rocketman

6-8 month for formed units. Fighting formations that can sustain themselves is going to take longer.  Now the UA could take risks, but a well broadcasted screw up with burning western tanks is the last thing anyone wants, except the Russians and their supporters.  These are endgame systems and endgame needs to be timed right.
Of course no one is going to listen to this and in a month there will be cries of “why aren’t the Ukrainians using our tanks?” all over the place.  And of course there is also the uncomfortable possibility that massed manoeuvre forces are just as vulnerable and not able to do what they are supposed to for the Ukrainians as much as they were for the Russians.
Well now that the tank nuts are happy can we get back to actually winning this war?

No.

Russian TG claims UKR arty hit again deployment of Russian troops with huge losses, which can exceed losses in Makiivka. As if personnel was deployed in the basement, but on first floor were deployed ammo and fuel dumps. Russian command brought trucks with persoonnel to the building in daylight, so UKR drone spotted this place. In result of strike ammo detonated, thin brick walls collapsed and flaming fuel has flown to the basement. Most of personnel found own death under ruins and in flaming fuel. TG doesn't say were this happened and how many losses...   

... Though, probably, this can be Sofiivka (old name Karlo-Marksovo) settlement between Hoorlivka and Yenakievo, Donetsk oblast. Local "authorities" claimed this wsas not artillery strike, but 6 HIMARSes.

Have to jump in on that one.
As the gas was sold on the world market the whole planet benefited from the Russian supplies dampening down the market price of such gas. When the Russian supply is cut Europe buys its gas elsewhere and the global price spirals effecting everyone. So everyone worldwide that uses gas helped build the Russian army.
Same way we are all still benefiting from Saudi oil worldwide and other nasty regimes even if our countries don't buy directly from them.  It's a pity that Western democratic countries are dependant on any crappy regime for any natural resource but we are. Fuel, rare earth metals, you name it we buy it and in the process support despotic countries that work to undermine us at any opportunity.
It's a problem all democracies have built up over decades and it really isn't the responsibility of one or two democracies to take all the flak for that situation developing.

100 km DMZ on the RU side of the border.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1616525786437283840?t=SGYQDAF8-I47onUc5N_2Yg&s=19

For sure Poland will move ahead, without Germany.
Hell, I'd be surprised if they even pay whatever fines etc for breaking the re-export contract  permissions. They could just say they will, swear it up and down the street - and never do, just like Brave Soldier Scholz.
Unlike Scholz, the Swedes know how to decide and then deliver:
 

Couple of recent tweets, is the first one correct?
 
 

You mean this guy?

Boom boom boom  I'd give that much more priority than tanks, that's for sure!
 
 

I posted a bit back yesterday.  Do the rest right and sure we can turn Ukraine into a western tank boneyard.  We have written pages on why there is a lot of risk with this idea - training and sustainment.  This strategy of dumping "what we do not need" begs the question, "well what do we need?"
I find the UAs push for these systems 1) a mystery, and 2) very political.  I am not sure about the first one, the UA has about 1000 tanks and 3000 AFV according to graphics being thrown around.  They definitely need support in sustaining that fleet, but I am still not seeing what a bunch of western hardware with potential severe support limitations is going to do exactly.  As to the second, wont even touch it.
Absolutely.  Keeping them in a fight is much, much, harder.  It will burn through ammo and spare parts in a month what the UK may have in stocks to support training and low intensity conflict for years.
Having spent time in military procurement and operational support, if the UK was trending towards dumping these tanks then the ice cube has been shaved down a lot already - I know ours has.  
Once again, do not simply dump hardware on the UA, it will create a total mess. Create complete units and formations that can do the right job at the right time.

