Unmanned systems in Ukraine: Robert “Magyar” Brovdi becomes commander of the drone forces

Wars almost always produce heroes and legends, and the war in Ukraine is no exception. One of these heroes is Robert Yosypovych Brovdi, born on 9 August 1975 in Uzhhorod/Ungvár – a city in the Carpathians where Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine meet. On 8 May, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded one of the fathers of drone warfare the country’s highest distinction: Brovdi is a Hero of Ukraine. On 3 June he was appointed commander of the service branch “Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. What follows traces a meteoric career.

From volunteer to platoon leader

On 7 February 2022, businessman Brovdi volunteers for Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces. Because of the war, basic training is short; he then fights for Kyiv as a platoon leader in the 206th Battalion of the 241st Territorial Defence Brigade. North-west of the capital – in Irpin, Bucha and Borodianka – he helps civilians evacuate and sees combat himself.

Russia loses the battle for Kyiv and withdraws. At the end of April, Brovdi moves to the next hotspot, the Kherson front in the south. There the Ukrainian forces have stopped the advance towards Odesa, and positional warfare already prevails in Kherson Oblast.

Holding out in the trench as one of 27 riflemen in a platoon of the 45th Separate Artillery Brigade holds little appeal for Brovdi. So, without orders and at his own expense, he buys a DJI drone and uses it for aerial reconnaissance around his position.

How the “Birds of Magyar” came about

This evidently goes down well: Brovdi is given command of a small group of aerial scouts, which he names “Birds of Magyar”. And Magyar means business. His drones patrol the front line, he tracks down enemy troops, alerts the artillery via a mobile app and corrects its fire. For now, all of this happens inconspicuously and within familiar bounds.

A name tag goes viral: “Мадяр”

The breakthrough comes in June 2022. Dozens of new war videos appear on social media every day; in one of them, a soldier with the name tag “Мадяр” (Magyar/Madyar/Hungarian) on his chest attaches a grenade to a modified commercial drone so that it can be dropped. And the grenades fall: on individual soldiers, into positions, into vehicles and into ammunition depots. The number of videos grows steadily, and it soon becomes clear that this is no longer the work of one individual or one unit – it is a method that other units quickly adopt.

At the same time, Мадяр raises donations via social media to equip his “Birds of Magyar” with drones.

In autumn 2022, training begins on first-person view (FPV) drones; 300 are procured. What is described is a kamikaze drone loaded with explosives. For the time being, however, only training flights in the simulator and in open fields can be seen.

In November 2022, the group grows into a company. Magyar now leads the unmanned combat aircraft systems company (RUBAK) of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade (59th OMPBr.), and it heads for the hotspot of Bakhmut.

110 days of Bakhmut

There the mission is to assign targets to the artillery. Videos from Magyar’s drones appear online almost daily – brutal, unsparing and unfiltered. He calls the Russian adversaries worms. With a telescopic pointer, he shows his airspace observers at the screens in the dugout where the shells should go; online the pointer soon becomes known as the “pointer of death”. Subscriber numbers on his channels explode. For 110 days, Ukrainians watch the battle for Bakhmut through the eyes of Magyar’s drone pilots. What his videos show during this time is only believable to those who have seen them. On 3 March 2023, the unit is withdrawn from Bakhmut – by now troops and commander enjoy legendary status throughout Ukraine.

The unsparing footage is commented on with “biting analogies and metaphors wrapped in black humour”, underscored by the florid style of expression typical of the Slavic-speaking world.

The FPV boom takes off

From February 2023, the first FPV videos appear sporadically; in April 2023, the real FPV frenzy begins. Not only on Magyar’s channel but everywhere, explosive-laden drones race into Russian positions. Their targets are moving lorries, but Russian infantry fighting vehicles are also popular, with soldiers sitting on the roof because the vehicles offer no mine protection. Increasingly, main battle tanks and other high-value targets are hit too – right up to artillery, air defence, electronic warfare and reconnaissance systems.

Blueprint for new drone units

In June 2023, the unit, which has meanwhile grown into a company (company tactical group), has 27 drone teams with a total of around 150 men. The Birds regularly use more and more drone types, while further types are being tested in parallel.

Ukraine sets up drone schools and creates the capacity to train hundreds of pilots continuously. The “Birds of Magyar” serve as the blueprint for the new units to be formed.

In spring 2023, Magyar’s company fights at the gates of Donetsk, occupied by Russia since 2014, and in the summer in the ultimately failed offensive on the Zaporizhzhia front. In the process, the Birds pass a magic mark: the value of the Russian military equipment they have destroyed is estimated at over one billion dollars – achieved with drones alone. The privately bought DJI drone of the previous year has turned into a storm: within three days, Magyar’s FPV pilots destroy 45 Russian armoured vehicles.

Fighting for Krynky

From the autumn, the unit is once again near Kherson, fighting for the Krynky bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro. The drone team reconnoitres, blocks access for enemy forces and delivers food and ammunition. No war had ever seen a more intensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). For more than 200 days, practically only drones defend the edge of the small pocket.

