If what's important is the immediate economy--you care about the next year, and only in things that are denominated in currency (or involve creature comforts), then hey, Obama won.
In other words, to declare victory we must first say we are short-term thinkers whose real interests are money and hedonism. Thanks but no thanks, my value system is a bit more complex than that.
As far as I'm concerned, the outcome's more than a bit murky. The Donbas could easily become a frozen conflict, or ramp up or be rolled back. I see no signs of the Crimea reverting to Ukrainian control any time soon. In a few years, it may be clearer who won. Of course, nobody will remember the bravado of who claimed when years before.
Note that the USSR was an economic basket case even as it aided and abetted often repressive governments around the world, remained a military threat, and maintained its domestic empire and near-abroad sphere of influence. And it did this for decades. We assume now that the prospect of predicted economic hardships means that "we" have won. Really, such projection is unseemly and always has been.
Why the USSr failed is a many-storied history. Even the official internal accounts have varied. While they never have really firmed up at any point, they've gone from purely internal reasons based on economics, ideology and confidence, or lack of will to external threats and manipulation that ultimately resolve to economics, ideology and confidence, or lack of will. I view it as primarily an internal affair--one triggered by extreme disillusionment by many in a miserable economy after being lied to for a generation, coupled with weakness on the part of a few. (I think it was a good thing.) Too many "public thinkers" want single-cause answers.
Currently outside opposition is leading to greater support for the pro-state ideology. The economy has had good times, but harder times can easily be accommodated again. There's apparently no lack of will in evidence--that, of course, can change. External threats are primarily economic, but they're portrayed in militaristic terms, and RT can't avoid having a "rah-rah militarism" article at least every 2-3 days, far less often than, say, Russia 24 or Channel 1. In other words, while some view $ and hedonism as the core of their values, many Russians still put nationalism and standing up to out-group indignities as more important. Not all cultures are the same.
The interesting question is why the breakup of the USSR did not lead to violence, and that's instructure of the conflict in the Donbas. Because given small breakups and no "military option" to stop it, the rest of the empire saw it was safe to self-dismember. It nearly dissolved at a more fundamental level, with the RSFSR itself decomposing into poorly defined constituent parts (a prospect that still makes Putin break out into a cold sweat even while being birch-slapped in a Russian banya). The LNR and DNR folk assumed that Ukraine would go the same way when Ukr let the Krym be stripped away with barely a shot fired.
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