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| GENEVA — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has spent months massing close to 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border. But Moscow says it has no intention of invading. | 日内瓦——俄罗斯总统普京几个月来在乌克兰边境附近集结了近10万军力。但莫斯科表示无意入侵。 |
| What is Russia’s next move? No one knows, except perhaps Mr. Putin. And that is by design. | 俄罗斯的下一步行动是什么？也许除了普京以外没人知道。这也是有意为之。 |
| The mystery surrounding the Russian leader’s intentions was thick as fog again this week, after a top Russian diplomat delivered a series of seemingly contradictory messages upon emerging from two days of high-stakes security talks with the United States. | 在与美国进行了两天的高风险安全会谈后，一名俄罗斯高级外交官本周发表了一系列看似相互矛盾的信息，俄罗斯领导人的意图再次笼罩在迷雾中。 |
| Moments after declaring the talks “deep’’ and “concrete,’’ Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov warned that failure to meet Russia’s demands could put the “security of the whole European continent” at risk. | 外交部副部长谢尔盖·里亚布科夫在宣布会谈“深入”和“具体”后不久警告说，如果不能满足俄罗斯的要求，可能会使“整个欧洲大陆的安全”处于危险之中。 |
| The gyrating, often ominous positions helped stump even some of those who make a living from decoding Mr. Putin’s intentions. | 这些反复无常、往往带有不祥意味的立场，甚至难倒了靠解读普京意图谋生的人。 |
| “The expert opinion that I can authoritatively declare is: Who the heck knows?” Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent Russian foreign-policy analyst who heads a council that advises the Kremlin, said in a telephone interview. | 俄罗斯著名外交政策分析师费奥多尔·卢基扬诺夫在电话采访中说：“我能以权威身份宣布的专家意见是：谁知道呢？”他是一个为克里姆林宫提供建议的委员会的负责人。 |
| Analysts said that not even members of Mr. Putin’s inner circle — let alone Mr. Ryabkov, who led Russia’s delegation at this week’s Geneva talks — were likely to know how seriously Mr. Putin is contemplating full-scale war with Ukraine. Nor would they know what American concessions he is prepared to accept in order to defuse the crisis. | 分析人士说，即使是普京的核心圈子——更不用说率领俄罗斯代表团参加本周日内瓦会谈的里亚布科夫——也可能不知道普京是否在认真考虑发动与乌克兰的全面战争。他们也不知道他为了化解危机，准备接受美国何种程度的让步。 |
| Instead, Mr. Putin is likely not even to have made a decision, according to Russian analysts as well as American officials. And he is relishing keeping the West on edge. | 相反，根据俄罗斯分析人士和美国官员的说法，普京很可能甚至还没有做出决定。他喜欢让西方紧张不安。 |
| “What matters is results,” Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters on Tuesday, maintaining the suspense. “For now, there is nothing to say about any results.” | “重要的是结果，”普京的发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫周二对记者说道，继续保持着悬念。“目前，还没有什么结果可以拿出来说的。” |
| The talks continue on Wednesday, when Russian officials will meet representatives of the United States and its NATO allies in Brussels, and on Thursday at a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 57-nation group that includes Ukraine as well as Russia and the United States. | 会谈将在周三继续进行，届时俄罗斯官员将在布鲁塞尔会见美国及其北约盟国的代表，周四将参加欧洲安全与合作组织的会议，该组织由57个国家组成，其中包括乌克兰，以及俄罗斯和美国。 |
| After that, Mr. Peskov said, Russia would decide “whether it makes sense” to move forward with diplomacy. | 佩斯科夫说，在那之后，俄罗斯将决定推进外交“是否有意义”。 |
| Mr. Putin’s brinkmanship of recent months is a case study in his ability to use tension and unpredictability to seek high returns with what may seem like a weak geopolitical hand. Struggling with a stagnant economy and tattered alliances, Russia is also dealing with volatile situations on at least four borders — with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Southern Caucasus. | 普京看似拿着一手地缘政治烂牌，却利用紧张气氛和令人捉摸不定的行事风格寻求高回报，最近几个月的边缘政策便是他这种能力的一个实例。由于经济停滞不前，联盟支离破碎，俄罗斯还在应对与白俄罗斯、哈萨克斯坦、乌克兰和南高加索等至少四个边界地区的动荡局势。 |
