Russia continues to advance in eastern Ukraine

但它遇到了越来越多的问题

10月 10, 2024 08:23 上午

NOW THAT the excitement of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk two months ago has faded, the prevailing narrative has reasserted its grip. Ukrainian forces are retreating in the face of steady, if costly, Russian advances across the front line in the Donbas, thanks to Russia’s vast superiority in troop numbers and firepower.

尽管两个月前乌克兰入侵库尔斯克的刺激因素已经消退，但主流叙事已经重新确立了它的控制力。面对俄罗斯在顿巴斯前线的稳定推进，尽管代价高昂，但由于俄罗斯在部队数量和火力方面的巨大优势，乌克兰军队正在撤退。

The Ukrainian decision last week to pull its forces out of Vuhledar, a staunchly defended bastion that lies on the hinge of the eastern and southern fronts, has added to the gloom about the country’s prospects. The retreat was ordered to prevent their encirclement by the Russians. President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the decision, saying that protecting the lives of the soldiers who had given “heroic service” was “more important than any buildings”. Not that there were many buildings left. Vuhledar, like other towns Russia has taken, is a sprawling, shattered ruin.

乌克兰上周决定将其部队撤出位于东部和南部战线枢纽的坚守堡垒 Vuhledar，这加剧了该国前景的黯淡。撤退是为了防止他们被俄国人包围。总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基 （Volodymyr Zelensky） 赞扬了这一决定，称保护提供“英勇服务”的士兵的生命“比任何建筑物都重要”。并不是说留下了很多建筑物。与俄罗斯占领的其他城镇一样，Vuhledar 是一片广阔的、破碎的废墟。

A similar situation appears to be developing to the north in Toretsk, a front-line city that Russian forces have been advancing towards, village by village, since August, pulverising everything in their path with glide bombs. On October 8th, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian forces in the city reported that “The fighting is taking place in Toretsk itself, the situation is unstable, literally every entrance is being fought for.” Though Vuhledar was not of great strategic significance, Toretsk, which is on a hilltop, could be used to obstruct Ukrainian supply routes behind the lines.

类似的情况似乎正在北部的托列茨克发展，这是俄罗斯军队自 8 月以来一直在逐个村庄推进的前线城市，用滑翔炸弹粉碎了他们所经过的一切。10 月 8 日，该市乌克兰军队的一名女发言人报告说，“战斗发生在托列茨克本身，局势不稳定，几乎每个入口都在争夺中。虽然 Vuhledar 没有重大的战略意义，但位于山顶上的托列茨克可以用来阻挡乌克兰防线后的补给路线。

On the other hand Russia has not made much progress in taking Chasiv Yar, some 40km to the north of Toretsk, and appears to be stuck by the canal on the eastern side of the city. It is also making heavy weather of its bid to take control of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub that sits on a triangle of road and rail links and which is the main focus of its offensive efforts. In August there was much talk of the imminent fall of Pokrovsk. But the pace of the Russian advance has noticeably slowed, with few territorial gains in the past three weeks.

另一方面，俄罗斯在夺取托列茨克以北约 40 公里的 Chasiv Yar 方面没有取得太大进展，并且似乎被城市东侧的运河困住了。它还在努力控制波克罗夫斯克，这是一个重要的物流枢纽，位于公路和铁路连接的三角形上，是其进攻努力的主要重点。8 月，有很多关于波克罗夫斯克即将沦陷的讨论。但俄罗斯的推进速度明显放缓，过去三周几乎没有领土收益。

Nico Lange, a former chief of staff in Germany’s ministry of defence who has close links to the Ukrainians, says that although Russian troops are now in artillery range of the city, they lack the force numbers to make a concerted attack. While taking Pokrovsk would give Russia a launch-pad for attacks deeper into central Ukraine and would worsen Ukraine’s logistical position in southern Donbas, Mr Lange believes the operation, even if successful, will take many months and inflict extremely heavy losses on the Russians.

