Art, maths and killing: Ukraine drone chief’s formula to stop Russia

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, Ukraine – Robert “Madyar” Brovdi’s underground command post features walls of blinking screens playing footage of Ukrainian drones attacking Russian troops, front-line maps and scoreboards of destroyed targets.

The drone attacks he oversees from the bunker – in a secret location in Ukraine – are analysed for him to develop strategies to stop the Russian invasion.

The unlikely head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, whose recent strikes have embarrassed the Kremlin, grumbles that he does not like interviews, but his face lights up when the conversation turns to maths and war.

“Numbers are the foundation of war... Anyone who ignores this cannot play this game. They will be followers rather than leaders,” he said.

Better known by his call sign of Madyar, Brovdi was a wealthy grain trader with no military background when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The 50-year-old volunteered to fight, then set up his own drone unit – “Madyar’s Birds” – well before many had realised the full importance of the technology, quickly earning plaudits inside the military.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed him in June 2025 to command the army’s unmanned systems forces.

His path reflects how Ukraine has leveraged innovation to fight Russia’s more conventionally powerful army.

“I simply brought my accounting system to the war. We took the names of grain varieties and entered the types of drones and ammunition there,” he said.

Brovdi has masterminded some of the biggest attacks on Russia, with long-range drone strikes on oil and military facilities.

These attacks have made him a priority target for Russia, he says, forcing him into secret underground bunkers.

On a visit to one site, AFP journalists had to follow strict protocols, including a ride in a car with blacked-out windows.

‘Dangerous, committed’

Ukrainian artwork and drone carcasses provide an eclectic decor to the interior of Brovdi’s underground bunker, from where he commands some of Ukraine’s highest-ranking drone units.

He receives a stream of calls in his windowless office, speaking to teams hunched over screens in a command post.

Last week, his forces hit St Petersburg just as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s flagship economic summit started in the city.

Other long-range strikes have sparked fires that have burned for days at oil facilities. The strikes have drawn grudging recognition from Russian military analysts.

“Madyar is a dangerous, committed and professional enemy,” Andrey Medvedev, a blogger and Russian state reporter, wrote in 2025.

The Rybar Telegram channel credited Madyar with creating “the most effective formation of its kind” within the Ukrainian army.

Brovdi’s unmanned systems forces claim responsibility for 30 per cent to 35 per cent of confirmed destroyed Russian targets, even though they make up just 2 per cent of the Ukrainian army.

His strategy to win the war is a bet on numbers – kill more Russians than Moscow can mobilise.

To improve the effectiveness of strikes, Brovdi relies on data from the videos streaming into his command post.

They show Ukrainian drones chasing Russian forces near the front, hunting them as they flee through fields and forests until the feed cuts on impact.

Some videos make it to Brovdi’s social media accounts – where he is followed by hundreds of thousands – with cartoony music and mocking captions.

Inside Ukraine, some have found the footage mocking the dead morally questionable, with legal experts suggesting it could qualify as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

But Brovdi is highly popular in Ukraine, with about 70 per cent of Ukrainians saying they trust him – one of the highest ratings in a poll published on June 9 by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology.

‘Revenge’

Next to the screens of combat videos in his bunker is artwork from renowned Ukrainian painters, including a still life of flowers by Maria Prymachenko. “Art allows us to ground ourselves and take our minds off the circumstances that have brought us here,” said Brovdi.

Before the war, he ran an art foundation in his native region of Transcarpathia in western Ukraine.

The works give him a feeling of home, where he can no longer go for security reasons. “I can’t lay my eyes on my favourite place at home, on some elements of my house, a vase, a view from my window,” he said.

His wife enlisted in the army shortly after him and heads his unit’s troop support service.

Apart from her, only a small circle of people knows where he will be even two hours ahead.

The father of two says his forces’ success is compensation for the personal sacrifices. “That momentary satisfaction, when you have taken revenge by taking the remote control into your own hands and seen the results of your work with your own eyes.” AFP