防走失，电梯直达安全岛报人刘亚东A 

来源：Economist搬运工

In Crimea, Ukraine is beating Russia

The peninsula is becoming a death trap for the Kremlin’s forces

在克里米亚，乌克兰击败了俄罗斯

这片半岛正成为克里姆林宫军队的死亡陷阱

good news, at last, from Ukraine. The approval in April of the Biden administration’s $61bn military-support package, after six months of Congressional delay, is having an impact. In particular, the arrival of atacms ballistic missiles, with a range of 300km, means that Ukraine can now hit any target in Russian-occupied Crimea, with deadly effect.

乌克兰终于传来好消息。经过国会六个月的拖延，拜登政府4月份批准了价值610亿美元的军事援助计划，现已产生影响。尤其是300公里射程的ATACMS弹道导弹的到来，意味着乌克兰现在可以有效打击俄罗斯占领的克里米亚的任何目标。

In the past week, the Russian offensive in the north-east against Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, also appears to have lost momentum. Of potentially even greater significance, President Joe Biden, under pressure from a growing chorus of European allies, on May 30th eased the restrictions on American weapons being used against military targets on Russian soil, imposed because of overblown fears about Russian nuclear escalation. The Ukrainians are now to be allowed to use some American kit to hit Russian forces on the other side of the border attacking or preparing to attack Kharkiv. It is not clear whether this would include Russian tactical aircraft launching glide-bomb attacks of the kind that killed at least 18 people in a Kharkiv hardware shop on May 25th.

过去一周，俄罗斯在东北部针对乌克兰第二大城市哈尔科夫的进攻似乎也失去了动力。更具潜在重大意义的是，在越来越多的欧洲盟友的压力下，拜登总统于5月30日放宽了针对俄罗斯境内军事目标使用美国武器的限制。这些限制此前是因为对俄罗斯核升级的过度担忧而施加的。现在，乌克兰可以使用一些美国装备打击在边境另一侧攻击或准备攻击哈尔科夫的俄罗斯军队。目前尚不清楚这是否包括对俄罗斯发射滑翔炸弹的战术飞机的打击，这种攻击在5月25日造成哈尔科夫一家五金店至少18人死亡。

However, to the exasperation of the Ukrainians, Mr Biden has still to lift his ban on hitting targets elsewhere in Russia. For an indication of what Ukraine might achieve if it no longer had to fight with one hand tied behind its back, the effectiveness of its campaign in Crimea shows the way. According to Ben Hodges, a former commander of American forces in Europe and a senior adviser to nato on logistics, the Ukrainians are “systematically in the process of making Ukraine uninhabitable for Russian forces”.

然而，让乌克兰人恼火的是，拜登尚未解除对攻击俄罗斯其他地方目标的禁令。如果乌克兰不再被束缚一只手作战，他们可能取得的成就可以从其在克里米亚的有效战役中得到体现。据前美国驻欧洲部队司令、北约物流高级顾问本·霍奇斯（Ben Hodges）表示，乌克兰人正在“系统性地让乌克兰变得对俄罗斯军队无法居住”。

That would be a huge strategic prize for Ukraine. Ever since the reign of Catherine the Great, Russians have regarded Crimea as militarily important. Vladimir Putin saw Crimea, linked to the mainland by the Kerch Bridge since 2018, as an unsinkable aircraft-carrier, where logistics hubs, air-bases and the Black Sea Fleet, operating out of Sevastopol, could be used to dominate the south of Ukraine, close off Ukraine’s vital grain exports, and provide a steady flow of men and materiel to push Ukraine completely out of the Donbas to the north. The Russian president has invested huge sums in military infrastructure in Crimea, all of it now under threat.

那将是乌克兰的巨大战略胜利。自从叶卡捷琳娜大帝统治时期以来，俄罗斯人一直认为克里米亚具有重要的军事意义。自2018年克里米亚大桥连接大陆以来，弗拉基米尔·普京将克里米亚视为一艘无法沉没的航空母舰，利用其物流枢纽、空军基地和驻扎在塞瓦斯托波尔的黑海舰队，来控制乌克兰南部，切断乌克兰的重要粮食出口，并源源不断地向北方的顿巴斯地区输送兵力和物资，以彻底将乌克兰逐出该地区。俄罗斯总统在克里米亚的军事基础设施上投入了巨额资金，而现在这一切都受到了威胁。

A  D-Day-style amphibious assault to liberate Crimea remains inconceivable. But, says Sir Lawrence Freedman, a British strategist, that is the wrong way to look at it. Crimea is a weak point for Russia. It has too much there to defend, and it is the best way for Ukraine to put real pressure on Mr Putin in order to extract concessions in the future. Nico Lange, a former adviser to the German defence ministry, agrees: “Ukraine’s campaign is a mixture of a military and political strategy. Politically, it is Russia’s most vital asset; but it is also very vulnerable.” What Ukraine is attempting to do is to make Crimea a liability rather than an asset for Mr Putin. The aim is to isolate it and in doing so to push Russian air and sea forces away from southern Ukraine and strangle it as a logistics hub.

