In a rare interview, the commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces has said that attacks on Russian oil facilities will intensify, and that his drone operators are killing record numbers of enemy soldiers to blunt Moscow's frontline advances.
Robert Brovdi, known by his call sign Magyar, told the BBC that his forces now strike targets up to 2,000 kilometers inside Russian territory. "The freedom-loving Ukrainian 'bird' flies there whenever and wherever it wants," he warned.
At a secret launch site in eastern Ukraine, BBC journalists watched as a long-range drone—capable of traveling more than 1,000 kilometers—roared into the sky toward Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky has called such deep strikes "very painful" for Moscow, causing billions of dollars in losses to Russia's energy sector.
Brovdi justified targeting oil refineries, arguing that "Putin extracts natural resources and converts them into blood dollars" used to fund the war. "If oil refineries are a tool to make money that's used for war, then they are a legitimate military target," he said.
From his underground command center, Brovdi oversees a force that makes up just 2% of Ukraine's military but accounts for a third of all targets destroyed. His operators are under orders to kill more than 30,000 enemy soldiers each month—more than Russia can recruit. "You can call it a kill plan, yes, and right now we are exceeding it," he stated, adding that each death must be verified by video.
Brovdi, a former grain dealer and art collector, now runs a high-tech operation from a bunker decorated with paintings alongside missile casings and captured drones. He dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's aim of seizing the rest of the Donbas region within months as "absurd."