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| For more than a year, American officials have quietly asked themselves a question they would not dare pose in public: Could Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine eventually lead to the downfall of President Vladimir V. Putin? |
| 一年多来，美国官员的心头萦绕着一个他们不敢公开提出的问题：俄罗斯搞砸入侵乌克兰的战争最终会不会导致普京总统垮台？ |
| For a few chaotic, head-snapping hours this weekend, the notion did not seem so far-fetched. But even with the apparent end to the immediate threat posed by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellious mercenary army, the short-lived uprising suggested that Mr. Putin’s hold on power is more tenuous than at any time since he took office more than two decades ago. |
| 在这个混乱周末令人应接不暇的几个小时里，上述观念似乎不再那么难以置信。但尽管叶夫根尼·普里戈任的雇佣军叛乱所构成的直接威胁似乎已告终，这场短暂的兵变显示出，普京对权力的掌控比他20多年前上任以来的任何时候都更脆弱。 |
| The aftermath of the mutiny leaves President Biden and American policymakers with both opportunity and danger in perhaps the most volatile moment since the early days of the invasion of Ukraine. Disarray in Russia could lead to a breakdown of its war effort just as Ukrainian forces are mounting their long-awaited counteroffensive, but officials in Washington remained nervous about an unpredictable, nuclear-armed Mr. Putin feeling vulnerable. |
| 这也许是自俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的最初日子以来的最动荡时刻，兵变的后果让拜登总统和美国政策制定者们此刻既面临机遇又面临危险。就在乌克兰军队正在发起期待已久的反攻之际，国内的混乱可能会导致俄罗斯战争努力的失败，但是，不可预测、拥有核武器的普京如果感到脆弱将会怎样，这仍令美国官员们焦虑不堪。 |
| “For the U.S., it’s advantageous in that the Russians are distracted and this will weaken their military effort in Ukraine and make them less likely to continue to instigate new problems in places like Syria,” said Evelyn N. Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and a former Pentagon official. “The main thing we care about is making sure that professional military remains in control of all of the nuclear facilities.” |
| “对美国来说，俄罗斯人的注意力被分散，这是有利的，这将削弱他们在乌克兰的军事计划，让他们不太可能在叙利亚等地继续挑起新问题，”麦凯恩国际领导力研究所执行主任、美国国防部前官员伊夫林·法卡斯说。“我们最关心的是确保专业军人保持对所有核设施的控制。” |
| The armed standoff on the road to Moscow, brief as it was, represented the most dramatic struggle for power in Russia since the 1991 failed hard-liner coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and the 1993 showdown between Boris Yeltsin and parliament. Unlike those episodes, however, Washington did not have a favorite in the struggle. Mr. Prigozhin is no more a friend of the United States than Mr. Putin. |
| 这次向莫斯科迈进的武装冲突虽然短暂，但却是俄罗斯20多年来最引人注目的权力斗争，此前曾发生过1991年强硬派针对米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫的未遂政变，以及1993年鲍里斯·叶利钦与议会的最后摊牌。但与那两次不同的是，华盛顿在这次权力斗争中没有特别喜欢的一方。普里戈任不比普京对美国更友好。 |
| Mr. Biden responded to the crisis by not responding, opting for caution rather than speaking out, which would risk giving Mr. Putin ammunition to claim this was all a foreign plot, which is often the first line in the Kremlin playbook whenever domestic trouble arises. Mr. Biden delayed his departure for Camp David to convene a secure video briefing with top advisers in the Ward Room of the White House — a makeshift Situation Room while the real one is being renovated — and also spoke with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany. |
| 拜登对这场危机的回应是不做回应，他选择了谨慎，而不是公开发声。公开发声有可能给普京提供把柄，让普京将兵变归咎于外国阴谋，每当俄罗斯遇到麻烦时，这是克里姆林宫的惯常说法。拜登推迟了启程前往戴维营，在白宫的一个用餐厅（Ward Room，现用作临时战情室，实际的战情室正在翻修中）与高级顾问举行保密视频会议，并与英国、法国和德国的领导人通了电话。 |
| Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, canceled a trip to Denmark meant to drum up support for Ukraine so he could accompany Mr. Biden to Camp David and conducted the planned meeting by video instead. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, likewise scrubbed a visit to Israel and Jordan. But other than reiterating American support for Ukraine, the administration remained silent, letting events play out while officials studied the intelligence for insight into what was happening. |
