Ukraine is now struggling to cling on, not to win

Russia is slicing through Ukrainian defences in parts of the battlefield
俄罗斯正在部分战场上突破乌克兰的防御

2024年10月31日 01:06 下午

“AFTER 970 days of war,” said Lloyd Austin, America’s defence secretary, visiting Kyiv on October 21st, “Putin has not achieved one single strategic objective.” And Mr Austin offered confidence: “Moscow will never prevail in Ukraine.” In private, however, his colleagues in the Pentagon, Western officials and many Ukrainian commanders are increasingly worried about the direction of the war and Ukraine’s ability to hold back Russian advances over the next six months.

“经过 970 天的战争，”10 月 21 日访问基辅的美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀说道，“普京没有实现任何一项战略目标。”奥斯汀先生充满信心：“莫斯科永远不会在乌克兰占上风。”然而私下里，他在五角大楼的同事、西方官员和许多乌克兰指挥官越来越担心战争的方向以及乌克兰在未来六个月内阻止俄罗斯前进的能力。

Ukrainian forces have managed to hold on to Pokrovsk, an embattled town in the eastern Donbas region—an embarrassment for Mr Putin. But elsewhere along the front, Russia is slicing its way through Ukrainian defences. In Kupiansk in the north, its troops have cut Ukrainian formations in two at the Oskil river. In Chasiv Yar in the east, they have crossed the main Siverskyi Donets canal, after six months of trying. Farther south, Russian troops have taken high ground in and around Vuhledar, and they are moving in on Kurakhove from two directions. In Kursk, inside Russia, Ukraine has lost around half the territory it seized earlier this year.

乌克兰军队成功守住了东顿巴斯地区陷入困境的波克罗夫斯克小镇，这让普京感到尴尬。但在前线的其他地方，俄罗斯正在突破乌克兰的防御。在北部的库皮安斯克，其部队已在奥斯基尔河将乌克兰部队一分为二。经过六个月的努力，他们在东部的恰西夫亚尔渡过了西维尔斯基顿涅茨主运河。再往南，俄罗斯军队已经在武赫莱达尔及其周围占领了高地，并从两个方向向库拉霍夫挺进。在俄罗斯境内的库尔斯克，乌克兰失去了今年早些时候夺取的领土的一半左右。

The problem is not so much the loss of territory, which is limited and has come at enormous cost to Russia—600,000 dead and wounded since the start of the war, on American estimates, and 57,000 dead this year to October alone, according to Ukrainian intelligence. It is the steady erosion in the size and quality of Ukraine’s forces. Ukrainian units are under-strength and overstretched, worn thin by heavy casualties. Despite a new mobilisation law that took effect in May, the army, outside a handful of brigades, has struggled to recruit enough replacements, with young men reluctant to sign up to tours of duty that are at best indefinite and, at worst, one-way missions. Western partners are privately urging Ukraine’s leaders to lower the mobilisation age floor from 25 to increase the potential pool of recruits. But political sensitivities and fears over an already alarming demographic crisis stand in the way of any change.

问题不在于领土的损失，领土的损失是有限的，并且给俄罗斯带来了巨大的损失——据美国估计，自战争开始以来已有 60 万人死伤，据乌克兰方面称，仅今年到 10 月就有 57,000 人死亡。智力。这是乌克兰军队规模和质量的不断下降。乌克兰部队兵力不足、捉襟见肘，因伤亡惨重而疲惫不堪。尽管新的动员法于五月生效，但除了少数几个旅之外，军队一直在努力招募足够的替代者，年轻人不愿意报名参加最多是无限期的服役，最坏的情况是一次服役。方式任务。西方合作伙伴私下敦促乌克兰领导人将动员年龄下限从 25 岁降低，以增加潜在的新兵库。但政治敏感性和对本已令人震惊的人口危机的担忧阻碍了任何变革。

In a recent essay, Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London, identifies several reasons for Ukraine’s declining fortunes. One is a shortfall in its air-defence interceptors, allowing Russian reconnaissance drones to establish what he calls “continuous and dense surveillance”. These in turn cue up ballistic-missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian artillery in the rear and glide bombs against troops at the front, allowing Russia to make slow but steady advances in small units, often using motorcycles because tanks are too easy to spot. Ukraine’s limited stock of shells—Russia currently has a two-to-one advantage in shellfire, according to Ivan Havrilyuk, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister—as well as tanks and armoured vehicles compounds that problem. The less firepower and armour are available, the greater the reliance on infantry and the greater the casualties.

伦敦智库皇家联合服务研究所的杰克·沃特林在最近的一篇文章中指出了乌克兰财富下降的几个原因。一是防空拦截机的不足，使得俄罗斯侦察无人机能够进行他所说的“持续和密集监视”。这些反过来又会引发弹道导弹和无人机对后方乌克兰炮兵的攻击，以及对前线部队的滑翔炸弹攻击，使俄罗斯能够以小规模部队缓慢而稳定地前进，通常使用摩托车，因为坦克太容易被发现。乌克兰副国防部长伊万·哈夫里柳克表示，乌克兰的炮弹库存有限，而坦克和装甲车则加剧了这一问题。可用的火力和装甲越少，对步兵的依赖就越大，伤亡也越大。

Russia is not without its own serious problems. Next year it will spend a third of its national budget on defence, starving the civilian economy in the process. Inflation is perhaps double the official annual rate of more than 8%. In 2025 ordinary Russian families will begin to feel the economic pain for the first time, says a European intelligence official, adding that there are early signs of war fatigue among those closely connected to the conflict, such as mothers and other family members.