Ok, let's really get into this because I am seeing the fundamental flaw coming out of the "everything is just fine" camp.  The argument, largely coming out of professional military armored circles or those who really love tanks, is pretty much the same.  It posits that:
- Both sides in Ukraine are "doing it wrong".
- "Russia sux"
- "If they all fought like we do, it would all be over by now."   Meaning the conventional combined arms doctrine in context of some form of manoeuvre warfare and AirlLand battle.
- "APS will save us!"
Then, like here we get some cherry picked anecdotes and some really weird twisted logic to somehow defend heavy systems.  They downplay the realities of risk and technological development in this war, which is part of an ongoing trend that had been unfolding for at least a decade.  And never really address the fundamental shifts within the key components of ground warfare which have shifted, not in their communities favour.
So lets unpack some pushback points head on:
Sure for some systems - NLOS and stand-offs such as the Stugna P get around that, and I am pretty sure there will be heavy investment in these systems in the near future.  Some shooters have to step out/up for a few seconds at range with the current systems.  But we are talking about spotting and engaging a small team effectively in seconds at rages out to 2500m.  It has never been and never will be easier to spot a single man with a man portable system at 2500 than that individual can spot a 60t vehicle.  Shorter ranges are not that better either. Sure they have thermals, but those thermals have to pointed in the right spot and in seconds.  And a dismounted man is nowhere near as hot as a 60t vehicle burning gas.
And here is the thing...so freakin what?  A team of ATGM gets knocked out, hurrah!  Right up to the point that there are twenty more out there.  At a min manoeuvre has slowed to a crawl.
So that is a small recon team moving out for close recon in broad daylight with no ISR support as far as we can tell.  Well first it is pretty anecdotal.  We have seen dozens of videos of tank strikes by hidden teams, we have also seen infantry spotted and killed by artillery.  There is a risk of being spotted, definitely.  Modern recon have ground radars designed to detect motion, lot of EM flying everywhere.  But in order to bypass the asymmetric disadvantage posed by these systems you have to observe and control every inch of an enormous area.  Further, operational and strategic ISR can pick up vehicle formations from space - so those small teams can be prepositioned well ahead of an advance.
    So I have seen a lot of these videos as well - "look at how accurate these new systems are".  "IF" you can spot the target at range is a huge "IF"  The evidence from this war is showing that it is the small teams of infantry that are spotting first.  And again the entire cost equation is totally upside down.  A nation can replace light infantry at a much higher rate than it can replace tanks/AFVs - so even if you do use laser precision 90% of the time, that 10% is going to whittle an armored force to pieces over time.  You still have not solved for the fundamentals of visibility and range.  Your vehicle now has to scan an enormous arc to hopefully see a guy expose himself for a few seconds, and then you are dead if you are slower than he is.
If NLOS are "easy to intercept" then why are UAS everywhere on the modern battlefield?  They are not "easy" to intercept when used in large numbers.  We are talking systems that are going to skim treelines and hills until they lock and hit.  They will only need a shot/kill ratios of around 50% - at $210k a pop, to overwhelm the costs of the armored systems they are hitting.  And there are rumours in this war of Javelin coming in at 80-90%...which is nuts.  As to walking mines, the lack of imagination I find baffling.  So if someone plants a set of UGV mines that can move and get under a tank to kill it from below.  They can be hidden everywhere so until they move you likely will not detect them.  Then they wait until the armour/AFVs are nice and close, and suddenly you have got explosive cockroaches all scuttling at you.  We have no counter to that.  This is like the Battle of Yonkers in WWZ, all those fancy guns that can shave a peach at 1500m are going to be useless.
Now to the underlined part - how can I not know where you are?  This is the biggest take away of this entire war.  A modern armored Battlegroup is about 5-10kms long on the march, when one takes into account F/A1/A2 and B echelons.  Given the ISR environment shaping up, I will know exactly where you are and very likely where you are going to be, because I can also see the terrain and shape the space.  So 1 million dumb mines are a complete waste of resources when a few thousand can be prepositioned, re-position if they need to.  Best case is you spot them before they swarm you, at which point your move is completely stalled until you can figure out a counter.
So this was your response to "AFVs are vulnerable to artillery".  Well I would point to the steady stream of evidence coming out of this war and the simple fact that artillery is doing 80-90% of the killing.  Beyond that, this argument is symptomatic of what I have seen coming out of the "community", it basically buries the head in the sand.
Just going to jump to the end here.  So this is sticking to old metrics.  Light infantry move faster operationally but lack punching power of heavy.  Well guess what? They found their punching power.
So out of all of that we have bad assumptions, underplaying risks and over-playing capability.  This is pretty consistent with what has been coming out of the "heavy community" mainstream since last spring.  So instead of having an actual analysis and assessment of where heavy is going, we are instead being told that this entire war is an anomaly.  The UA, who have demonstrated an amazing ability to learn on this battlefield and in many way are ahead of any western doctrine are "doing it wrong."  I propose that they are doing it exactly right for wherever warfare is heading and the fact that they are winning is clear evidence. 
The analysis you provide is directly in line with what mainstream assessments came up with at the beginning of this war.  Based on the rules as we understood them, Russia should have won this war.  It had massive advantages in mass.  Oh that is right "they suck" and the UA just got lucky. 
Or, and everyone say it with me now, the fundamental components of warfare are shifting.  And this is driving an evolution on how wars will be fought.  Historically those that get with the program quickly have advantage for the next war.  Or we can cling to "tradition" and get our asses handed to us.

