这已不是唐纳德·特朗普第一次宣布达成“宏大而美好的协议”来结束一场战争。就俄罗斯入侵乌克兰而言，他至少已做过三次类似的宣布。但他最近的表态——就在俄罗斯、乌克兰和美国自2月以来首次三方会谈开始前几天发出——已在基辅和欧洲部分地区敲响了警钟。谈判定于11月10日在阿布扎比开始。
IT WAS NOT the first time Donald Trump announced a “big, beautiful agreement” to end a war. In the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has made similar announcements at least three times. But his most recent remarks, delivered just days before the start of the first trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and America since February, have set alarm bells ringing in Kyiv and in parts of Europe. The negotiations are due to begin on November 10th in Abu Dhabi.
很少有人相信严肃外交的窗口已经打开。但美国和乌克兰的知情人士称，特朗普总统在中选中惨败，给这一进程注入了新的紧迫性。民主党人将于明年1月成为国会两院多数党，这为他的主要谈判代表史蒂夫·威特科夫和贾里德·库什纳设定了一个硬性期限，他们可能很快因涉嫌利益冲突而面临调查。乌克兰谈判代表私下对取得突破持怀疑态度，但已接到指示要以开放的心态对待会谈，哪怕只是为了不惹恼特朗普。
Few believe a window for serious diplomacy has opened. But insiders in America and Ukraine report that President Trump’s heavy defeat in the midterm elections has injected a new urgency into the process. The arrival of Democratic majorities in the two houses of Congress in January offers a firm deadline to his main negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who could soon face investigations over alleged conflicts of interest. Ukrainian negotiators are privately sceptical of a breakthrough, but have been instructed to approach the talks with an open mind, if only to avoid annoying Mr Trump.
了解这场为期两天会谈的人士指出，俄罗斯正发出不同寻常的灵活信号，甚至在结束当前前线战斗的问题上也是如此。但这种灵活性只出现在美国谈判代表提出扩大会谈范围、将更广泛的欧洲安全讨论纳入其中之后。批评者认为，这为俄罗斯提出永远无法满足的新要求打开了大门，使其能够一边假装谈论和平，一边继续战争。美国官员坚称，这些提议得到了欧洲伙伴和北约的支持。
People familiar with the talks, which will be held over two days, note that Russia is signalling unusual flexibility, even on the matter of ending the fighting on the current front lines. But this flexibility appeared only after American negotiators offered to broaden the talks to include a wider discussion about European security. That, argue critics, opened the door to Russia making new demands that can never be met, allowing it to continue the war while pretending to talk about peace. American officials insist the proposals have the backing of European partners and NATO.
乌克兰不相信弗拉基米尔·普京准备在俄罗斯的冬季攻势结束前签署全面和平协议。一名乌克兰高级官员说：“也许这是他们的B计划，而他们正在执行A计划。”然而，谈判的一个现实结果是一系列交错进行的、有限度的换囚，以及在前线战略重要性较低的地区实现局部停火，例如赫尔松州和苏梅州。这里的模式将是最近的一次停火，根据该停火协议，赫尔松州乌克兰城镇奥列什基的居民被撤离。
Ukraine does not believe Vladimir Putin is ready to sign a comprehensive peace deal before the end of Russia’s winter campaign. “Maybe it is their Plan B, while they execute their Plan A,” says a senior Ukrainian official. One realistic outcome of the talks, however, is a series of staggered and limited prisoner exchanges and localised ceasefires in less strategically important parts of the front line, such as the Kherson and Sumy regions. The model here would be the recent ceasefire under which residents of the Ukrainian town of Oleshky in the Kherson region were evacuated.
那项协议是在美国第一夫人梅拉尼娅·特朗普的帮助下促成的。另一名乌克兰官员说：“俄罗斯人似乎想支持梅拉尼娅的努力。这对他们与特朗普先生的关系有帮助。”美国已经提出了几项有争议的甜头，以诱使普京达成协议。其中之一是让俄罗斯重新接入欧洲能源市场——这违反欧盟的一项新法律。乌克兰及其欧洲伙伴都在抵制这一提议。
That deal was brokered with the help of Melania Trump, America’s First Lady. “The Russians appear to want to support Melania’s efforts,” says another Ukrainian official. “It’s helpful for their relationship with Mr Trump.”The Americans have already offered several controversial sweeteners to coax Mr Putin into a deal. One is to plug Russia back into European energy markets—in contravention of a new European Union law. Both Ukraine and its European partners are resisting this proposal.
一名乌克兰官员说：“战争仍在激烈进行时，我们绝不可能同意那一点。”据参与谈判的人士说，另一个想法是地图上的糊弄：重新划定乌克兰的行政边界，让俄罗斯得以声称完全控制其想要征服的卢甘斯克和顿涅茨克地区，而乌克兰无需交出仍掌握在其手中的其余城市。
“Not a chance of us agreeing to that while the war is still raging,” says a Ukrainian official. Another idea, according to people involved in the talks, is a cartographic fudge: to redraw Ukraine’s administrative boundaries to allow Russia to claim full control of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions it wants to conquer without Ukraine surrendering the remaining cities it holds.
