It's unclear whether you intend "we" in that sentence to mean Foreign Policy (the article) or the Russian government.
FP has a history of sensible analysis, and is not generally prone to self-delusion. That doesn't make them right in this instance, but it would be very much out of character for them to be telling stories to make themselves feel better.
In this case the article is mostly channeling conventional wisdom. Had Russia won a quick and easy victory, this might have been a net benefit to them, but even that's unclear. They've isolated themselves badly, and they are not as indispensable to the West as they seem to imagine. This is how Western commentators have seen it ever since they failed to get the kind of blitzkrieg victory they achieved in Georgia.
So conceivably your post could apply to the Russian government, telling itself that there is still some path to victory. But if you think it applies to the article, you're going to have to justify it a lot more than you have so far.
