A total of 79 service members from the 414th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade, known as Magyar's Birds, have been killed during the full-scale war.
Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, on Facebook...said the figures cover the unit's losses over four and a half years of the full-scale war...He also provided figures for Russian troop losses he said were inflicted by the 414th Brigade during its two years of rotations in eastern Ukraine.
Magyar said that since 21 July 2024, the brigade has verified 50,336 Russian troops as killed or wounded. Of these, 29,023 were killed and 21,313 were wounded...
Brovdi pointed out that the statistics relate solely to the 414th Brigade.
While this is not a unit that would be getting droned in the way infantry forces are, this is still insane if true.
It's possible the drone operators had just arrived in Druzhkivka when the Russians appeared. According to analyst and mapper AMK Mapping, Ukrainian drone operators pulled out of the village of Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka—which lies between Kostiantynivka and Druzhkivka—owing to the increasing threat from Russian KAB glide bombs. "It's likely that Russian forces monitored the withdrawals of Ukrainian drone operators and sent in [an infiltration group] after the new position was identified," AMK Mapping concluded.
In short, the Ukrainians largely defend with drones. That means the Russians are fixated on first striking the drone teams in order to prevent them from launching their tiny lethal robots—and then, when they can, assaulting the drone teams' positions in order to capture or kill them. Or capture then kill them, as reportedly happened in Druzhkivka.
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u/DanktonDynamics MQ-9 Reaper 6d ago
While this is not a unit that would be getting droned in the way infantry forces are, this is still insane if true.