弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基再次与美国总统发生冲突，这次是因为他拒绝服从白宫的命令，停止轰炸俄罗斯的炼油厂。正如克里姆林宫和如今的唐纳德·特朗普所说，曾经主宰基辅的前喜剧演员是否已成为和平的主要障碍？
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is again in a throwdown with the president of the United States, this time over his refusal to obey a White House edict to stop bombing Russian oil refineries. So has the former comedian who rules Kyiv become the main barrier to peace, as both the Kremlin and now Donald Trump say?
作者：马克·钱皮恩 这毕竟不是乌克兰领导人唯一遇到的麻烦。他还与韩国发生外交争执，并与本国反腐机构陷入僵局，这些机构正在调查他一些最亲密的盟友。事实上，如果不是因为战争，泽连斯基早就可能被选民在一次常规选举中投票下台。
By Marc Champion This is not, after all, the only trouble Ukraine’s leader is having. He’s also in a diplomatic fight with South Korea and at loggerheads with his own country’s anti-corruption agencies, which are investigating some of his closest associates. Indeed, if it were not for the war, Zelenskyy likely would be long gone, voted out in a routine election.
然而，面对特朗普告诉乌克兰人他们需要选出一位愿意与克里姆林宫达成协议的新领导人，正确的回应是：你在开玩笑吗？事实上，在对乌克兰战争持续负有责任的政治家名单中，泽连斯基仅列第三位，排在俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京和特朗普本人之后。
And yet the correct response to Trump telling Ukrainians they need to pick a new leader willing to strike a deal with the Kremlin is: Are you kidding? Indeed, in the hierarchy of politicians responsible for the continuation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskyy ranks only third, after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump himself.
特朗普最近在社交媒体上宣布的能源停火协议，如果曾经存在的话，如今已经失败——尽管基辅已经提出此类协议数月之久，但普京拒绝接受。认为这种停火只应覆盖能源生产资产，如炼油厂——正如俄罗斯所主张的——是荒谬的。正如泽连斯基所指出的，乌克兰只有一座这样的设施，而且早已被摧毁。按照这种思路达成的协议实际上对俄罗斯没有任何要求，它可以继续摧毁乌克兰的电力和供暖系统，只是现在无需为此付出代价。
Take the energy ceasefire Trump recently announced on social media. This failed if it ever existed because, although such a deal has been on offer from Kyiv for many months, Putin refuses to accept. It is ridiculous to suggest — as Russia does — that such a ceasefire should cover only energy-producing assets such as oil refineries. As Zelenskyy has pointed out, Ukraine has just one of those and it was long since destroyed. A deal on those lines would ask nothing of Russia, which could go on destroying Ukraine’s power and heating systems, only now without paying a cost.
自今年年初以来，普京在战场上屡遭挫折，于是他把全部力量投入到远程空中战争中，而俄罗斯在这场战争中仍然保持着明显且日益增长的优势。正如我之前所写的，这对乌克兰来说是一个极其危险的时刻。这是由于俄罗斯导弹产量增加、其Shahed式Geran无人机加装了喷气发动机，以及乌克兰防空库存被耗尽所致。
Stymied on the battlefield since the start of this year, Putin has thrown everything into the long-range air war, where Russia still holds a clear and growing advantage. As I’ve written before, it’s an extremely dangerous moment for Ukraine. This is a function of increased Russian missile production, the addition of jet engines to its Shahed-style Geran drones and the emptying of Ukraine’s air-defense stocks.
乌克兰仅击落了俄罗斯在9月份发射的数千架Geran无人机中的57%，而在喷气动力引入之前这一比例曾达到95%。随着乌克兰进行调整，这一拦截率在最近几天升至约80%，但鉴于美国制造的爱国者拦截弹药极其稀缺，乌克兰击落弹道导弹的能力仍然严重受限。
Ukraine downed only 57% of the thousands of Gerans that Russia fired in September, down from 95% before the introduction of jet power. That strike rate increased to around 80% in recent days as Ukraine adjusted, but its ability to bring down ballistic missiles remains severely limited given the scarcity of US-made Patriot interceptors.
乌克兰的电力网络和集中供暖系统目前状况已经比去年冬末更糟 — — 而这个冬天尚未开始。经济的核心部门已被关停。停电现象普遍。普京不会停止这一行动，因为他已经把战争的赌注押在了这一点上，并且相信自己能够获胜。
Ukraine’s electricity grid and centralized heating systems are already in worse shape than they were at the end of previous winters — and this one has yet to start. Core sectors of the economy have been shut down. Power cuts are common. Putin will not stop this campaign, because he has bet the war on it and believes he can win.
从军事角度来看，更重要的是，这种加强的俄罗斯空中行动迫使乌克兰将资源从前线抽调出来，并花费它本没有的钱财，以应对俄罗斯每日无人机和导弹的密集袭击，从而保卫全国。基辅的安全分析师米科拉·别利耶斯科夫最近这样告诉我。
In military terms, what’s even more important is that this intensified Russian air campaign has forced Ukraine to shift resources away from the front and spend money it doesn’t have in order to defend the entire country against the daily swarms of Russian drones and missiles, Mykola Bielieskov, a Kyiv-based security analyst, recently told me.
这把我们带到了美国面前，以及它对泽连斯基所提出的根本选择：通过同意俄罗斯的投降条款来避免与白宫发生冲突，或者公然挑战它 — — 而且这不是第一次 — — 争取欧洲盟友的帮助，说服特朗普不要惩罚乌克兰。泽连斯基选择了后者，目前正在欧洲各国巡演，以争取支持。
This brings us to the US and the fundamental choice it has presented to Zelenskyy: Avoid trouble with the White House by agreeing to Russia’s terms for surrender, or defy it and — not for the first time — engage allies in Europe to help talk Trump out of punishing Ukraine. Zelenskyy picked the latter and is duly touring Europe to rally support.
