Is Europe up to Putin’s challenge—and vice versa?
The celebration of Ukraine’s 35th anniversary of regaining independence amidst continuing war with Russia was symbolic on many levels – and also indicative of the growing risks of escalation.
乌克兰在与俄罗斯持续交战的情况下庆祝重新获得独立 35 周年在很多层面上都具有象征意义 — — 也表明升级的风险日益增加。
The arrival of many European leaders compelled Moscow to make a pause in its missile strikes on Kyiv, after a particularly heavy series of attacks in the first three weeks of August.
在八月的前三周发生了一系列特别严重的袭击之后，许多欧洲领导人的到来迫使莫斯科暂停了对基辅的导弹袭击。
Ukraine’s European allies reiterated their commitment to support its resistance against Russian aggression and made some new pledges , which are indeed necessary to compensate for the lack of aid from the Trump administration, which was conspicuous by its absence at the ceremonies.
乌克兰的欧洲盟友重申了支持其抵抗俄罗斯侵略的承诺，并做出了一些新的承诺，这确实是必要的，以弥补特朗普政府援助的不足，特朗普政府因缺席仪式而引人注目。
It was Andy Burnham, still new in the job of UK’s prime minister, who claimed the central role in the sombre festivities in Kyiv and attracted more than usual ire in Moscow .
安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）刚刚担任英国首相，他在基辅的阴沉庆祝活动中扮演了核心角色，并在莫斯科引起了比平常更多的愤怒。
The agreement Burnham finalised in Kyiv to transfer to Ukraine the technology for producing the Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles follows the French decision to share its part of the joint design and cannot have any immediate impact on fast-evolving combat operations.
伯纳姆在基辅敲定协议，向乌克兰转让生产风暴之影/斯卡普导弹的技术，此前法国决定分享其联合设计的一部分，但不会对快速发展的作战行动产生任何直接影响。
Ukrainian Air Force has too few platforms capable of using these missiles, and its F-16s are preoccupied primarily with missions to intercept Russian Kalibr and Kh-101 cruise missiles.
乌克兰空军能够使用这些导弹的平台太少，其 F-16 战斗机主要专注于拦截俄罗斯“口径”和 Kh-101 巡航导弹的任务。
What made the Kremlin worried was the fast progress in the process of Ukraine’s integration into the European defense-industrial complex, which effectively cancels its goals of keeping Ukraine down and Europe – divided.
令克里姆林宫担忧的是，乌克兰融入欧洲国防工业联合体的进程进展迅速，这实际上抵消了其打压乌克兰、分裂欧洲的目标。
Moscow as usual tried to camouflage its fears as anger, but Burham resolutely shrugged off the threats of repercussions.
莫斯科像往常一样试图将其恐惧伪装成愤怒，但伯勒姆坚决不理会后果的威胁。
Russia indeed produced a volume of threats in order to prevent many European initiatives from the delivery of Leopard-2 tanks in Spring 2023 to the seizure of tankers last August.
从2023年春季交付Leopard-2坦克到去年8月扣押油轮，俄罗斯确实发出了大量威胁，以阻止欧洲的许多举措。
Each new threat needs to be graver and more specific to make any impact, and the proposition that British military installations beyond Ukraine could be targeted sets a new mark, which still doesn’t make it credible .
每一个新的威胁都需要更严重、更具体才能产生影响，而乌克兰以外的英国军事设施可能成为攻击目标的主张树立了一个新的标志，但这仍然不使它可信。
An escalation of Russian “hybrid” operations in Europe has been reported, and authorities take the due measures to increase protection of military plants against possible acts of sabotage .
据报道，俄罗斯在欧洲的“混合”行动有所升级，当局采取了适当措施，加强对军事工厂的保护，防止可能的破坏行为。
The real scale of this Russian campaign executed mostly by cheaply recruited local thugs is, nevertheless, minuscule compared with Ukrainian long-distance strikes on such key ordnance facilities as the Kamensky plant in the Rostov region.
