Meet Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Art Collector Turned Architect of Ukraine’s Drone War

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…