Putin had hoped his late September intervention would kick off a decisive three-month offensive producing major territorial gains for the Syrian regime, according to Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya’alon…

“The Syrian regime has had tactical gains, but Russian air strikes have not been a game-changer in terms of allowing the Syrian army to move in” and hold territory, said Chris Kozak, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that closely tracks the Syrian battlefield.

Kozak added that Russia had achieved its “immediate priority” of blunting rebel momentum and preserving the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “The balance has clearly shifted and the rebels are on the defensive,” he said.

Even so, Obama officials increasingly offer a “told-you-so” line towards Putin’s intervention, which caught the White House off guard when it began in late September. At the time, Obama warned that Putin risked getting caught in a quagmire abroad while courting terrorism at home. Since then, a Russian airliner departing from Egypt was downed by a bomb, killing all 224 aboard. In late November, Turkey infuriated Moscow by shooting down a Russian Su-24 bomber that it said had crossed into its airspace. Rebels on the ground killed a Russian pilot and a Russian marine and destroyed a Russian helicopter participating in a rescue mission.