Ukraine's drone chief spoils Putin's parade

Vladimir Putin has told Russians that victory over Ukraine is inevitable. But there will be no tanks or rockets rumbling across the cobblestones of Moscow's Red Square on Saturday. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the annual celebration of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany will be held without military machinery. The reason: The Kremlin fears a Ukrainian attack.

The man who, perhaps more than anyone else, has unsettled Putin’s regime this weekend is Robert Brovdy, commander of the Ukrainian military drone unit “Birds of the Hungarians,” named after his wartime nickname. In recent months, the unit has carried out a series of long-range strikes on targets deep inside Russia, including ports, oil refineries, and missile factories.

Brovdy acknowledges that a “symbolic” attack on Red Square would make headlines around the world, but says Ukraine is likely to strike a “slap” where Russia’s air defenses are weaker. “Why waste drones on the ‘great wall,’” he said, referring to the heightened security measures around Moscow. “If you hit the energy sector or the military, that’s the best strike — on the periphery.”

The devastating attacks of Brovdi's elite 414th Brigade pose a formidable challenge to the Kremlin's war. The unit's long-range drones are knocking out enemy air defense systems faster than Moscow can rebuild them, and suddenly everything within a 2.000-kilometer radius of Brovdi's bunker seems vulnerable, including Putin's palaces.

Ukrainian drones hit the Black Sea oil terminal in Tuapse four times in two weeks last month. “Practically everything burned there,” says Brovdy. Similar strikes were carried out on the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga. Drones even flew as far as the Urals, hitting an oil refinery in Perm and fighter jets in Chelyabinsk, 1.690 kilometers from the front line.

The burning infrastructure and dark clouds soaked with oil point the way to a Ukrainian victory, suggests Brovdy - by crushing the Russian economy to the point where it can no longer finance its costly war. Putin spends 40% of his $530bn annual budget on the military, and Brovdy estimates that 100m tonnes of Russian oil, worth $100bn (£73,4bn), is exported each year from ports within range of his drones.

Brovdy also points to the Russian military's losses from drones; Ukraine claims that for the fifth month in a row the Kremlin has been losing more soldiers than it can recruit, estimating the number of deaths at 30.000 to 34.000 per month. "This affects the combat capability of the Russian army, reducing its offensive potential. That's a fact," he says.

Meeting Brovdy, a former grain trader who last year became commander of Ukraine’s newly formed Unmanned Systems Forces, involves elaborate security protocols and a secretive ride in a car with tinted windows. After Volodymyr Zelensky, he is Russia’s top target for assassination. His operations center is deep underground. A corridor lined with sleeping pods leads to a room filled with computer screens and live video feeds.

Drones hang from the ceiling. There is a library, a painting of the Ukrainian flag by artist Anatoly Krivolap, and a contemporary sculpture. Continuously playing videos show the last moments of Russian soldiers and the gruesome aftermath of explosions. Each death is recorded and verified, and some of them are compiled into videos for social media. (The footage, which may seem distasteful to some, is popular on the Internet and humiliating for the Russian military.) An electronic scoreboard shows enemy losses in real time - personnel, armored vehicles, radar systems.

Brovdy sits on a sofa in a small private office, smoking and offering cups of tea. Goldfish squirm in an aquarium beside him. Once clean-shaven and dressed in a suit, he now wears a green military uniform and a long beard like a priest’s. He speaks in Ukrainian, quickly reeling off statistics. Thanks to an accounting system, he has a record of every drone flight since the first day of the Russian invasion in early 2022.

Several factors seem to explain the recent panic in Russia and the growing optimism in the Ukrainian armed forces. One is Ukraine’s new status as a drone superpower. Its anti-drone technology is being exported to the Gulf states, which have come under attack from Iran in response to US-Israeli attacks. Another is big data. The Delta system records every mission, including the failed ones. Brovdy says it receives 12 to 15 terabytes of raw video footage every day.

Ukraine is also making tactical gains. Earlier this year, it launched a small counteroffensive, recapturing 12 villages in Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. In April, Russian forces lost more territory than they gained for the first time since 2024, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

"Our troops are advancing and liberating our territories. The enemy is suffering heavy losses. They are not doing very well with their replenishment," says Captain Oleg Kopan, deputy commander of the artillery-reconnaissance division of the 148th brigade.

The brigade's drone pilots live in a dugout hidden under a row of trees. Inside are computers, cots, and food and water supplies. Every few hours, they emerge to launch a Leleka reconnaissance drone, which is catapulted into the air. Its camera provides a panoramic view of yellow fields pockmarked with shell craters and Russian trenches. Occasionally, gray puffs of smoke from Ukrainian artillery strikes are visible.

Kopan says Ukraine’s recent advances are “100 percent” the result of the rapid development of unmanned technology. “Drones allow us to inflict precise damage with less human casualties and greater efficiency,” he says. The Russians have also been adapting. “They are very good at observing what we do, copying it from us and quickly taking it to a higher level. They have the factories and the people,” he adds.

In Brovdy’s view, Ukraine has introduced a “new doctrine of warfare.” Drones are responsible for 80 percent of the destruction, he says, pushing out machine guns and armor. “Blickrig is now impossible. If Russia had a million tanks and tried to take Kiev again, it would be the greatest bloodbath in world history,” he says. “Two million drones would swarm those tanks and burn them mercilessly.”

He adds that NATO countries have not yet fully grasped the need to fundamentally overhaul their militaries. The generals who lead military training were trained at a time when “nobody cared about drones,” he says. They should follow Ukraine’s example by establishing an ecosystem that links videos, photos, coordinates and confirmed kills, he says. “Russia will not stop. We don’t have time, and you don’t have time.”

But despite the successes, Ukraine is “far from victory,” he admits. “I have no illusions that an end to the war is possible in the near future. If anything, we are talking about a pause associated with some kind of agreement or geopolitical circumstances.”

"This pause will only give Putin a chance to regroup. He suffers from an incurable disease of power and the desire to build a dictatorship. He is a sick man."

Translation: NB