Duda is in Davos today, and he said a few interesting things:
- he confirmed that Poland sent more than 260 T-72s to Ukraine already. If you add the rumored battalions worth of PT91, it adds up to 300 vehicles. This is I think the first semi-official confirmation of this number
- we sent almost the whole stock of Piorun MANPADS, at least 1400 missiles (not counting older Grom I guess)
- and most interestingly, he outlined the sensible goal for the Leo consortium:
 

I think if used properly as part of a combined arms team, the Ukrainians will be very happy with their Bradleys. BUT, IMHO the caveat here is the correct combined arms approach. To be their most effective, Brads need modern MBTs. Abrams being the obvious but at least for now, the least likely one, Leopard 2s or Challengers are more likely in any realistic time frame. The hunter-killer concept of 2 Brads working as eyes/bird dogs while the tank sits and waits for a shot would suit the Ukraine's way of war very well if you ask me.
Of course there are a lot more factors such as ISR and artillery/ air support to be integrated into this as well.

@sburke
Major Andrey Gribalev, 37th motor-rifle brigade, 36th CAA, Eastern military district. Was kileld on 27th Dec in Kherson oblast in missile strike on HQ of brigade.
 
 
Major, Rinat Gareyev, artillery of 37th motor-rifle brigade, 36th CAA, Eastern military district. Was kileld on 27th Dec in Kherson oblast in missile strike on HQ of brigade.
Major, Aleksandr Tarasov, deputy chief of staff of comms, 26th NBC-protection regiment, 36th CAA, Eastern military district. Was kileld on 27th Dec in Kherson oblast in missile strike on HQ of 37th motor-rifle brigade. 
Major Mikhail Shkroba, probably communication troops, 37th motor-rifle brigade, 36th CAA, Eastern military district. Was kileld on 27th Dec in Kherson oblast in missile strike.
 
Major (retired) Aleksey Korshak, former aviation engineer of Pacific Fleet. Retired in 2020, but in 2022 enlisted to aviation squadron of PMC Wagner by own speciallity. Was killed on 4th December.
Major (old photo in rank of captain) Aleksandr Sysoyev, MLRS unit, was killed not later of 5th of Jan 2023
 
Lt.colonel Aleksey Bachurin, deputy commander of 1444th motor-rifle regiment, was killed in HIMARS strike on Makiivka, Donetsk oblast of 1st of Jan. I have written recently, but here is 100 % confirmation 
 
Lt.colonel Boris Mikheyev, group comamnder of SOF Center "Senezh" of SOF Command. Was killed on 4th August.
Major Yuriy Lanin, Rosgvardiya. Data of death unknown
Lt.colonel Aleksey Afonin, deputy commander of 234th air-assault regiment of 76th air-assault division, was killed on 1st of Sep
 

Lol
 

This is one of my pet requests. I would like the ability to call fire on a map coordinate, and if there is no line of sight, then it's a FFE mission and while it will hit the grid location accurately (after all, the FO and the FDC are using the same map, so the rounds should hit what he asked for), the effects will be unknown to the friendly side since there is no LOS. That's fine. It mimics reality.  No need to get fancy with entering coordinates. The current FO call line works fine, just that inside the game a different behavior is used if there is no LOS from FO to target. This would allow firing on a tentative contact, for example, you know the enemy is expected to have armor, and you get a couple of sound contact behind a treeline or just over a rise, where you can't see. 
Doesn't need to be TRPs. TRPs main advantage is faster response time. For TRPs the battery FDC will have already calculated firing data, and needs only to send it to the guns. 
Dave

