好英语网俄乌谈判取得进展背后，俄罗斯的真实目的是什么？
BRUSSELS — As envoys made progress in peace talks on Tuesday, Russia offered concessions that signaled a more realistic course for the war in Ukraine, while indicating it is also in no hurry to end the conflict, according to diplomats and analysts.
布鲁塞尔——外交官和分析人士表示，随着特使们周二在和平谈判中取得进展，俄罗斯做出了让步，这表明乌克兰战争有了更现实的方向，同时也表明俄罗斯不急于结束冲突。
Russia’s deputy defense minister, Aleksandr Fomin, presented the decision to “sharply reduce” military activity around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv as a gesture “to increase mutual trust for future negotiations.”
俄罗斯国防部副部长亚历山大·福明表示，决定“大幅减少”乌克兰首都基辅和北部城市切尔尼戈夫周围的军事活动，以作为“为未来谈判增加互信”的姿态。
周二，土耳其总统埃尔多安在伊斯坦布尔举行的俄乌会谈中。
But the Russian advance in the north had already stalled, with troops around Kyiv taking up defensive positions in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks, both there and near Sumy, where Russia has been having trouble encircling the main Ukrainian army east of the Dnieper River.
然而，俄罗斯在北部的推进已经停滞，基辅周围的部队在面对乌克兰的反击时采取守势，在苏梅附近也是如此，在那里，俄罗斯一直难以包围第聂伯河以东的乌克兰主要军队。
“De-escalation is a euphemism for retreat,” said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of War Studies at King’s College London. “Russia is adjusting its goals to reality, because war is quite empirical,” he said. “It’s not a ruse to say that they are concentrating on the Donbas, because in reality that’s all they can do.”
“降级是撤退的委婉说法，”伦敦国王学院战争研究荣休教授劳伦斯·弗里德曼说。“俄罗斯正在根据现实调整自己的目标，因为战争主要是以经验为依据的，”他说。“说他们专注顿巴斯并不是一种诡计，因为在现实中他们能做的只有这些。”
But retreat is hardly surrender, and others cautioned that the progress made Tuesday doesn’t mean that Russia is ready for serious discussions on ending the war. That would require a better outcome for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to sell at home as a victory.
但让步绝不是投降，其他人警告，周二取得的进展并不意味着俄罗斯准备就结束战争进行认真的讨论。俄罗斯需要取得更好的结果才能让普京总统在国内宣扬自己取得了胜利。
On Tuesday, the Ukrainians outlined a 15-year process of negotiations about the status of Crimea, and said that control of the Donbas Region could be discussed in meetings between Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Russia has said it would only set a meeting between the two presidents once a draft peace agreement was ready.
周二，乌克兰方面建议通过15年的双边会谈解决克里米亚问题，并表示普京和乌克兰总统泽连斯基可能会在会谈中讨论顿巴斯地区的控制权。俄罗斯表示，只有在和平协议草案准备好后，才会安排两国总统举行会晤。
Some analysts say such an agreement would, at minimum, have to give Russia control of Mariupol, the besieged port city in Ukraine that is still somehow holding out, to create a secure land route between two areas that Russia occupies: Crimea to the west, and the Donbas to the east. And it would also, they say, have to cede control over the two administrative regions in the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, which Mr. Putin has already declared to be independent republics.
一些分析人士表示，这样的协议至少必须让俄罗斯控制目前被围困的乌克兰港口城市马里乌波尔，从而在俄罗斯占领的两个地区——西边的克里米亚和东边的顿巴斯——之间建立一条安全的陆路通道。他们还表示，它还必须让乌克兰放弃对顿巴斯的两个行政区卢甘斯克和顿涅茨克的控制权，普京已经宣布两地为独立共和国。
“Russia is in no place to negotiate seriously because they have to do better in the war,” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst with the Foundation for Strategic Research. “This is a chance for the Russians to consolidate, to regroup, to remove themselves from places out of reach logistically, where they have already run out of food and ammunition.”
“俄罗斯没有正经谈判的资本，因为他们在战争中做得不够好，”战略研究基金会的法国国防分析师弗朗索瓦·埃斯堡说。“这是俄罗斯人巩固和重组的机会，让他们可以从后勤上无法到达的地方撤离，在那里他们已经耗尽了食物和弹药。”
Some senior Western officials agreed, saying that the Russians were badly short of artillery shells and other ammunition and needed to resupply.