与乌克兰人关系密切的德国国防部前幕僚长尼科·兰格 （Nico Lange） 表示，尽管俄罗斯军队现在处于该市的炮火射程内，但他们缺乏发动协同攻击的兵力。虽然占领波克罗夫斯克将为俄罗斯提供深入乌克兰中部发动攻击的跳板，并将恶化乌克兰在顿巴斯南部的后勤状况，但兰格先生认为，即使成功，该行动也需要数月时间，并给俄罗斯人造成极其严重的损失。

Despite fears expressed in some quarters of a Ukrainian collapse, there is no sign of one. Ukraine’s approach is to concede some ground while inflicting maximum casualties and equipment losses on Russia and preserving its own forces to fight from newly fortified lines. It is also questionable how much longer Russia can continue to lose more than a thousand men a day, despite huge signing-on bonuses for new recruits. The seemingly inexhaustible stocks of mainly Soviet-era armoured vehicles and tanks it has been able to draw on could be running low by next year. The Institute for the Study of War in Washington reckons that in the Pokrovsk region alone Russia has lost at least five divisions’ worth of tanks and armoured vehicles in the past year. Without sufficient armour, dismounted Russian soldiers are easy prey for increasingly capable Ukrainian FPV drones.

尽管一些人对乌克兰崩溃表示担忧，但没有迹象表明乌克兰崩溃。乌克兰的方法是让步一些，同时对俄罗斯造成最大的伤亡和装备损失，并保留自己的部队从新设防线作战。同样值得怀疑的是，尽管新兵有巨额签约奖金，但俄罗斯每天损失超过 1000 人的时间还能持续多久。它能够利用的主要是苏联时代的装甲车和坦克的看似取之不尽的库存，到明年可能会耗尽。华盛顿战争研究所估计，仅在波克罗夫斯克地区，俄罗斯在过去一年中就损失了至少五个师的坦克和装甲车。如果没有足够的装甲，下马的俄罗斯士兵很容易成为能力越来越强的乌克兰 FPV 无人机的猎物。

There are also signs that Russia’s advantage in artillery has been declining, even as it increasingly depends on unreliable North Korean munitions. Earlier this year Russia was firing ten times as many shells as the Ukrainians. But according to Ukrainian sources, the gap has now closed to 2.5:1. Ukraine is receiving more shells from its allies; its own production has speeded up; and strikes on Russian ammunition storage depots have been both effective and spectacular. However, Ukraine, still forbidden to use long-range Western missiles against targets in Russia, has no answer to the deadly glide bombs launched by aircraft from Russian airspace that have become its adversary’s most potent battlefield weapon.

还有迹象表明，俄罗斯在火炮方面的优势一直在下降，尽管它越来越依赖不可靠的朝鲜弹药。今年早些时候，俄罗斯发射的炮弹数量是乌克兰的十倍。但据乌克兰消息来源称，差距现在已经缩小到 2.5：1。乌克兰正在从其盟友那里收到更多的炮弹;它自己的生产速度加快了;对俄罗斯弹药储存库的打击既有效又壮观。然而，乌克兰仍然被禁止使用西方远程导弹打击俄罗斯的目标，对飞机从俄罗斯领空发射的致命滑翔炸弹无能为力，这些炸弹已成为对手最强大的战场武器。

For all the current despondency about Ukraine’s prospects, Russia is far from achieving its main aim: of gaining control over Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which make up the Donbas region, by the end of this year. And despite setting the goal of driving Ukrainian forces from Kursk by the start of this month, it now looks as if that will take much longer and require substantially greater forces than Moscow has so far been able to commit.

尽管目前对乌克兰的前景感到沮丧，但俄罗斯远未实现其主要目标：在今年年底前控制构成顿巴斯地区的顿涅茨克省和卢甘斯克省。尽管设定了在本月初之前将乌克兰军队赶出库尔斯克的目标，但现在看来，这将花费更长的时间，并且需要的兵力比莫斯科迄今为止能够投入的要大得多。

The battle where Russia is unambiguously succeeding, says Mr Lange, is in the “information space”. The notion that Ukraine cannot win, he argues, is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and an excuse for Western leaders to withhold from Ukraine what it needs to prevail. A pattern has emerged in which promised military support arrives late or not at all. As Phillips O’Brien, an American commentator, has noted, American aid actually disbursed to Ukraine so far this year is sharply down on the amount sent in 2023. ■

兰格表示，俄罗斯无疑成功的战斗是在“信息空间”。他认为，乌克兰无法获胜的想法正在成为一个自我实现的预言，也是西方领导人拒绝向乌克兰提供获胜所需东西的借口。已经出现了一种模式，即承诺的军事支持迟到或根本没有到。正如美国评论员菲利普斯·奥布莱恩 （Phillips O'Brien） 所指出的那样，今年到目前为止，美国实际支付给乌克兰的援助比 2023 年发放的金额大幅下降。■