Everyone is entitled to a little rant every now and then. 😉 A few things you might consider, though.
Scholz was elected for precisely the things you accuse him of. His whole election campaign was built on him being Merkel 2.0, just more... unobtrusive. During the pandemic Merkel had shown a little too much... presence. And his opponent, Armin Laschet, was not much different only with different party colors. In summary, we didn't want a great leader. We voted for someone who doesn't bother us with politics but lets us sleep on. Just like the 16 years before.
And I doubt Merkel would have acted much differently. She didn't even go to the toilet without studying the latest poll on digestion before. 50% against giving Leos puts it too mildly: Only 38% are actually in favour. Now, that may not sit very well with anyone here but ironically this is the whole point of the West supporting Ukraine in this war. Having to accept that a majority of people has a different opinion than I have is what's democracy is about and isn't this all about defending western values?
Lastly, from what you write I'm not sure you actually want Scholz (or anyone else for that matter) to really be a great leader. A great leader would not look at polls or political pressure but instead go by what he believes in. Now I have no clue what that would actually be in Scholz' case but it might not be what you want. To me it looks like, and no offense intended, you don't want a leader but a figurehead for your ideas. Nothing wrong with that but it's a different thing.

But this, I think, is frankly what gets under everyones skin about Scholz. 
It's his slavish obsequsiouness to party politics and his avoidance of what many  expect of the leader of the largest country in EU -  moral leadership. 
I mean,  it's bloody ridiculous - Here is a tailor-made historical opportunity, a once in a generation chance to take the moral lead against an enemy that is an insanely similar mirror to Germany's terrible past, to finally put to bed the idea of continuing German guilt,  to bloody LEAD THE CONTINENT on a deeply righteous project and -  wtf is he doing? Fretting about voting margins? Dribbling Gepards to the Ukrainians?
Doesn't Scholz get it?  He could be the Greatest German of his Generation, outshine Merkel and put her Russian complacency to shame. And who did we get instead -  Boris Bloody Johnson?  Boris Johnson put the German Chancellor to shame? A Clown showed up the leader of Germany?! 
Sure,  polls etc show certain,  whatever.  Polls change and can be changed. . You can lead your nation with conviction and the polls will follow. You take a moral stand,  stating clear and unequivocal democratic principles and people will vote for you even though they don't like much else about you. 
But, GOD he's such a waste of space.Yet another bland, grey, moral rubberband of a politicker such that he cannot see the chance that is being provided him -  or worse, he sees it but balks out of fear, his own inadequacy or sheer spineless careerism. 
There is a gaping, Chancellor shaped hole in the middle of European leadership and this fool will never fill it. He doesn't have the wit, ethical gumption or intellectual depth to lead anything more than a domestic political party. 
I guess leading Europe is just beyond his ability. 
Such a depressing twat. 

We have also seen assaults with BTR 80s and BMPs.  As to "incredibly sub optimum", based on what?  We are back to "glorious western equipment is better" when that assumption is unfounded, except possibly for the ranged fires stuff we have sent.  They UA managed to take back a larger peice of real estate than Ireland and cripple a larger heavier opponent with all that "sub-optimal support".
Did it ever occur that we did not send 1000 Bradleys because 1) Ukraine did not have the bandwidth to integrate them while fighting for its life - it is like being in a gunfight and having someone come along and say "hey tries these rifles out". And 2) they did not need those Bradley's because they would have provided enough advantage over the Soviet-based equipment fleet the UA already had to justify the cost, at the time? 
I do agree that deciding on a single set of platforms, and then sticking to that would be a good idea...but we kind already did.  Remember all that soviet-based equipment coming in from Eastern Europe?  Finally, we have reports of UA forces dismounting 1km away from its vehicles on the offence.  Is this because they have sub-standard vehicles, or just the realities that big hot metal on the battlefield in this environment is tricky to manage no matter what the version?
My point being is that this "send in the west" camp is resting on a lot of unproven, and in my opinion dangerously uniformed assumptions.  We should definitely support Ukraine; however, we should do it in a way that makes sense.  If we are going to build a western-equipment based division, yes we will have to start that now and it will take months. But it will need a full logistical integration plan and should not bleed off higher priority support requirements- the budget is finite.
   