诺曼底登陆式的两栖突袭解放克里米亚依然难以想象。但是，英国战略家劳伦斯·弗里德曼爵士认为，这种看法是错误的。克里米亚是俄罗斯的薄弱点，那里有太多需要防御的地方，而这正是乌克兰给普京施加实质性压力以获取未来让步的最佳方式。前德国国防部顾问尼科·朗格也表示认同：“乌克兰的行动是军事和政治战略的结合。从政治上看，克里米亚是俄罗斯最重要的资产，但它也非常脆弱。”乌克兰的目标是将克里米亚从普京的资产变为负担，意在孤立克里米亚，从而迫使俄罗斯的空军和海军力量撤离乌克兰南部，并切断其作为物流枢纽的作用。

Ukraine has already demonstrated the ability of British- and French-supplied Storm Shadow and scalp cruise missiles, and its own cleverly designed homemade maritime drones, to hit Russian warships, particularly the big Ropucha landing vessels used as military transports, most of which have been destroyed. Ukrainian drones and missiles may have taken out of action as much as half of the previously formidable Black Sea Fleet. Almost all of what remains has been forced to relocate from Sevastopol to the port of Novorossiysk, over 300km away on the Russian mainland. Novorossiysk itself came under attack from both marine and aerial drones on May 17th. A railway station and a power-generation plant as well as the naval base were hit.

乌克兰已经展示了由英国和法国提供的“风暴阴影”导弹和“斯卡尔普”巡航导弹，以及自己巧妙设计的自制海上无人机，能够打击俄罗斯军舰，特别是用作军事运输的“大青蛙”登陆舰，其中大部分已经被摧毁。乌克兰的无人机和导弹可能已经使之前强大的黑海舰队瘫痪了一半之多。剩余的几乎所有舰艇都被迫从塞瓦斯托波尔迁移到俄罗斯本土300多公里外的诺沃罗西斯克港。诺沃罗西斯克本身也在5月17日遭到海上和空中无人机的袭击，一个火车站、电厂以及海军基地都被击中。

But now Ukraine is using a deadly combination of atacms and increasingly sophisticated drones to systematically degrade Russian air defences in Crimea, hit air-bases from which Russian interceptors fly and strike critical logistics and economic targets. Sir Lawrence says that the focus on crippling Russia’s air-defence network may also be part of the preparation for the imminent arrival of the first batches of f-16 fighter jets from Europe.

现在，乌克兰正利用ATACMS导弹和日益先进的无人机组合，系统性地削弱克里米亚的俄罗斯防空力量，打击俄罗斯拦截机起飞的空军基地以及关键的物流和经济目标。劳伦斯爵士表示，重点瘫痪俄罗斯的防空网络，可能也是为即将从欧洲到来的首批F-16战斗机做准备的一部分。

On April 17th an atacms strike on Dzhankoi airbase in the north-east of Crimea damaged helicopters, an s-400 battery and a command-and-control centre. A month later, on the evening of May 15th, a large-scale atacms strike on an airbase at Belbek near Sevastopol destroyed four planes as well as an s-400 air-defence radar and at least two launchers. The attack, which comprised about ten missiles each carrying 300 bomblets, caused massive fires, possibly set off by an exploding fuel depot and stored air-to-air missiles.

4月17日，对克里米亚东北部的詹科伊空军基地发动的ATACMS导弹袭击造成直升机、S-400防空系统以及指挥与控制中心受损。一个月后，5月15日晚上，对塞瓦斯托波尔附近的贝尔别克空军基地发动了大规模的ATACMS导弹袭击，摧毁了四架飞机、一个S-400防空雷达和至少两台发射装置。这次袭击约有十枚导弹，每枚携带300枚分散炸弹，造成了大规模火灾，可能是由爆炸的燃料库和存放的空空导弹引发的。

The following evening Belbek was hit again, an indication that Ukraine has at its disposal rather more than the 100 or so atacms thought to have been donated. In what is becoming almost a nightly occurrence, two Russian patrol boats were destroyed on May 30th and two transport ferries were damaged near the Kerch Bridge in separate drone strikes that saw Russian aircraft scrambled to little effect.

