# Kate Bondar: Russia Is Quietly Building a New Army - And NATO Is Completely Unprepared

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/kate-bondar-russia-is-quietly-building-a-new-army-and-nato-is-completely-unprepared
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/kate-bondar-russia-is-quietly-building-a-new-army-and-nato-is-completely-unprepared.md
Podcast: [Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl](https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131)
Published: 2026-04-26T07:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dominik-presl/episodes/Kate-Bondar-Russia-Is-Quietly-Building-a-New-Army---And-NATO-Is-Completely-Unprepared-e3if3gs
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9035327901.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/episodes/kate-bondar-russia-is-quietly-building-a-new-army-and-nato-is-completely-unprepared
Duration seconds: 2153

## Resource

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics ➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/ ➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/ Over the past year, something has been happening inside the Russian military that received very little attention but that will have - and is already having - pretty significant consequences. While the world has been focused on casualty numbers and frontline movements, Russia has been building an entirely new kind of army - one based on drones, autonomous weapons, and AI. It has been pouring enormous resources into it - and it's not a project for some distant future - it's already being widely used by Russia in Ukraine right now and it’s already changing how the Russian military fights a war. And even more importantly, it’s putting Russia way ahead of most NATO members in ways that should be setting off alarm bells in European capitals - but largely isn't. My guest today is Kateryna Bondar, a fellow at the CSIS Wadwhani AI Center who just wrote a major new report on exactly this - detailing how Russia is building this new military ecosystem, how far it's gotten, what will be the consequences of and how The West is mostly failing to notice and react to it.

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