Vladimir Putin has told Russians that victory against Ukraine is inevitable. But on Saturday no tanks or missiles will rumble over the cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square. For the first time in almost 20 years the annual celebration of the allies’ victory over Nazi Germany will take place without military hardware. The reason: the Kremlin is afraid of a Ukrainian attack.
The man who has arguably done more to spook the Putin regime this weekend than anyone else is Robert Brovdi, the head of a Ukrainian military drone unit, Madyar’s Birds, named after his call sign. In recent months it has carried out a series of long-range strikes against targets deep within Russia, including ports, oil refineries and missile factories.
Brovdi acknowledges that a “symbolic” attack on Red Square would generate headlines around the world but says Ukraine will probably deliver a “slap in the face” where Russia’s air defences are weaker. “Why waste drones on the ‘great wall’,” he said, referring to the enhanced security around Moscow. “If you hit the energy sector or military that’s the best strike, on the periphery.”
Crippling attacks from Brovdi’s elite 414th brigade have presented a huge challenge to the Kremlin’s war. The unit’s long-range drones have been knocking out enemy air defence systems more quickly than Moscow can rebuild them and, suddenly, everywhere within a 1,250 mile (2,000km) radius of Brovdi’s bunker looks vulnerable, including Putin’s palaces.
Ukrainian drones last month hit the Black Sea oil terminal at Tuapse four times in two weeks. “Practically everything there has burned,” Brovdi says. There were similar hits on the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga. Drones even flew to the Urals, hitting an oil refinery in Perm and fighter jets in Chelyabinsk, 1,050 miles from the frontline.
Smouldering infrastructure and dark oil-drenched clouds point the way to a Ukrainian victory, Brovdi suggests, by crashing Russia’s economy so it can no longer fund its costly war. Putin spends 40% of his $530bn annual budget on the military and Brovdi estimates that 100m tonnes of Russian oil, worth $100bn (£73.4bn), is exported each year from ports within range of his drones.
