Russia has just won a Pyrrhic victory in Ukraine, and if you are not sure what that is, just ask Vladimir Putin.  Better still - ask someone else, because Putin won’t want to talk about it. 

A Pyrrhic victory is a battle where one side technically is the winner, but it has paid such a high price that in reality it suffered a major defeat.  The term comes from Pyrrhus, a king who defeated the Romans in a battle at Asculum in 279 BCE; Pyrrhus won the battle but suffered terrible losses in the process.  Russia’s attack on Ukraine brings that to mind.