然而，与乌克兰对罗斯托夫地区卡缅斯基工厂等关键军械设施的远程打击相比，俄罗斯这次主要由廉价招募的当地暴徒实施的这次行动的实际规模微不足道。
Hacker group Rhysida has tried to blackmail the Berlin city authorities, but there are no traces of its links to Russia, and such major incidents as the blackout in the Heathrow airport on 21 March 2025, not to mention the massive grid failure in Portugal and Spain in April 2025, were most certainly not of Russia’s making.
黑客组织 Rhysida 曾试图勒索柏林市当局，但没有任何迹象表明其与俄罗斯有联系，而诸如 2025 年 3 月 21 日希思罗机场停电等重大事件，更不用说 2025 年 4 月葡萄牙和西班牙的大规模电网故障，肯定不是俄罗斯所为。
Every Russian attempt to test European resilience to unconventional attacks has so far only prompted various governments to invest more in protective measures and also backfired in the steady tightening of the EU sanctions regime.
迄今为止，俄罗斯每一次尝试测试欧洲对非常规攻击的抵御能力，都只会促使各国政府加大对保护措施的投资，并导致欧盟制裁制度的不断收紧，适得其反。
Russia’s own vulnerability to attacks targeting civilian infrastructure has been exposed by the sequence of spectacular Ukrainian strikes on the huge warehouses constructed in the last few years by the Wildberries online retailer.
乌克兰过去几年对 Wildberry 在线零售商建造的大型仓库发动的一系列大规模袭击，暴露了俄罗斯自身在民用基础设施攻击面前的脆弱性。
The damage is far greater than just the value of consumer goods because the volume of debt accumulated by this fast-expanding business is painfully heavy even for the giant VTB bank , which is compelled to throw good money after bad.
损害远远大于消费品的价值，因为这种快速扩张的业务所积累的债务量即使对于大型VTB银行来说也是令人痛苦的，它被迫在坏钱之后投入大量资金。
Andrei Kostin, VTB’s long-serving boss, has excellent connections in the Kremlin, but the government is still reluctant to come to his rescue because the state budget is deep in the red .
VTB长期任职的老板安德烈·科斯廷(Andrei Kostin)在克里姆林宫拥有极好的人脉，但政府仍然不愿意出手救助他，因为国家预算严重赤字。
Mainstream economists, like Andrei Klepach , warned already in the spring that the burden of war expenditures was too heavy for the stagnating economy, and in the early autumn, those warnings sound like a serious understatement, but the carriers of bad news are firmly silenced.
安德烈·克莱帕赫(Andrei Klepach)等主流经济学家早在春季就警告称，战争支出的负担对于停滞的经济来说过于沉重，而在初秋，这些警告听起来像是严重轻描淡写，但坏消息的传播者却被坚定地压制住了。
Russians react to these attempts to order the economy to resume growth and investment in the most natural way – by withdrawing their savings from bank accounts.
俄罗斯人以最自然的方式回应这些命令经济恢复增长和投资的尝试——从银行账户中提取储蓄。
President Putin could be informed very elliptically about the depth of this crisis, but a decision to overcome it by escalating the confrontation with Europe would still be far beyond the limits of common strategic sense.
普京总统可以非常隐晦地了解这场危机的严重程度，但通过升级与欧洲的对抗来克服危机的决定仍然远远超出了共同战略意义的范围。
Russia’s most important interface with Europe is in the Baltic theatre, and it is exactly there that the balance of risks and opportunities is tilted heavily against Moscow.
俄罗斯与欧洲最重要的接触面是在波罗的海战区，正是在那里，风险和机遇的天平严重向莫斯科倾斜。
The newest NATO members Finland and Sweden are building up capabilities for supporting the three Baltic states, who joined NATO in 2004 (encountering few objections from Putin), and Poland increases its already boosted defense budget faster than any other member of the Alliance.
最新的北约成员国芬兰和瑞典正在增强支持这三个波罗的海国家的能力，这三个国家于 2004 年加入北约（普京几乎没有反对），而波兰增加其已经增加的国防预算的速度比该联盟的任何其他成员国都快。
The Kaliningrad exclave that used to be a fortified bastion with formidable A2/AD capabilities , is left undefended as the troops and key weapon systems are redeployed to the Ukrainian front, and no amount of assertive rhetoric can compensate for this vulnerability.