俄罗斯并非没有自己的严重问题。明年，它将把三分之一的国家预算用于国防，从而导致民用经济陷入饥饿。通货膨胀率可能是官方年增长率（超过 8%）的两倍。一位欧洲情报官员表示，到 2025 年，俄罗斯普通家庭将首次感受到经济痛苦，并补充说，与冲突密切相关的人，例如母亲和其他家庭成员，出现了战争疲劳的早期迹象。

On the battlefield, Russia still relies on crude tactics that result in massive casualties. The decision to borrow thousands of North Korean troops, who are thought to be bound for the Kursk front, shows that Russian units are also stretched. Russia’s general staff and defence ministry have put “heavy pressure” on the Kremlin to mobilise more men, says the European official. “Russia now doesn’t have sufficient forces to mass,” says a senior NATO official. “If they achieved a breakthrough they could not exploit it.” There is little short-term risk of Russian troops streaming west to Dnipro or Odessa.

在战场上，俄罗斯仍然依靠粗暴的战术，造成大量人员伤亡。借用数千名朝鲜军队的决定表明，俄罗斯部队也捉襟见肘，据信这些军队将开往库尔斯克前线。这位欧洲官员表示，俄罗斯总参谋部和国防部已向克里姆林宫施加“沉重压力”，要求其动员更多人员。 “俄罗斯现在没有足够的兵力进行集结，”一名北约高级官员表示。 “即使他们取得了突破，他们也无法利用它。”俄罗斯军队向西涌入第聂伯罗或敖德萨的短期风险不大。

But the crisis in Russia’s war economy is likely to play out over a longer period. Russia’s defence industry depends in part on the refurbishment of Soviet-era stocks, which are getting low in critical areas such as armoured vehicles. It is nonetheless far outperforming Western production lines. The EU claims to be making more than 1m shells per year; Russia is making three times as many, and is also boosted by supplies from North Korea and Iran. “I just don’t know we can produce enough, give enough,” says a person familiar with the flow of American aid, though a recent $800m commitment to boost Ukraine’s indigenous drone production is welcome. “We have no more to give them without taking serious risks in other places.” On manpower, too, Russia remains solvent. Its army is recruiting around 30,000 men per month, says the NATO official. That is less than government targets, but is still enough to cover even the gargantuan losses of recent months.

但俄罗斯战时经济的危机可能会持续更长的时间。俄罗斯的国防工业在一定程度上依赖于苏联时代库存的翻新，这些库存在装甲车等关键领域正在减少。尽管如此，它的性能仍远远优于西方生产线。欧盟声称每年生产超过 100 万枚炮弹；俄罗斯的产量是其三倍，而且朝鲜和伊朗的供应也增加了俄罗斯的产量。一位熟悉美国援助流程的人士表示，“我只是不知道我们能否生产足够的产品、提供足够的资金”，不过最近承诺提供 8 亿美元来提高乌克兰本土无人机生产的承诺值得欢迎。 “如果不在其他地方承担严重风险，我们就没有更多的东西可以给他们了。”在人力方面，俄罗斯也仍然具有偿付能力。北约官员称，该国军队每月招募约 3 万名士兵。这低于政府目标，但仍足以弥补近几个月的巨额损失。

Russia cannot fight for ever. But the worry among American, European and Ukrainian officials is that Ukraine’s breaking point will come first. “Moscow seems to be wagering that it can achieve its objectives in the Donbas next year,” writes Mr Watling, “and impose a rate of casualties and material degradation on the Ukrainian military high enough that it will no longer be capable of preventing further advances.” That, he warns, would give Russia leverage in any negotiations that follow.

俄罗斯不可能永远战斗。但美国、欧洲和乌克兰官员担心乌克兰的崩溃点将首先出现。沃特林先生写道：“莫斯科似乎押注明年能够在顿巴斯实现其目标，并对乌克兰军队施加足够高的伤亡率和物资退化，使其不再能够阻止进一步的进展。” ”。他警告说，这将使俄罗斯在随后的任何谈判中发挥影响力。

The gloomy mood is evident in a shift in America’s language. Senior officials like Mr Austin still strike a confident note, promising that Ukraine will win. Those involved in the guts of planning in the Pentagon say that, in practice, the ambitions of early 2023—a Ukrainian force that could take back its territory or shock Russia into talks through a well-crafted armoured punch—have given way to a narrow focus on preventing defeat. “At this point we are thinking more and more about how Ukraine can survive,” says a person involved in that planning. ■

美国语言的转变明显体现了这种悲观情绪。奥斯汀等高级官员仍然充满信心，承诺乌克兰将获胜。参与五角大楼内部规划的人士表示，实际上，2023 年初的雄心壮志——一支乌克兰军队可能会夺回其领土，或者通过精心设计的装甲拳头震慑俄罗斯进行谈判——已经让位给了一个狭隘的目标。集中精力防止失败。 “目前我们越来越多地思考乌克兰如何生存，”一位参与该规划的人士表示。 ■