176,500 enemy objectives. The daily average elimination rate was 337 Russian soldiers and 1,169 enemy targets, according to data Brovdi provided.
Brovdi’s statistics also calculated the average expense of eliminating one Russian soldier at roughly $918 over the previous year.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm these numbers.
Drone units, representing 2.5% of Ukraine’s military, were responsible for approximately one-third of Russian casualties over the last 12 months, their data indicated.
The goal is to expand drone forces to 5% of the military, Brovdi stated.
“By scaling up the use of unmanned aerial vehicles — not just within the drone units, but across the army as a whole — we are significantly increasing the number of targets destroyed.”
