Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces commander hits back at Russia's international arrest warrant
Russia's Investigative Committee issued an international arrest warrant on Dec. 5 for Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, according to his Dec. 7 statement on Facebook.
Russia has accused Brovdi in absentia of organizing an alleged terrorist attack in Russia's Kursk Oblast that killed Anna Prokofieva, a military correspondent for the pro-Kremlin Channel One, on March 26.
"But remember, worms, in your own swampy language: 'Annushka has already spilled the oil,'" Brovdi wrote on Facebook, referencing a work by Kyiv-born Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov.
Drawn from Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," the phrase "Annushka has already spilled the oil" evokes the sense that fate is sealed and its consequences inevitable.
Russia regularly issues arrest warrants for citizens of countries it labels "unfriendly," including last year's warrants for President Volodymyr Zelensky and former President Petro Poroshenko. Both Ukrainian officials were later removed from the Russian Interior Ministry's wanted list.
This is not the first time other countries have imposed restrictions on the Ukrainian commander. Hungary, whose government remains one of the few in Europe to preserve close relations with Russia, banned Brovdi from entering the country in August.
The ban came after Brovdi, who has Hungarian roots, confirmed that the Unmanned Systems Forces had struck the Druzhba oil pipeline, a key route supplying Russian oil to Europe, including Hungary.
