Robert Brovdi, who uses the callsign “Magyar”, told Reuters that his aim is to cut the occupied Crimean peninsula off from Russia. Brovdi and his units have been targeting the Novorossiya highway, which he describes as the Russian army’s principal supply route through occupied southern Ukraine toward Crimea.
What has been achieved so far
- According to Brovdi, traffic on the Novorossiya highway has fallen by more than two thirds over the past month as a result of drone strikes.
- The strikes have severely affected military logistics and fuel supplies; local authorities were forced to introduce a fuel rationing system on the peninsula last month.
- Brovdi claims Ukraine will gain full control of the Novorossiya highway within a month and that Crimea will be isolated in the near future.
"Magyar madarai" and data collection
Brovdi volunteered for the armed forces in 2022 and subsequently built the unit called “Magyar madarai” ("Magyar’s birds"), which he says has become one of Ukraine’s most effective drone brigades. Every strike is recorded, verified and archived: about 10–12 terabytes of data are generated daily and stored for future use in training artificial intelligence models.
Brovdi’s long-term aim is to use data analysis to minimise the human factor in modern warfare and to create conditions that make it much harder for military personnel and defence-industry workers to remain on the Crimean peninsula or on temporarily occupied territories, or to use the routes leading there.
Analyst comments and the Russian response
Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment noted that advances in drone technology do provide a way to gradually isolate Crimea, but he emphasised that a coordinated ground offensive would also be required to actually push back Russian forces. Kofman added that Russia’s own elite drone unit, Rubikon, is also working intensively to break Ukraine’s medium-range drone advantage.
Why this matters
The sharp drop in traffic on the Novorossiya highway and the introduction of fuel rationing directly affect both livelihoods in occupied areas and the functioning of military operations. The strategy of archiving large volumes of strike data and planning to use it for AI shows that Ukrainian drone warfare aims not only at tactical effects but also at building a longer-term technological edge. Independent analysts caution, however, that drones alone are unlikely to dislodge or decisively defeat Russian ground forces in the occupied territories.
Next steps
Brovdi says future goals include securing full Ukrainian control over the Novorossiya highway and isolating Crimea. Russia’s Rubikon unit activity and the absence of a large-scale coordinated ground offensive remain factors that will influence the prospects of those aims.
