“We are like a red cloth to the enemy. Because we are bringing the war into their territory so that they can feel it too,” the Ukrainian soldier said as his troops were busy assembling long-range drones to launch into Russia.
For weeks, Ukraine has been intensifying an unprecedented level of such deep strikes, particularly targeting oil export facilities.
Now, in a rare interview, the commander of all Ukraine’s drone systems has told the BBC that such attacks will escalate, claiming his drone forces have also killed a record number of soldiers and hampered Russia’s advance on the front lines.
“The 1,500 to 2,000 kilometers (930-1,240 miles) within Russian territory is no longer the ‘peaceful rear’,” Robert Brovdy warned. “Freedom-loving Ukrainian ‘birds’ can fly there whenever and wherever they want.”
At a secret launch site in the drizzle of eastern Ukraine, long-range drones were readied and we were ordered back to a safe distance. The team worked quickly before Russian forces spotted them and fired ballistic missiles at us. There was a shouted order, a tremendous revving of engines and a flash of white as the first device hurtled toward Russia like a small jet.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deep blow was “very painful” for Moscow, which has caused “severe” losses to its energy sector running into tens of billions of dollars despite a recent surge in global oil prices.
The increase in such attacks is partly due to technology. Locally produced drones are becoming cheaper and can fly further: we are seeing models launched that can now fly over 1,000 kilometers, with other models already flying twice as far.
But it’s also about focus. In addition to military personnel and production, Russia’s energy exports have also been identified as priority targets.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has been intensifying its deep strikes against Russia. The BBC traveled to eastern Ukraine to watch one such drone launch [BBC/Moose Campbell]
“Putin extracts natural resources, converts them into blood money, and then targets us directly in the form of Shahd drones and ballistic missiles,” Commander Brovdi said in justifying the attack.
Residents of Tuapse, on Russia’s Black Sea coast, complained of toxic rains after a second wave of massive strikes in as many days at local oil refineries. But Brovdie was dry-eyed.
“If refineries are money-making vehicles for war, then they are legitimate military targets and vulnerable to sabotage.”
Commanders wage war in the air from secret locations deep underground. We were taken to meet him in a van with blacked-out windows, then down stairs and along a corridor lined with sleeping pods and into a high-tech cave covered in screens from floor to ceiling.
A series of beeps and dings fill the soundtrack as fresh data comes in from dozens of men in T-shirts and hoodies, hunched over joysticks and keyboards. They are monitoring images transmitted directly from the battlefield by drone pilots with names like “KitKat” and “Antalya.”
Brovdy’s unmanned systems forces make up just 2 percent of Ukraine’s military, but he currently says their forces account for a third of all targets destroyed. Their own casualty rate, he told me, was no secret: less than 1 percent per year.
Every strike (of any type) is filmed for verification and recording, and monitors on the wall display a detailed scorecard that updates in real time.
Over the past week, Brovdy has reported attacks on more than a dozen Russian FSB security officers in the occupied territories and at multiple energy facilities within Russia. He believes his troops are crucial to preventing Putin from achieving any major victory, especially his goal of seizing other parts of the eastern Donbas region within months.
“What does he smoke?” Brovdie was curt. “This is unrealistic. This is ridiculous.”
The command center is filled with artwork that pays homage to Robert Brovdie’s pre-war life [BBC/Moose Campbell]
Four years ago, Robert Brovdie was more comfortable in an auction house like Christie’s than in the filthy trenches. By then he was a prosperous grain merchant with a sideline as an art collector, and fragments of his pre-war life survive in the paintings and sculptures by Ukrainian artists dotted around the bunker. They are displayed next to missile casings and captured drones. He was a Hungarian from Uzhhorod in western Ukraine and was best known by his military call sign “Magyar”. He had been clean shaven before the war and now had a long ginger beard speckled with gray.
The businessman signed up to fight before a full-scale Russian invasion – “We all knew war was inevitable” – initially joining the Territorial Defense Forces before fighting through some of the fiercest fighting, including the Battle of Bakhmut.
But before that, under Russian fire in Kherson, he saw the potential of drones for the first time. Brovdie recalled a device he purchased for his own children and began introducing similar devices into his unit. Suddenly, they could climb above Russian positions and transmit live images to nearby artillery units, allowing them to launch attacks. “The idea originally developed for self-preservation,” he explains, but it changed the battlefield.
Within months, soldiers were building their own drones and mounting munitions, and soon became known as the 414th Brigade’s “Magyar Birds.”
This drone can fly over 1,000 kilometers – other drones can go further [BBC/Moose Campbell]
Brovdie’s strategy was based on more than just long-range strikes.
He spoke at length about another priority: reducing Russia’s advantage in manpower.
For Ukraine, the problem has become more serious as it struggles to mobilize personnel for the front lines: “Those who want to fight are already fighting,” the commander admitted.
As a result, his men were under direct orders to kill more enemy soldiers each month than Russia could recruit. More than 30,000 men visit each month.
“Thirty percent of all drone strikes are against military personnel,” Brovdie made clear. “Yes, you could call it a killing plan, and now we’ve moved beyond that.”
He said they have achieved their goal for four months in a row.
I can’t confirm the numbers, but Brovdie told me that’s exactly what his people did: Every soldier’s death had to be proven on video or it wouldn’t count.
Some of the clips played on a loop on the screen in the command center, and Brovdy also posted them on Telegram, where he referred to his drone force as “birds” and Russian prey as “worms” to hunt and destroy.
“The greatest massacre of our enemies in human history is happening right now in this room,” he said at one point, pointing to the screens around us.
These were cruel words from a soft-spoken man, but Brovdie refused to be “tortured by pity”.
He said Russian troops were sent far beyond their own borders by Putin who “wanted to destroy our country.”
“If we don’t kill them, they will kill us. That’s clear.”
Ukrainian long-range drone attacks Russian oil refinery in Tuapse [Reuters]
The commander insisted he had no “rose-colored glasses”: his goal was containment, not launching a new counteroffensive or recapturing large tracts of land.
“We have an effective weapon: not to wage offensive war, but to prevent the enemy from advancing effectively in our territory,” he told me.
He also believes Vladimir Putin cannot afford to end the invasion because the risks of failure are too great.
So Brovdy had another goal: Russian morale.
He hoped the high casualty rate, combined with fires at facilities deep along the border, would spark “some kind of unrest” inside Russia. His goal is to shock.
A video that has been widely circulated in Ukraine recently showed a Russian woman in Tuapse bursting into tears. “I just want to live by the sea with my kids, but everything is ruined… those drones are flying around and destroying everything,” she sobbed, cursing.
For Brovdy, it’s a sign that the impact of Russia’s incursion – and Ukraine’s backlash – could spread beyond its hitherto limited scope.
His goal with each drone is to make more Russians question the war their country is fighting and the president who is starting it.
Additional reporting by Sophie Williams, Moose Campbell, Vladimir Lozhko and Anastasia Levchenko.