第二天晚上，贝尔别克再次遭到袭击，这表明乌克兰手中的ATACMS数量远远超过了之前估计的100枚左右。几乎每天夜晚都会发生类似的事件，5月30日，两艘俄罗斯巡逻船被摧毁，两艘运输渡轮在克里米亚大桥附近分别受损，引发了俄罗斯飞机的出动，但效果甚微。

Significantly, Russia’s much-vaunted and very expensive s-400 air-defence system has been found wanting. Mr Lange says the Ukrainians are using decoy drones to make the Russians light up their radars and reveal their positions. The targeting data is immediately fed to the atacms launch crews. Within six minutes the missiles, virtually undetectable because of their speed and low radar cross-section, are hitting their targets. General Hodges notes that the s-400s are also vulnerable to sabotage by Ukrainian special forces operating inside Crimea. Each battery costs about $200m, and they are not easily replaceable.

值得注意的是，俄罗斯吹嘘的、非常昂贵的S-400防空系统已经显示出不足之处。朗格先生表示，乌克兰人正在利用诱骗无人机使俄罗斯启动雷达并显露其位置。目标数据立即传输给ATACMS发射组。六分钟内，这些几乎无法被探测的导弹因其速度和低雷达截面而击中目标。霍奇斯将军指出，S-400系统也容易受到乌克兰在克里米亚内部作战的特种部队的破坏。每个发射装置的成本约为2亿美元，且难以替换。

The general says that Russian forces have “no place to hide”. With the help of satellite and aerial reconnaissance provided by nato allies, their own deep knowledge of the territory, and covert forces on the ground, nothing can move in Crimea without the Ukrainians knowing about it.  With the arrival of the atacms and the increasing sophistication of their own drones, every square metre of the peninsula is in range, including time-sensitive targets such as aircraft and equipment convoys moving by road or rail.

该将军表示，俄罗斯军队“无处可藏”。在北约盟友提供的卫星和空中侦察支持下，以及他们对该地区的深入了解以及地面秘密部队的协助下，克里米亚没有什么东西可以在乌克兰不知情的情况下移动。随着ATACMS的到来和乌克兰自制无人机技术的不断提升，半岛上的每一平方米都在射程之内，包括通过公路或铁路移动的飞机和装备车队等时间敏感目标。

General Hodges is confident that the Ukrainians will “take down the Kerch Bridge when they are ready”. However, a potentially greater challenge will be disrupting the new improved railway line running along the Azov Sea from Rostov through the southern Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Berdiansk down into Crimea. Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern military command, says:  “The railway along the land corridor is recognition on the part of the Russian occupiers that the Crimean [Kerch] Bridge is doomed. They are looking for a way to hedge their bets because they are aware that sooner or later, they will have a problem.”

霍奇斯将军对乌克兰“在准备好时将摧毁克里米亚大桥”充满信心。然而，一个更大的挑战可能是扰乱从罗斯托夫沿着亚速海经由乌克兰南部城市马里乌波尔和贝尔迪安斯克到达克里米亚的新改进的铁路线。乌克兰南部军事指挥部发言人德米特里·普列坦丘克表示：“陆上走廊沿线的铁路是俄罗斯占领者对克里米亚[克里米亚大桥]不可能的承认。他们正在寻找一种方式来抵消风险，因为他们意识到，迟早会出现问题。”

An early test of the wider strategic success of Ukraine’s campaign in Crimea could come this summer when Russian holidaymakers normally flock across the Kerch Bridge to resorts on the peninsula. If they decide otherwise, says Ben Barry of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank, it will be a bad omen for Mr Putin. Crimea is heavily dependent on the tourist industry, and bookings last year were down by nearly a half. “Crimea”, he says, “has been turned from being a prestige project to a drain on Russian resources.” ■

乌克兰在克里米亚的更广泛战略成功的早期考验可能会在今年夏天出现，届时通常情况下俄罗斯的度假者会涌向克里米亚大桥，前往半岛的度假胜地。国际战略研究所的本·巴里说，如果他们做出其他选择，这将对普京来说是一个不祥之兆。克里米亚高度依赖于旅游业，去年的预订量几乎下降了一半。他说：“克里米亚已经从一项声望项目变成了对俄罗斯资源的负担。”