Autonomous Ukraine: One Woman's Path From a U.S. College Campus to the Ukrainian Battlefield

This episode traces one young woman's journey home to a new kind of war—and Ukraine’s fight for survival.

 

Host:

 

Gabrielle Sierra, Director of Podcasting, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

 

Guest:

 

Catarina Buchatskiy, Co-Founder & Director of Analytics, Snake Island Institute

 

We discuss:

• The story of a young Ukrainian woman who left college in the U.S. to join the fight at home within days of the invasion.
• How Ukraine transformed its drone manufacturing from garage shops to a sophisticated, rapidly scaling defense industry.
• Ukraine’s surprising dependence on China in its drone supply chain, and its push to make ‘China-free’ drones by 2026.
• Stories of Ukrainian resilience and resolve.
• How the Snake Island Institute bridges the gap between the battlefield and Western policymaking by connecting Ukrainian military insights to the allies who are shaping defense strategy.
• As Buchatskiy puts it: “The overarching definition of victory is that the Ukrainian nation is whole, that the state is legitimate, that we have control over the state, that we have our democracy, and that we’re at peace and can live freely.”

 

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Why It Matters is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.