这套办法曾经奏效过一次，但无法保证它还能再次奏效。而且，违抗的潜在代价仍然很高。泽连斯基表示，“盟友”（这里指美国）最近在看到弹道导弹从俄罗斯发射场升空、飞向乌克兰目标时，未能像往常一样发出预警；防守方只有几秒钟的反应时间，所有导弹都击中了目标。有人死亡。能源设施被摧毁。特朗普政府本来可以零成本阻止这一切，却选择不作为。
This worked once before, but there’s no guarantee that it will do so again. And the potential costs of defiance remain high. Already, Zelenskyy says “allies” (for which read the US) recently failed to give the usual warning on seeing ballistic missiles leave their launch pads in Russia on their way to targets in Ukraine; defenders had only seconds of notice and all got through. People died. Energy assets were destroyed. The Trump administration had the power to prevent that at no cost to itself and chose not to.
随后，周三，泽连斯基在七月份担任军事技术顾问的瑟希伊·贝斯克雷斯特诺夫在Telegram上写道，埃隆·马斯克的星链（Starlink）间歇性地切断了对其服务的高速访问。乌克兰前线无人机飞行员依赖星链来运行其制导系统；这些中断导致在乌克兰被俄占领地区进行的中程作战行动失败。
Then, on Wednesday, Serhiy Beskrestnov, an advisor to Zelenskyy on military technologies in July, wrote on Telegram that Elon Musk’s Starlink had intermittently cut off high-speed access to its service. Ukraine’s frontline drone pilots rely on this for their guidance systems; the outages caused mid-range combat operations over Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to fail.
正如贝斯克雷斯特诺夫在其帖子中所写，这些事件不太可能是巧合。相反，它们提醒人们，特朗普拥有切断情报共享和武器销售的权力——而这些对乌克兰的战争努力仍然至关重要——并且他在构成威胁。白宫显然认为它可以通过恐吓泽连斯基来让他屈从于特朗普的意愿。但这种做法在政治上和道德上都是错误的。它根本误解了这场战争的本质以及双方停火所需的条件。这就是为什么特朗普成为任何和平解决方案的最大障碍。
As Beskrestnov wrote in his post, these events are unlikely to be coincidental. Rather, they’re a reminder that Trump wields the power to switch off intelligence sharing and weapons sales that remain vital to the Ukrainian war effort — and a threat. The White House clearly believes it can intimidate Zelenskyy into doing Trump’s bidding. But this approach is as politically misguided as it is morally bankrupt. It profoundly misunderstands what the war is about and what it would take for either side to stop. This is why Trump is the bigger obstacle to any peace settlement.
特朗普的威胁无法奏效，因为不存在一个愿意接受白宫试图强加给基辅的俄罗斯条件的可选乌克兰领导人。此外，有意义的选举也不可能进行。克里姆林宫暗示它将在投票当天停火，这只能说明俄罗斯领导人对确保真正的民主选择几乎不关心。不幸的是，同样的说法也适用于特朗普。
Trump’s threats cannot work because there is no electable Ukrainian leader-in-waiting who would accept the Russian terms that the White House is trying to force on Kyiv. Nor are meaningful elections possible. The Kremlin’s suggestion that it would cease fire for the day of a vote only shows how little Russia’s leaders care about ensuring genuine democratic choice. Sadly, the same can be said of Trump.
无论有没有美国情报和导弹，乌克兰人都将继续作战。“我们别无选择，” Bielieskov 说。他为乌克兰非营利组织“复活”担任安全分析师，该组织自 2022 年以来一直向乌克兰武装部队提供价值近 120 万美元的无人机和其他军事装备。
With or without US intelligence and missiles, Ukrainians will go on fighting. “We don’t have any choice,” says Bielieskov, who serves as security analyst for Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian nonprofit that has supplied nearly $1.2 billion worth of drones and other military equipment to Ukraine’s armed forces since 2022.
特朗普似乎在这样假设下行事：他认为自己可以凭借对基辅比对莫斯科更大的杠杆作用，迫使乌克兰接受他想要的协议。他还似乎认为，通过满足普京想要的协议，可以获得商业利益；或者通过利用重新恢复的俄罗斯柴油出口来缓解价格，至少把高价的责任从自己转嫁到乌克兰身上，以此在中期选举前赢得政治胜利。泽连斯基之所以如此反应，是因为所有这些博弈都将以乌克兰人的生命为代价。
Trump appears to work under the assumption that he can drive Ukraine into the deal he wants because he has more leverage over Kyiv than Moscow. He also appears to believe there is potential for commercial benefit from getting Putin the deal he wants, and for a political win ahead of midterms by either using renewed Russian diesel exports to ease prices or at least shifting blame for the high prices from himself to Ukraine. Zelenskyy reacted as he did because all these games would come at the price of Ukrainian lives.
美国总统一直拥有结束这场战争的资源。诚然，这需要与盟友合作，让普京清楚地认识到，他自入侵以来在乌克兰获得的收益是他能得到的最好结果，而继续下去只会让这些战果——以及他自己的政治地位——蒙受风险。而且这从来就不会是一件容易或快速的事。但这仍然是通往持久和平的唯一可行——更不用说光荣——的道路。因为与泽连斯基不同，普京可以在他愿意的任何一天停止入侵。
The US president has always had the resources to end this war. True, it requires working with allies to make clear to Putin that the gains he has made in Ukraine since invading are the best he can get, and that continuing would only put those spoils — and his own political position — at risk. And that was never going to be an easy or quick task. But it remains the only viable — not to mention honorable — path to a lasting peace. Because unlike Zelenskyy, Putin can stop his invasion any day he wants.