And we are back to this.  The theory is that somehow if we had showered Ukraine in [Insert favored IFV, tank or whatever] that this war would be over by now.  This is gross oversimplification bordering on disinformation with an undertone of western biases that are frankly bordering on imperial prejudices.
1.  Ukraine has a large arms industry of its own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Ukraine.  It is no doubt under stress but we have no reports it is falling apart.  It needs all the help it can get, so lets start there.
2.  Ukraine had pretty healthy mechanized force before this war started armed, not surprisingly with its own equipment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Ground_Forces.  They have sustained losses, but do we have any reports of the UA being critically short of anything?  Any major losses due to those shortfalls?  Ok, so lets not freak out with the "Ukraine is collapsing because they do not have Marders" thing.
3.  Ukraine has captured an obscene amount of Russian equipment - https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html.  If half of those Russian vehicles have been made fit for battle Ukraine likely has more of some natures that it did at the start of the war.  Any support we can to make that happen smoother, better and faster is a very good idea.
4.  Heavy's overall value proposition is in doubt in this entire thing.  The Russians had mountains of it and it made no difference.  The UA is much smarter so I suspect they have already figured out the right conditions for heavy to work and are working to set it up.  We should be aiming at supporting the UA in creating those conditions as a priority, exploitation of that is something I am pretty sure they can cover.
5.  Every sexy peice of western equipment comes with a heavy logistics bill (we have discussed this), and in large numbers that bill could make the UAs life harder, not easier to sustain this potpourri of western hardware.
This whole line of thought, though well intentioned, also smacks of western superiority complex - "well if we had simply given those poor dirty Ukrainian rabble our superior western equipment they would have put Ivan on the run by now...oh dear, shame on us." 
Ukraine has thousands of APCs/IFVs - 40 Marders is not going to magically turn the tide anymore than 100 Leo 2s, or 50 Bradleys or freakin M1s.
Should we give Ukraine support? Absolutely. Should that include complete capability force packages that they can build units around? - again, yes. Should we give them versions of what they already have and can sustain? - definitely.  Should we prioritize things that do make an actual difference?  Like ISR, long range fires, AD and how about simple money so that soldiers get paid and their families can buy groceries?  How about shoring up the existing Ukrainian arms industry and military architecture so they can stop being so dependent on western support? Should we train and support their force generation - oh, most definitely.  
If someone said we had to decide between training 75k Ukraine troops or another 100 Marders, I already know what the right answer is.  You cannot flood a military built on an entirely different fleet system, in the middle of a a war, and magically make it all go away.  You can wring hands and cry "oh dear, think about all the good Ukrainain boys who may have survived if they were in Bradleys", well that assumes a Bradley is shell, mine and ATGM proof as well as invisible to begin with.  It also fails to fundamentally understand how militaries are built, sustained and employed.
Ukraine needs broad holistic and comprehensive support on many levels.  Niche, hi profile sexy equipment donations are nice but we cannot lose sight of the fundamentals - the stuff that really makes a difference.  And when this war is over, that is when the real support will be needed.  We had better see as much hand wringing and noise on donating farm equipment, reconstruction infrastructure and economic stimulus as we have seen on Marders/Bradleys or there was no point to this whole thing.

