Ukraine’s drone forces killed Russian Major General Anton Grunis in a nighttime strike in occupied Donetsk on September 12, according to Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, who commands Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. Grunis had received the Hero of Russia title in late August for his war record.
He was also the officer who went on Russian state television in July and told Vladimir Putin that his brigade had helped take Kostiantynivka. Kyiv denied the city had fallen. Two months later, a Ukrainian drone found him at a command post behind Russian lines.
Brovdi announced the kill on Wednesday. A senior Russian commander confirmed the death the same day, a rare admission from Moscow’s side.
Brovdi Credits the Rarog Brigade With the Strike
Brovdi says drones from the 427th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade, known as Rarog, hit Grunis at night in Russian-held Donetsk. He puts Grunis at number seven on his count of Russian brigade, division, or army commanders killed by his drone forces, and released video of the strike.
According to the Associated Press, the command post was in the village of Kindrativka. Brovdi’s own post, carried by Ukrainska Pravda, called it the general’s “nighttime lair.” Neither Reuters nor the Kyiv Independent could independently verify how he died.
Brovdi also took a personal shot. His statement opens by describing himself as a man with a Hungarian surname, born in Ukraine, fighting with “the birds.” That is a reply to Putin, who in July praised Grunis as a man with a Lithuanian surname, born in Kazan, who fights brilliantly, Meduza reports.
Russia Confirms Grunis Is Dead
Russia’s Defense Ministry does not routinely confirm senior battlefield deaths, but Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov did. The Akhmat commander and deputy head of the military-political directorate called Grunis a great patriot who died a hero. He gave no details on how Grunis died.
Ukrainian claims of dead Russian generals sometimes go unconfirmed for weeks, or forever. The Kyiv Independent notes that Russian media reported on September 14 that Lieutenant General Sergei Milchakov, commander of the 51st Combined Arms Army, died in a Ukrainian strike on a command post in the same region. Russia has not confirmed that one.
Grunis, 46 and born in Kazan, was a career officer who fought in Chechnya and Syria before Ukraine. He commanded the 4th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, which Russia’s Defense Ministry promoted as an elite unit.
Grunis Briefed Putin on a Capture Kyiv Denied
On July 3, Grunis joined a televised Kremlin security meeting and described how his brigade helped capture Kostiantynivka. Putin congratulated him. Ukraine said its forces still held the city, and the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War assessed the claim as part of a Russian information campaign.
Per the ISW assessment Reuters cited, Russian troops had infiltrated Kostiantynivka but had not taken it. The reward came anyway. Defense Minister Andrei Belousov presented Grunis with the Gold Star and the Hero of Russia title in late August. Russian state media had built him into a front-line star under his call sign, Grozny.
He lasted a little over two weeks after the ceremony.
DroneXL’s Take
In June 2024, we covered Ukraine giving its drone army its own commander. In March, I wrote about how Brovdi’s forces were killing Russian soldiers faster than Moscow could recruit them. Grunis shows where that campaign has gone: up the chain of command.
That same month, the Unmanned Systems Forces tripled the depth of the drone kill zone. A command post behind Russian lines is no longer a safe place to sleep.
In 2022, a Russian general called the DJI Mavic 3 an icon of modern warfare. He was describing a reconnaissance tool. Four years later, the drone is the weapon that finds and kills the general.
My read on the Putin angle: Russia turned Grunis into a television face for a capture that ISW says never fully happened, and Ukraine answered with a drone and a punchline. The Milchakov report is the thread to follow. If Moscow confirms a second senior commander killed in the same region in the same week, drone strikes on Russian command posts stop looking like lucky hits and start looking like a system. This comes two months after Kyiv removed Mykhailo Fedorov, the minister DroneXL called the architect of that drone war. The drone forces kept hitting targets anyway.
Sources: Reuters, Meduza, Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, Associated Press
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