加里宁格勒飞地曾经是一个具有强大反介入/区域拒止能力的防御堡垒，但随着部队和关键武器系统被重新部署到乌克兰前线，它已变得不设防，任何强硬的言辞都无法弥补这一弱点。
In the Black Sea theatre, Russia is facing a less potent pro-Ukrainian coalition, but the dynamics here is driven by Ukraine itself, as the drone hits in the mid-August on the missile frigates Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen inside the Novorossiysk harbor demonstrated.
在黑海战区，俄罗斯面临着实力较弱的亲乌克兰联盟，但这里的动态是由乌克兰本身驱动的，正如无人机于8月中旬击中新罗西斯克港内的马卡罗夫海军上将号和埃森海军上将号导弹护卫舰所证明的那样。
Moscow keeps testing Romania’s resolve by recurrent aerial and naval drone incursions and also by increasing the political and military pressure on Moldova.
莫斯科不断通过空中和海上无人机入侵以及加大对摩尔多瓦的政治和军事压力来考验罗马尼亚的决心。
The most important independent variable in the strategic equation on this theatre from the Russian perspective is Turkey, and Moscow takes great diplomatic pains to relate to it simultaneously as a NATO member-state and as a strategic partner.
从俄罗斯的角度来看，该战区战略方程式中最重要的自变量是土耳其，而莫斯科在外交上付出了巨大的努力，以同时作为北约成员国和战略伙伴的身份与土耳其建立联系。
One recent illustration of this convoluted course is the reaction in Moscow to the approval by the US Congress of the deal on transfer by Ankara to Ukraine of a large amount of somewhat obsolete weapons, including 70 M39 ATACMS tactical missiles.
最近这一复杂过程的一个例证是莫斯科对美国国会批准安卡拉向乌克兰转让大量有些过时的武器（包括 70 枚 M39 ATACMS 战术导弹）的交易的反应。
Russian commentators try to present this arrangement as a feature of the US and not Turkish policy, while their criticism of the Trump administration decisions is also typically subdued because of the residual hopes in the Kremlin for making a favorable peace deal at Ukraine’s expense.
俄罗斯评论人士试图将这种安排描述为美国的一个特点，而不是土耳其的政策，而他们对特朗普政府决定的批评也通常受到抑制，因为克里姆林宫仍然希望以牺牲乌克兰为代价达成一项有利的和平协议。
The big geo-strategic picture of the Ukraine War is changing irrespective of the tactical stalemate in the battle for Donbas.
尽管顿巴斯之战的战术陷入僵局，但乌克兰战争的地缘战略大局正在发生变化。
At the start of the offensive, Russia encountered a far stronger Western unity in opposing the aggression than it had expected, and the hopes for splitting the pro-Ukraine coalition were revived only by President Trump’s cancellation of the US leadership.
进攻一开始，俄罗斯就遇到了比其预想的更强大的西方反侵略团结，直到特朗普总统取消美国的领导权，分裂亲乌克兰联盟的希望才重新燃起。
Now Moscow can presume that it is engaged in confrontation only with Europe, but its capacity for gaining a position of power is fast diminishing, while the opponents invest in rearmament and integration with Ukraine.
现在，莫斯科可以认为它只与欧洲进行对抗，但其获得权力地位的能力正在迅速减弱，而对手则投资于重新武装和与乌克兰的一体化。
Putin’s new best hope is that the EU will be incapacitated by internal divisions and bureaucratic squabbles.
普京新的最大希望是，欧盟将因内部分歧和官僚争吵而丧失能力。
In order to break this calculus, the Europeans must build a wider coalition than just the EU, so that the UK will be one of the leaders, and states like Norway, Turkey, and even Canada are rightful members.
为了打破这种计算，欧洲人必须建立一个不仅仅是欧盟的更广泛的联盟，这样英国将成为领导者之一，而挪威、土耳其甚至加拿大等国家都是合法成员。