I add very important thing, which wasn't told in this article. But first of all about some other tactical things.
Main tactical unit of Wagner is so-called "assault detachment" (rus. "shturmovoy otryad") - it approx equal to reinforced company in 120-150 men (though, other sources say this is battalion-level unit). Lower level is assault group. Groups are froming due to current task and can be from squad to platoon size.
In many cases assault groups attack in some different way, than was described above. For example if suprize attack is need or arty support is not available, than assault groups try sneak under cover of terrain or in the night, fog, rain etc as close to UKR position as possiable and wait command. Then they divide on subgroups of suppressive fire (MG, RPG, RPO, RShG) and attackers. Latter rash to the UKR positions on the distacnce of grenade throwing and just rained it with grenades, which they carry in big number. If they can shock opponents with grenades they burst into trenches and clean it. 
But main reason of Wagners effectiveness is not their human waves, which having huge losses eventually degerade opponents defense, but in their battlefield control system and experienced commaders, which unlike in Russian army feel free in achievment of goals. For control over the battle Wagners detachment commander use drones and special software on the any gadget. If Ukrainian soldiers use own small tactical drones like Mavic only for recon and arty/mortar targeting, but very rare for control over the battle (this do mostly special drone teams like TERRA and other), than Wagners widely use commercial drones for battlefield command. 
Here is screenshot from gadget of killed Wagner detachment or assault group commander. This is battlefield control software.

There was an opinion that these color dots on the screen are locations of each soldier in his detachment and we can see here two assault groups (green and purple), but other think (and this is more logical) - we can see here battlefield waypoint grid. Software allows to make plan of battle and merging it with picture from drones to command, for example, to one assault group - go by waypoints 1,2,3,4 - objective XXX. Assault group leader(s) has(-ve) this battle plan and via radio comms or maybe via gadgets can receive some corrections. Also important note - Wagners put tasks only based on combat capabilities and quality of units. Tasks for "zeks" small groups are primitive but not more complicated, than their training level. If they will be kileld in battle, other meat substitute them, until this primitive task is completed. There is no way back. Withdrawal is allowed only for wounded and if group obviously lost own attack capabilities. Else - a death penalty.
So, detachment commander actually plays some sort of CM game, contrloling situation with drone or several drones. This is really mixing of Soviet "human wave" and HiTech.  So, one way to disrupt Wagner plans is get down their eyes in the sky. 

By that same logic, I could wish every single American soldier to suffer and die because of historical US war crimes, atrocities and support for repressive regimes, but that would be absurd - even though the average American combat soldier is a volunteer and has way more political say in the running of his/her country than the average Russian.
 
Do they really have all this information? Where is that coming from? They live in a propaganda bubble and the ones getting mobilised are not the guys with education and wealth. They are mainly poorer guys from the countryside. The ones escaping to the West are the relatively privileged and informed, like the "fortunate sons" who could dodge the draft for Vietnam.
About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.
In any army, there will be good people and bad people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of individual people with their own motivations and background. Wishing suffering and death on all of them is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. Let's instead wish that the people responsible for this war, and the soldiers who commit war crimes, get what they deserve.
 
If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.
How many intercepted calls have there been, and how many calls have Russian troops made in total? The Russian army is very large, yet we point to a handful of calls and say "Look, this proves that they are all orks".
Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.
I know this is an unpopular and uncomfortable position to take on a military forum in the middle of a horrible war. I don't blame Ukrainians for being in mental survival mode. But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

Disagree.  What I think you describe is a Russian strategy of exhaustion without a clear path on how to accomplish it.  It has Ends, but no Ways.  For example, how does Russian plan to win a war of exhaustion against the West?  The primary proven method is to let us get bored and slip support away.  Then why work cross purposes to this and commit warcrimes at a strategic scale? A complete lack of a coherent military strategy that links political strategy to military activity is also a noted shortfall. 
Putin has not fully mobilized Russian industry or its people - likely because he cannot- so that now the UA is accelerating past them militarily on the ground. So Russian Means do not match up.
A strategy is not simply saying “we want to do this”.  There needs to be a foundational theory underneath it, and as far as I can tell beyond “keeping Putin in power one more day” Russia does not have a unifying theory in this war. They have about a half dozen unlinked ones flying out there : terrorize population until they quit, exterminate population until they quit, weird IO stuff to somehow convince the West that it is hopeless cause, freeze the conflict, attack Bakhmut!/take the Donbas, Anx everything, rattle nuclear sabre to make West back off and/or whatever pops into Putin’s head on a given day.
Of all of that, some points to an exhaustion strategy, others extermination, and still others annihilation - they are all over the place. If we assign Russia a strategy right now it is Spaghetti throwing, toss it all up on the wall and see what sticks.