Last year, a week before the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, and its nearly 250,000 future casualties still alive and well, the Russian leader was faced with three options, as the New York Times listed four days before the attack: “A major nationwide attack; a series of morsels that ripped the country apart; or a python-like squeeze” means attacking from two directions, the second being Belarus. In fact, Putin chose a fourth path: to stun Ukraine with a blow to its political heart and end it all in a matter of days. Instead, a year later, the war seems closer to the beginning than the end. What conclusions can be drawn a year after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War? Even so, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn from what has emerged so far, and the first is about Russia's place in the world. Russia entered the war as a resurrected superpower and came out of its first year as a geopolitical cripple. Recalling the effectiveness of Russia's intervention in the Syrian Civil War, the world expected a swift and efficient military performance. Instead, the Russian army was exposed as a clay-footed giant, suffering from poor equipment, unimaginative command, cumbersome logistics, poor training, and low morale. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a press conference after the State Council meeting on youth policy held in Moscow on December 22, 2022. The loss of geopolitical prestige was compounded by the loss of geopolitical assets when the formerly neutral Sweden and Finland decided to join NATO, thus futile to prevent NATO expansion, one of the declared objectives of the war. Similarly, Russia's blatant assumption that Western support for Ukraine would be mainly verbal proved to be unfounded, just as Russia hoped that the war would break the European Union's anti-Russian front. So the number one conclusion is that Russia is not the superpower she wants us to think of. From Russia's point of view, this bleak picture has been tempered by what's going on on the economic front. WESTERN SANCTIONS was much less effective than initially assumed. The Russian economy did not collapse, and Western powers learned the hard way that they were no longer alone in leading the global economy. Russia had a large number of buyers for its bottomless supply of raw materials, as China, India and Brazil, as well as much of the Third World, did not participate in the sanctions. Even the inability to use the dollar due to sanctions was a blessing in disguise, as Russia's partners agreed to use the ruble instead. The combination of continued demand for Russian exports and unexpected demand for the ruble resulted in the ruble recovering from its 50% collapse following the imposition of sanctions. In fact, the ruble is worth almost 10% more than the dollar value a month before the outbreak of war. The war, then, exposed the limits of the West's economic influence. But the hope of dividing Europe by Russia's refusal to buy Russian gas never materialized. Conclusion number two, then, is that economic repression is an unreliable weapon. Having said that, the events have exposed deep industrial rifts between Russia and other powers economically. The failure of Russia's weapons on the battlefield was enormous, and the superiority of Western weapons was enormous. Russian failure appeared twice. First, in terms of planning, it reflected the erroneous choice of post-communist Russia to base its economy on mining and farming at the expense of industrial development and expansion. Second, in terms of production, the unreliability of Russian weapons is believed to reflect industrial corruption, including the stealing of raw materials by managers and cheating in performance tests. Additionally, these diplomatic, economic and social failures shed light on two moral aspects of Russian misfortune: political accountability and historical responsibility. The mastermind behind this political tragedy is Vladimir Putin. The WAR is a direct result of Russia's lack of political freedom. In terms of its epidemic, there has been no free public debate about the aims, costs, or necessity of the Ukraine campaign. In terms of his administration, the people are not properly informed about the casualties of the war, and there are signs that the share of the poor, the poorly educated and the disenfranchised is disproportionate between Russia's combat troops and war s. Control of information and lack of public debate resulted in the government's claim that it would fight a "Nazi" government that was carrying out "genocide". If Russian society were free, the press would demand proof and expose the blatant lies the government uses as it kills thousands, displaces millions, and spends billions in a blatantly senseless war. Inclusive of this political tragedy is the role of mastermind Vladimir Putin. The historiographic discussion of the individual's role in history is irrelevant in this case. For example, unlike the Thirty Years' War, the American Civil War, or the Arab-Israeli wars, this war is not the result of societal processes that involved thinkers, writers, orators, and grassroots movements over many years. The Ukraine war came out of the mind of one man - the man who remains the only one who can end it. This autocratic environment and the resulting bloodbath should serve as a warning to the discontents of democracy elsewhere. Having said that, Russia's emerging military defeat and the collapse of its imperial plan does not mean that Israel can afford to join the West's anti-Russian efforts. The Jewish state must take into account the sizable Jewish communities on both sides of this conflict and adapt to Russia's military presence and political role on the Syrian border. This is why Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid chose to remain militarily neutral, an election endorsed by Benjamin Netanyahu, thus producing a consensus that now shines like a beam of light in these fearful days of Israel; awe-inspiring days when some Israelis were inspired by Putin's castration of his country's media and courts; Awe-inspiring days when the Russians' search for a ray of light was even more difficult than ours. MiddleIsrael.net A Hartman Institute member, the author is the author of the bestselling Mitzad Ha'ivelet Ha'yehudi , a revisionist history of the political leadership of the Jewish people. Gotopnews.com