I'd say Ukraine is dealing with Russia through force quite directly, without any proxies. (The context here is that Russians like to pretend they are fighting

I'd say Ukraine is dealing with Russia through force quite directly, without any proxies. (The context here is that Russians like to pretend they are fighting against NATO; this is of course not true, they are fighting against Ukraine, which got some help from NATO, but it's relatively small compared to NATOs capabilities.) Although there might soon be some "proxies" soon, like Azerbaijan (unfortunately) and (hopefully soon) Georgia.