President Volodymyr Zelensky awards Brovdi the medal “For the Defence of Ukraine” on 28 August 2023.

The Russian adversary, which has meanwhile caught up in FPV tactics, is causing increasing problems. As a result, the “Birds of Magyar” work ever more closely with Ukrainian electronic warfare units. From the summer, Magyar’s YouTube channel shows videos and statistics on Russian FPV drones intercepted electronically. In this field, too, new procedures and techniques are constantly emerging and being passed on to other units. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a specialist in military communications and electronic warfare, is impressed. He writes: “I have seen many different units, but what Magyar has created blew me away. Technically and organisationally.”

In the sights of Russian propaganda

Magyar’s success and popularity naturally do not go unnoticed on the other side of the front line either. Russian channels repeatedly report that Brovdi has finally been hit. The “Birds of Magyar” sometimes respond with a macabre video: dismayed soldiers announce the death of the popular commander to hundreds of thousands of social media visitors – and at the end Magyar appears, munching crisps with relish and listening to his own obituary with amused interest.

The Russian propaganda apparatus has also tried several times to undermine Robert Brovdi’s reputation in Ukraine and abroad. He and his family have repeatedly been linked to corruption in connection with his career as a businessman.

It has not worked. Magyar’s fundraising appeals in particular, always with a concrete goal and purpose, raised ever larger sums in ever shorter time.

Independent battalion

What had already been announced in summer 2023 becomes reality on 16 January 2024: the company leaves the 59th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is re-formed as an independent military unit – as a separate battalion of unmanned strike aviation systems (414 OBUBAS) of the Ukrainian Marine Corps. In 692 days of combat, 16 soldiers of the “Birds of Magyar” have received the high distinction of “Knight of the Order of Courage”.

There are no reliable figures and data on the newly created battalion. Fragmentary information and images, however, allow an assessment.

From summer 2024, Magyar focuses on expanding his reconnaissance capacities. The blueprint is a van he calls a CDP (command and decoding station), with two or three screen workstations. One screen shows “Delta”, Ukraine’s real-time situational awareness system, the second the image from the reconnaissance drone. Each unit has three delta-wing reconnaissance drones of the Ukrainian-made “Valkyrie” type, which are called “boards”.

One such CDP including drones and accessories costs between 75,000 and 100,000 euros in total. Each covers a front sector ten kilometres wide and 20 to 30 kilometres deep. The battalion receives 15 of these CDPs.

At this point the Birds’ drone fleet includes DJI Mavics, some with thermal optics, the electric glider bomber Punisher, Baba Yaga multirotor bombers, Chaklun radio relay UAVs and, of course, FPV drones for day and night, some with special batteries for ranges of more than 15 kilometres. The systems are operated by 550 pilots.

The motto: “Eye and sting”

Units specialising in drones existed before the “Birds of Magyar”. Many armies maintain drone units in the medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) or high altitude, long endurance (HALE) categories, or reconnaissance units working with tactical drones. Brovdi’s force, however, has long since moved beyond this framework. It covers tactical reconnaissance and strike in its front sector to a depth of 20 to 30 kilometres and engages all targets encountered there, hard and soft, day and night – entirely without conventional weapons, i.e. without barrelled weapons from rifles to artillery and without expensive precision munitions such as anti-tank guided missiles.

Of course, the “Birds of Magyar” operate in coordination and in combination with other units, providing them with reconnaissance and target data. Requesting artillery or air support always remains an option within the combined-effects network. But the unit does not depend on it: true to Magyar’s motto “Eye and sting”, it has all the means itself to find and destroy the enemy in a remarkably large area of operations.

From battalion to regiment

At the end of June 2024, the battalion is redesignated a regiment and reorganised with new structural elements: a unit for intercepting and destroying drones, one for experimental unmanned systems and one for developing and introducing new systems. With the restructuring, the regiment aims to build up its own capacity for training drone pilots as well as production facilities.

Brovdi now also recruits Ukrainians abroad – in Poland, Germany and other EU countries. He promises good training and employment exclusively in the role advertised at recruitment.

Unmanned systems: from brigade to service branch

As early as December 2024, the unit is enlarged again. Today the “Birds of Magyar” are organised as a brigade, officially designated the 414th Strike UAV Brigade (414 OPUBAS).

The “Birds of Magyar” now also use fibre-optic FPV drones. Magyar sets new goals for himself and his formation and makes no secret of the reasoning behind his strategy. Russia can currently recruit around 30,000 men per month. In his typically brutal, unsparing manner, he explains that Ukraine can only survive this war if more Russian soldiers fall at the front than Moscow can raise. He sets his brigade the goal of 100 wounded or killed Russian soldiers per day – and it meticulously delivers the video footage to prove it.

A statistics video showing the previous month’s military successes has now become a ritual at the start of each month. For February of this year, Brovdi’s unit reports 1,309 wounded or killed Russian soldiers, for March 1,848, for April 1,804 and for May 2,221.

On 3 June 2025, President Zelensky thus appointed Robert Yosypovych Brovdi commander of the service branch “Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.