和以往一样，最棘手的问题是安全保障，乌克兰表示，没有安全保障就无法停止战斗。目前，没有明显的妥协方案既能让俄罗斯宣称胜利，又能让乌克兰保留完全主权，哪怕仅限于其剩余领土。美国谈判代表称，普京可能会接受美国提供的类似北约第四条或第五条的承诺，即如果乌克兰受到威胁承诺磋商，如果遭到攻击承诺保卫。
As before, the most difficult issue is security guarantees, without which Ukraine says it cannot stop fighting. For now, there is no obvious compromise that would allow Russia to declare victory, while allowing Ukraine to retain full sovereignty, even over what remains of its territory. America’s negotiators say Mr Putin could accept a NATO-style Article 4 or Article 5 from America, meaning a promise to consult if Ukraine is threatened, or defend it if it is attacked.
但乌克兰人怀疑他们能否信任特朗普会履行任何此类保障。俄罗斯方面则没有迹象表明会接受多国安抚部队进入乌克兰。它也没有放弃要求乌克兰必须宣布中立并缩减军队规模。
But Ukrainians doubt they could trust that Mr Trump would honour any such guarantees. Russia, for its part, shows no indication it would accept a multinational reassurance force inside Ukraine. Nor has it dropped its demands that Ukraine must declare its neutrality and reduce the size of its army.
乌克兰和欧洲官员表示，他们担心美国提出将欧洲自身安全安排纳入谈判，会给俄罗斯提供新的筹码来拖延同意停火。他们认为，停火应先于任何关于欧洲未来安全的对话。但美国人不同意，似乎采取了一个接近普京自2022年入侵前夕以来所持立场的位置：即如果不讨论欧洲未来的安全安排，乌克兰战争就无法结束。
Ukrainian and European officials say they fear that America’s offer to include talks about Europe’s own security arrangements will give Russia new levers to pull to delay agreeing to a ceasefire. They argue that a ceasefire should come before any conversation about Europe’s future security. But the Americans disagree, and seem to take a position close to the one Mr Putin has held since the eve of his invasion in 2022: that the war in Ukraine cannot end without discussion of Europe’s future security arrangements.
一位接近白宫的消息人士称，这种新架构的模式可能是一个重组后的北约-俄罗斯理事会。该消息人士补充道：“试想‘之后会怎样’并没有错：‘在所有人都告诉美国该[怎么做]的时候，没人能解决这场冲突。’”在谈判前的简报会上，一位美国官员表示，任何新安排都将尊重国家主权，北约“仍将是欧洲集体防御的核心”。
A source close to the White House says the model for this new architecture could be a reworked NATO-Russia Council. It was not wrong to try to imagine “what comes after”, the source added: “Nobody has been able to solve this conflict while everyone is telling the US how [to do so].”In a briefing ahead of the talks, an American official said any new arrangement would respect national sovereignty, with NATO “remaining central to European collective defence”.
尽管如此，很难看出仅仅改革一个北约理事会如何能满足普京及其广为人知的愿望，即希望看到俄罗斯像苏联曾经那样主导东欧。
All the same, it is hard to see how simply reforming a NATO council could satisfy Mr Putin and his well-publicised desire to see Russia dominating eastern Europe in the way that the Soviet Union once did.
资金是另一个争议点。乌克兰的立场是，如果它要冒险复员并让俄罗斯重新融入世界经济，它将需要至少十年的巨额安全和财政援助。需要资金来弥补战争损失、支持退伍军人及其家属，并维持一支至少80万人的可靠军队。美国人认为这对它的支持者来说太昂贵了，并主张他们的安全保障应该足够了。目前也不清楚欧洲人是否愿意在战后为乌克兰军队承担这一水平的开支。特朗普与泽连斯基之间冷淡的关系不太可能使解决方案更近一步。
Money is another point of contention. Ukraine’s position is that it will require massive security and financial assistance, for at least ten years, if it is to risk demobilisation and Russia’s reintegration into the world economy. There would need to be funds to cover war damage, support veterans and their families, and to retain a credible army of at least 800,000 men. The Americans believe that is too expensive for its supporters, and argue their security guarantees should suffice. It is also unclear whether the Europeans would be happy to underwrite that level of spending on Ukraine’s army after the war. The frosty relationship between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky is unlikely to bring a solution closer.
尽管出现了新的外交势头，乌克兰国内的假设仍然是事情会先变得更糟，然后才会好转。该国进入冬季时，基础设施处于战争爆发以来最糟糕的状态。它的“爱国者”导弹几乎已经耗尽，这种导弹用于将弹道导弹击落天空。与美国达成的供应更多导弹的协议并未带来新的交付。与此同时，俄罗斯仍储备有约700枚此类导弹，每月还在生产110枚，并且正处于一场旨在使乌克兰城市、主要是基辅变得无法居住的行动的中途。
For all the new diplomatic energy, the assumption in Ukraine remains that things will get worse before they get better. The country enters the winter with its infrastructure in the worst shape since the war began. It has all but run out of Patriot missiles, which are used to knock ballistic missiles out of the sky. A deal with America to supply more has not resulted in new deliveries. Russia, meanwhile, still has a stockpile of some 700 such missiles, is producing another 110 a month, and is midway through a campaign to make Ukrainian cities, chiefly Kyiv, uninhabitable.
它正在摧毁桥梁、供水系统和电网。储备和备件正在减少。普京现在停下来会很奇怪。“我们的美国朋友想要突破，”这位乌克兰高级官员说。“但看到俄罗斯人对我们基础设施的所作所为，很难相信突破会到来。”■
It is destroying bridges, water systems and power grids. Reserves and spare parts are running low. It would be odd for Mr Putin to stop now. “Our American friends want a breakthrough,” the senior Ukrainian official says. “But seeing what the Russians are doing with our infrastructure, it’s hard to believe one is coming.” ■