一些西方高级官员对此表示同意，说俄罗斯严重缺乏炮弹和其他弹药，需要补给。
Nor will Mr. Putin easily end the war, Mr. Heisbourg said. If he takes the area east of the Dnieper, “that may be enough for now, but he will rebuild his army and continue.”
埃斯堡说，普京也不会轻易结束这场战争。如果他拿下了第聂伯河以东的地区，“目前这也许就足够了，但他会重建军队，继续作战。”
For both sides, said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London research institution, “the negotiations are not serious, in the sense that negotiations now for both sides are a continuation of the war, not a solution.” Russia can concentrate on the east, and Ukraine will find it hard to move from its agile defense to serious counterattacks, he said. “And Putin hasn’t forgotten about Kyiv.”
伦敦研究机构查塔姆研究所所长罗宾·尼布利特说，对双方来说，“谈判并不认真，因为双方现在的谈判是战争的延续，而不是解决方案。”他说，俄罗斯可以把注意力集中在东部，而乌克兰将会发现，很难从敏捷的防守转变为真正的反击。“而且普京没有忘记基辅。”
Even if Mr. Putin can control and “settle” for another partition of Ukraine in the east, “Ukraine has to sign up for it, and if not, I don’t think we lift the sanctions,” Mr. Niblett said.
尼布利特说，即使普京能够控制并“解决”乌克兰东部的另一个分区，“乌克兰也必须签字同意，如果它不同意，我认为我们不会解除制裁。”
His colleague, Mathieu Boulègue, a French scholar who studies the Russian military, agrees that Russia is not negotiating in good faith, but “testing the waters and applying for time, to regroup and re-equip militarily and make more gains on the ground.”
他的同事、研究俄罗斯军事的法国学者马蒂厄·布莱格也认为，俄罗斯在谈判中没有诚意，而是“在试水，争取时间，重新部署和装备军事力量，在地面战中取得更多进展”。
The Russian military appears to have taken control of what might be called Phase 2 of a botched operation, he said, which should have been Phase 1. Taking Mariupol, the land bridge and the Donbas “would have been the grown-up military plan.” Modern warfare is half information warfare, Mr. Boulègue said, “and success is what you make of it,” especially in a repressive media environment as in Russia now.
他说，俄罗斯军方似乎已经控制了这场可以称之为失败行动的所谓第二阶段，其实它本该是第一阶段。拿下马里乌波尔、陆桥(land bridge)和顿巴斯“本应是成熟的军事计划”。现代战争有一半是信息战，“成功取决于你如何利用它，”布莱格说，特别是在像俄罗斯现在这样的压制性媒体环境下。
The Russian forces’ inability to capture cities and keep territory is apparent after a month, he said, “so strategic goals have had to change.”
他说，经过了一个月，俄罗斯军队明显无力占领城市和守住领土，“因此战略目标不得不改变。”
But to completely withdraw from Kyiv would allow the Ukrainians to reinforce the Donbas region and give them a significant victory, suggested Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at CNA, a defense research institution in Virginia, in a tweet.
但是，弗吉尼亚国防研究机构CNA的俄罗斯研究主任迈克尔·科夫曼发推表示，俄罗斯如果完全撤出基辅会让乌克兰人增援顿巴斯地区，让他们获得重大胜利。
Traveling in Morocco, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also cast doubt on Russia’s pledge to reduce hostilities. “There is what Russia says and there’s what Russia does,” he said on Tuesday. “We’re focused on the latter. And what Russia is doing is the continued brutalization of Ukraine and its people and that continues as we speak.”
正在摩洛哥访问的美国国务卿布林肯也对俄罗斯减少敌对行动的承诺表示怀疑。“俄罗斯说了什么不代表它做了什么，”他周二表示。“我们关注的是后者。而俄罗斯正在做的是继续残害乌克兰及其人民，就在我们说话的时候，这种情况还在继续。”
Russia did not stop fighting after the annexation of Crimea in 2015, but actively supported the separatists in the Donbas, said Ian Bond, a former British diplomat in Russia and the head of foreign policy for the Center for European Reform. “I’m a skeptic about the Russians giving up on the war,” he said. “We’ve seen this movie before in 2014 and 2015. I view this as only a pause.”