| For years, Mr. Putin has fumed over NATO’s expansion eastward and American support for pro-Western sentiment in Ukraine; now, by creating a new security crisis that threatens to complicate President Biden’s agenda, he has succeeded in getting the issue to the forefront in Washington. | 多年来，普京一直对北约东扩和美国支持乌克兰的亲西方情绪感到愤怒。他现在制造了可能使拜登总统的议程复杂化的新安全危机，成功地将这个问题推到华盛顿的最前沿。 |
| “For the first time in 30 years, the United States has agreed to discuss issues that it was impossible to discuss even a year ago,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of a political analysis firm, R.Politik. | 政治分析公司R.Politik的创始人塔蒂亚娜·斯塔诺瓦亚说：“30年来，美国第一次同意讨论甚至一年前都不可能讨论的问题。” |
| Now that the Russian president has Americans at the negotiating table, he is pursuing another classic Putin strategy: putting so many potential moves on the playing field — pointing in so many different directions — that he leaves people guessing, allowing him to choose the tactics that best suit him as events evolve. | 现在，这位俄罗斯总统让美国人坐上了谈判桌，他正在推行另一种经典的普京策略：在竞技场中摆出如此多的潜在举措——并指向如此多不同的方向——以至于人们只能靠猜，这样一来，他就可以随着事件的发展选择最适合他的策略。 |
| Mr. Ryabkov, for instance, told reporters that he was making no ultimatums and foresaw no “deal breaker.’’ But he added that it was “absolutely mandatory” that the United States guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO. | 例如，里亚布科夫告诉记者，他没有发出最后通牒，也没有预见到“决定性的破坏事件”。但他补充说，美国“必须绝对”保证乌克兰永远不会加入北约。 |
| He said Russia was imposing no specific timeline, but that it needed a “fast response” to its demands. And while he said there was “no reason to fear an escalation scenario” in Ukraine, he warned that the West still failed to grasp how dangerous it would be to rebuff Russia’s demands. | 他说，俄罗斯没有规定具体的时间表，但它要求对方做出“快速回应”。尽管他说乌克兰“没有理由担心情况升级”，但他警告，西方仍然没有意识到拒绝俄罗斯的要求有多么危险。 |
| The contradictory messaging continued on Tuesday when the Kremlin’s spokesman, Mr. Peskov, countered any positive assessments Mr. Ryabkov might have offered the day before. “For now, we do not see any substantive reason for optimism,” he said in his daily conference call with reporters. | 克里姆林宫发言人佩斯科夫的表态抵消了里亚布科夫前一天给予的还算是积极的评价，这种相互矛盾的信息周二仍在继续。“目前，没有任何实质性理由令我们感到乐观，”他在与记者的每日电话会议中说。 |
| The problem with Mr. Putin’s approach is that it gives his diplomats next to no flexibility to negotiate on Russia’s behalf, and sometimes leaves them struggling to maintain a coherent message. Ms. Stanovaya warned that even if diplomats did reach some kind of deal, hawks in Moscow who have more of Mr. Putin’s ear could soon help derail it. | 普京的做法导致的问题是，他的外交官在代表俄罗斯进行谈判时无法拥有一丝灵活性，有时还会让他们难以保持信息的一致。斯塔诺瓦亚警告，即使外交官们确实达成了某种协议，普京更加信任的莫斯科鹰派可能很快就会让协议脱轨。 |
| Analysts noted that Mr. Ryabkov, from the diplomatic side, most likely did not even know what military options the Kremlin was considering. The virus-free cocoon Mr. Putin has tried to establish around himself has meant that even confidants are forced to spend days in quarantine before being allowed into the same room with him, further reducing his connections with the outside world. | 分析人士指出，在外交方面，里亚布科夫很可能根本不知道克里姆林宫正在考虑哪些军事选择。普京试图在自己周围建立一个没有病毒的保护圈，这意味着即使是密友也得在隔离几天后，才能获准与他共处一室，这进一步减少了他与外部世界的联系。 |
| “No one knows with 100 percent certainty whether Putin is ready for war, or whether this is a bluff or not,” Ms. Stanovaya said. | “没有人能百分之百地肯定普京是否准备开战，抑或这只是虚张声势，”斯坦诺瓦亚说。 |
| While Mr. Ryabkov and other Russian officials have denied that Russia plans to invade Ukraine, Mr. Putin himself, at two news conferences in December, did not offer such a denial. Instead, he has warned of an unspecified “military-technical response” if Russia does not get what it wants. | 虽然里亚布科夫和其他俄罗斯官员否认俄罗斯计划入侵乌克兰，但普京本人在去年12月的两次新闻发布会上都没有做出这样的否认。相反，他警告，如果俄罗斯得不到想要的东西，将会做出未指明的“军事技术反应”。 |
| Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more than a dozen formerly Communist-ruled countries of Central and Eastern Europe have joined NATO. In 2008, NATO declared that the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine would become members, though there is little chance that they would qualify for years to come. | 自苏联解体以来，中欧和东欧有十几个前共产党国家加入了北约。2008年，北约宣布前苏联加盟共和国格鲁吉亚和乌克兰将成为北约成员，尽管在未来几年内，这两个国家获得加入资格的可能性很小。 |
| “We need long-term, legally binding guarantees” that would roll back the NATO presence in Eastern Europe, Mr. Putin said in December. He added that while the United States has exited treaties in the past, “we need at least something, at least a legally binding agreement rather than just verbal assurances.” | 普京去年12月表示，“我们需要具有法律约束力的长期保证”，以减少北约在东欧的存在。他还说，虽然美国曾经退出过条约，但“我们至少需要一些东西，至少需要一个具有法律约束力的协议，而不仅仅是口头保证”。 |
| While Mr. Putin may have succeeded in getting the U.S. to agree to talk — even though Moscow’s demands appeared to be nonstarters — Ms. Stanovaya and others warned that at this point, talks alone are not enough for him. | 普京可能已经成功地让美国同意谈判——尽管莫斯科的要求似乎是不可能的——但是，斯坦诺瓦亚和其他人警告，仅有会谈对他来说还不够。 |
| Emboldened, he sees Mr. Biden as a man who may be willing to make a deal — and that Mr. Biden, as a veteran of the Cold War, may possess a respect for power diplomacy with Moscow that younger American politicians do not. | 他的胆子更大了，认为拜登是可能愿意做交易的人，而且，经历过冷战的拜登可能对与莫斯科的强权外交怀有敬意，这是美国年轻政界人士所不具备的。 |
| “He assumes that the Americans will pay attention only to that which concretely, immediately threatens them,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, said of the Russian president. “He uses unpredictability, he uses tension, he uses threats.” | “他认为，美国人只会关注那些直接威胁到他们的具体事情，”卡内基莫斯科中心智库负责人德米特里·特列宁在谈到普京时表示。“他在利用不可预测性、紧张感和威胁。” |
| As best analysts can tell, it is the demand that NATO offer some kind of formal assurances not to expand eastward and to cease military cooperation with Ukraine that is now most important for Mr. Putin. The American offer in Monday’s discussions to negotiate missile placement and military exercises in Europe is also of interest to Russia, but Mr. Ryabkov indicated that these issues are a lower priority. | 正如分析人士可以断定的，现在对普京来说，最重要的是要求北约提供某种形式的正式保证，不再向东扩张，并停止与乌克兰的军事合作。美国在周一的讨论中提议，就欧洲的导弹部署和军演问题进行谈判，这也引起了俄罗斯的兴趣，但里亚布科夫表示，这些问题的优先级较低。 |
| NATO has repeatedly ruled out the idea that it would allow any other country to veto who can and cannot be in the alliance, creating what appears to be an impasse. Still, Mr. Lukyanov, the prominent Russian analyst, said the fact that the talks did not immediately collapse means that both sides may see some path — currently invisible to the outside world — to achieve a workable result. | 北约多次排除了允许其他国家对谁能加入北约行使否决权的想法，这似乎造成了一个僵局。不过，俄罗斯著名分析人士卢科扬诺夫说，会谈没有立即破裂，双方可能看到了一些目前外界还看不到的路径，来实现一个可行的结果。 |
| As for what Russia does next, Mr. Lukyanov said that this would be solely up to Mr. Putin, who exerts a monopoly on foreign-policy decision-making without recent precedent in Russia. Unlike Soviet-era leaders, Mr. Putin has no “Politburo” of senior officials making collective decisions. | 至于俄罗斯的下一步行动，卢科扬诺夫表示，这完全取决于普京，他在外交政策的决策方面拥有垄断地位，这在俄罗斯是前所未有的。与苏联时代的领导人不同，普京没有一个由高级官员组成、负责做出集体决定的“政治局”。 |
| Mr. Lukyanov said no individuals could be seen as directly influencing Mr. Putin. | 卢科扬诺夫说，看不到谁可以直接影响普京。 |
| “He receives this or that information,” Mr. Lukyanov said. “Those who provide it don’t exert their own influence and don’t know how it’s going to work out.” | “他会收到这样或那样的信息，”卢科扬诺夫说。“那些提供帮助的人不会施加自己的影响，也不知道结果会怎样。” |
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