Russia Offers $20 Million Reward for Ukrainian Drone Forces Commander Brovdi

Russia Offers $20 Million Reward for Ukrainian Drone Forces Commander

Russia is offering a $20 million reward, channelled through post-Soviet criminal networks, for information that could help locate Robert "Magyar" (Madyar) Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), according to The Wall Street Journal, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda and Kyiv Post.

USF representatives say the Kremlin has made Brovdi one of its top assassination targets because of how effective Ukrainian drones have been on the battlefield. In March, a Russian military court convicted him in absentia on fabricated terrorism charges. Ukrainska Pravda reports he was sentenced to decades in prison, while Kyiv Post states the sentence was life imprisonment.

Because of the serious threat to his life, Brovdi and his subordinates follow strict security protocols. Before visiting a secret command post — located, according to Ukrainska Pravda, somewhere in Ukraine's south-east — a WSJ journalist was asked to disable her phone's location services, switch it to airplane mode, and place it in a signal-blocking Faraday bag. She was then driven to the site in a car with tinted windows to conceal the route.

During the interview, Brovdi said the USF makes up only about 2.5% of Ukraine's total armed forces but has been responsible for roughly a third of all Russian losses over the past year. He said 79 fighters from his original unit, Madyar's Birds, have been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion; their names are engraved on a wall near the command centre's entrance. He noted that on the day of the interview his forces had killed or wounded 656 Russian soldiers for every one of his own troops killed; Kyiv Post adds that an electronic counter on his desk rose from 302 to 343 during the conversation itself. "I don't think this exchange rate is good enough," Brovdi said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. Kyiv Post separately quotes him saying that a small, modern Ukrainian army is beating the old Soviet system that used to exist in Ukraine. Brovdi has led the USF since June 2025, Kyiv Post notes.

The reward news comes amid a broader escalation of Russian mobilisation efforts. In his evening address on 28 September, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia has already begun additional mobilisation and plans to recruit more foreign fighters, including more North Korean troops — Ukrainian intelligence reports more than 8,000 North Korean soldiers already on Russian territory, with another 10,000-strong contingent being prepared. Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has separately signed a decree raising the official size of Russia's armed forces to 2,441,630 personnel.