The guest is picked up in a minibus with tinted windows, phone switched off, somewhere in eastern Ukraine, not far from the front line. The vehicle drives for half an hour before stopping in a closed parking facility. Nearby is where a legendary figure in the Ukrainian army, who made a fortune in the grain trade before becoming commander of Ukraine’s drone war: Robert “Magyar” Brovdi directs operations from his command center, an ultra-sophisticated, highly secure bunker. The place, which looks straight out of a
James Bond movie, is kept secret. The architect of drone warfare in Ukraine sits at the top of the Kremlin master’s kill list, alongside Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin has put a $20 million bounty on his head. A staircase leads underground and opens onto a long corridor with gray concrete walls lined with Japanese sleeping pods, where his soldiers sleep, men responsible on their own for one-third of Russian casualties. “Don’t make noise, some of the men are sleeping. We work here day and…
Robert Magyar Brovdi, Ukraine drone war, secret bunker, Volodymyr Zelensky, Putin bounty, Kremlin kill list, Japanese sleeping pods, eastern Ukraine