The world is struggling to define the situation currently unfolding in Eastern Europe. No one can read Russian President Vladimir Putin's mind so no one can really predict what he may do next.
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Judging his actions so far it seems that, barring a dramatic event, the Russian president will have the upper hand in the Ukrainian conflict, meaning he will have essentially defeated the United States and its allies – the same countries now allied with Kyiv. And even if somehow the West has the upper hand, Putin will not actually be defeated or humiliated.
This is the way of the rulers of Russia, the Tsars, from the beginning of time. And the present tsar is following suit.
The Russians are not giving up territory. Exactly eight years ago, Putin's Russia overran the Crimean peninsula citing the exact same pretext – Western sympathy. Ukraine has – and does – favor the West, meaning it is hostile to Russia in the east.
US sanctions did little to deter Putin in Crimea's case. Clearly, they are not a deterring factor in Ukraine's case, either.
There are periodic scholarly estimates that the United States superpower status in on the decline.
Some say: The empire is not what it used to be. The United States has twice in the past sent troops to bail out Europe when it was facing tyrants threatening to rip it apart, but now the US is on the brink of reaching another deal with Iran – a country that is widely believed to be developing a nuclear bomb and the means to launch them, all while the world is listening to this UN member-state as it threatens to destroy Israel.
Other say that Israel has failed to prevent the 2015 nuclear deal from being signed or introducing any major changes to it, and the same seems to be the case this time. Former PM Benjamin Netanyahu's rival say he is at fault for the former, while others think it is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who is to blame.
Truth be told, only omniscience pundits can tell us how to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, and for many Israelis, current events in Ukraine demonstrate the American flaccidness vis-à-vis Russia's aggression and Iran's belligerence.
There is also the matter of the hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan, of course, which allowed one of the most radical Islamic players to rise to power.
The vacuum created due to the weakness of one superpower is immediately filled with the plots of a rival power. As long as Putin does not intend to relent, Israel has only one choice: to walk the very fine line with respect to its position on the Ukraine crisis.
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