Four years ago, Robert Brovdi was more comfortable in auction houses like Christie’s than filthy trenches. A well-off grain dealer in those days, with a sideline as an art collector, fragments of his pre-war life survive in the paintings and sculptures by Ukrainian artists dotted around the bunker. They’re displayed beside missile casings and captured drones. He’s an ethnic Hungarian, from Uzhhorod in western Ukraine, and best known by his military call sign, Magyar. Clean-shaven before the war, he now wears a long ginger and grey-speckled beard.