前英国驻俄罗斯外交官、欧洲改革中心外交政策负责人伊恩·邦德表示，俄罗斯在2015年吞并克里米亚后并没有停止战斗，而是积极支持顿巴斯的分离主义分子。“我对俄罗斯人放弃战争持怀疑态度，”他说。“我们之前在2014年和2015年看过这幕戏了。我认为这只是一个暂停。”
Ian Garner, a historian of Russian propaganda, pointed out on Twitter that “Putin’s Russia — indeed, post-Soviet Russia — has been engaged in mucky, endless conflicts for years,” citing Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia in Georgia and the Donbas, all areas in other countries where Russian forces back separatist movements. “Not ended, maybe,” he said, but “in the intermission.”
研究俄罗斯宣传史的伊恩·加纳在Twitter上指出，“普京的俄罗斯——实际上，是后苏联时代的俄罗斯——多年来一直处于肮脏的、无休止的冲突之中”，他还说摩尔多瓦的德涅斯特河沿岸、格鲁吉亚的阿布哈兹和顿巴斯，所有这些都是俄罗斯军队在其他国家支持分离主义运动的地区。“也许没有结束，”他说，只是“在中场休息”。
The senior Ukrainian negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, suggested after the talks on Tuesday that the two sides were talking seriously about neutrality for Ukraine, a treaty guaranteeing its security by NATO member states like the United States, Britain, Turkey, France and Germany, a cease-fire and humanitarian corridors.
乌克兰高级谈判代表米哈伊洛·波多利亚克在周二的会谈后表示，双方正在认真讨论乌克兰的中立性问题，一项由美国、英国、土耳其、法国和德国等北约成员国保障其安全的条约，一个停火协议以及人道主义走廊。
Ukrainian and Western officials also suggested that Russia would be willing for a demilitarized Ukraine to join the European Union, so long as it forswore joining NATO or hosting any foreign forces.
乌克兰和西方官员还表示，俄罗斯可能会愿意让一个非军事化的乌克兰加入欧盟，前提是乌克兰放弃加入北约或允许任何外国军队驻扎。
But security analysts questioned the sincerity of such an agreement.
但安全分析师质疑这样一项协议的诚意。
Mr. Bond said that the problem with Ukraine’s notion of neutrality is that so far none of the countries it wants to guarantee it would agree to do so. It would be like NATO membership with collective defense by another name, so highly unlikely, he said.
邦德说，乌克兰的中立问题在于，到目前为止，它希望能够做出担保的国家没有一个同意这样做。他说，这相当于北约成员国换个名头进行集体防御，因此极不可能。
As for European Union membership, Mr. Niblett said, that would represent the largest danger to Mr. Putin, who helped stimulate the 2014 revolt in Ukraine when he forced the then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, to renege on a trade agreement with the bloc. If Ukraine joined now, Mr. Niblett said, the country would develop economically even faster, in contrast to Russia, “and you would end up with a South Korea next to a North Korea, and I can’t see Putin accepting that.”
至于欧盟成员国身份，尼布利特说，这对普京来说是最大的危险，普京曾在2014年迫使时任总统维克托·亚努科维奇放弃与欧盟的贸易协定，帮助刺激了乌克兰的暴乱。尼布利特说，如果乌克兰现在加入，与俄罗斯相比，该国的经济发展速度会更快，“最终就像在朝鲜旁边出现一个韩国，我不觉得普京会接受这一点。”
Even more, he said, the European Union treaties contain a collective defense promise as well.
他说，更重要的是，欧盟条约也包含集体防御承诺。
Still, Mr. Boulègue said, the European Union needs to give Ukraine a clear response about its prospects for membership. “Whether that leads to E.U. membership or not is not for Russia to decide,” he said. “But the E.U. needs to be absolutely clear about the future of Ukraine going forward, it’s the moral thing to do.”
不过，布勒格说，欧盟需要就乌克兰加入欧盟的可能性向该国作出明确回应。“无论乌克兰是否因此成为欧盟成员国，这不由俄罗斯决定，”他说。“但欧盟需要对乌克兰的未来作出绝对清晰的表示，这是道义上的责任。”