| 总统的国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文为了能陪同拜登前往戴维营，取消了前往丹麦为乌克兰争取支持的行程，通过视频召开了原定在丹麦举行的会议。参谋长联席会议主席马克·米利将军也取消了对以色列和约旦的访问。但除了重申支持乌克兰外，美国政府保持了沉默，在观望事态发展的同时，官员们对情报进行了研究，以了解正在发生的事情。 |
| The administration has drafted contingency plans for such a scenario for a long time, but was left scrambling on Saturday just like everyone else to get hard information out of Russia and to interpret what it meant, relying as much on social media and other online sources as traditional intelligence assets. |
| 虽然美国政府为出现这种情况起草应急方案已有很长时间，但在上周六却和其他人一样，除了传统的情报来源，还依靠社交媒体和其他在线资源，艰难地从俄罗斯获得确凿信息、对其进行解读。 |
| U.S. officials were paying special attention to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, nervous about instability in a country with the power to wipe out most of the planet. But a senior administration official said the government detected no change in the disposition of Russia’s weapons and did not change America’s nuclear posture either. |
| 美国官员对俄罗斯的核武库尤其关注，对这个有能力毁灭地球上大部分地区的国家出现不稳定，感到焦虑不安。但一名美国高级官员说，政府没有察觉到俄罗斯武器布置的任何变化，因此也没有改变美国的核态势。 |
| “It’s pretty fast moving, so it’s hard to know where we will end up, but the two big issues for the U.S. are the command and control over the nuclear weapons and the implications for the Ukrainian efforts to liberate more territory,” said James Goldgeier, a professor of international relations at American University and a specialist on Russia. |
| “事情发展得相当快，所以很难知道最终走向何方，但对美国来说，两个大问题是核武器的指挥和控制，以及对乌克兰解放更多领土努力的影响，”美利坚大学国际关系教授、俄罗斯问题专家詹姆斯·戈德盖尔说。 |
| Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a longtime Russia intelligence analyst now at the Center for a New American Security, said the United States has limited capacity to influence events there and should focus on preventing spillover violence and disorder. |
| 如今在新美国安全中心工作的安德里娅·肯德尔-泰勒长期担任俄罗斯情报分析师，她说，美国影响俄罗斯事件的能力有限，应该把精力集中在防止暴力和混乱外溢上。 |
| “Washington should avoid fueling the deeply held paranoia inside Russia that the U.S. or NATO will seek to exploit the chaos,” she said. “That will be important for preventing an overreaction in Moscow and over the long term if there comes a time to stabilize relations with some future Russia.” |
| “华盛顿应该避免助长俄罗斯国内根深蒂固的无端恐惧，即美国或北约将寻求利用这种混乱，”她说。“这将对防止莫斯科做出过度反应非常重要，而且从长远而言，如果要与未来的某个俄罗斯稳定关系，这样做也很重要。” |
| Any way they looked at it, American officials saw the events on the ground as proof of Mr. Putin’s eroding position. For months, they have been monitoring Mr. Prigozhin’s escalating feud with the leadership of the Defense Ministry over the management of the Ukraine war, wondering as others have why Mr. Putin tolerated such open dissent and speculating about whether the Russian president was secretly encouraging it for his own political purposes. |
| 无论美国官员们怎么看，他们已把俄罗斯发生的事件视为普京的地位受侵蚀的证据。几个月来，他们一直在跟踪普里戈任与俄罗斯国防部领导层在乌克兰战争管理问题上不断升级的争吵，像其他人一样，他们想知道普京为什么容忍了如此公开的异议，他们猜测这名俄罗斯总统是不是为了自己的政治目的，暗中鼓励了这种争吵。 |
| But by Saturday, there was little doubt in the White House and national security agencies that Mr. Prigozhin had done major damage to Mr. Putin. Once a key lieutenant of the Russian president who orchestrated the interference into the United States election in 2016, Mr. Prigozhin publicly debunked Mr. Putin’s entire rationale for the war, refuting the notion that the invasion was a justified reaction to supposed threats to Russia by Ukraine and NATO. |
| 但上周六时，白宫和美国国家安全机构已基本上不怀疑普里戈任给普京造成了重大损害。普里戈任曾是俄罗斯总统的重要助手，他策划干预了2016年的美国总统大选。现在，他公开驳斥普京发动乌克兰战争的全部理由，否认了入侵是俄罗斯对所谓乌克兰和北约的威胁作出正当反应的说法。 |
| Moreover, in his speech to the nation as the crisis unfolded on Saturday, Mr. Putin likened the situation to 1917, when the last czarist government collapsed in the middle of a war that was going badly, a comparison that only fueled the image of a leader in the Kremlin losing his grip on the country. And by making a deal with Mr. Prigozhin only hours after threatening to crush him, Mr. Putin reinforced the reality that he no longer has exclusive control over the use of force on Russian territory. |
| 而且，随着上周六危机的展开，普京在向全国发表讲话时将局面比作1917年，那是最后一个沙皇政府在一场糟糕的战争中垮台的一年，这种比较只会助长人们对克里姆林宫领导人对国家失控的形象。普京威胁要毁灭普里戈任，但却在几小时后与后者达成协议，这强化了一个现实：对于在俄罗斯土地上使用武力，普京不再大权独揽。 |
| “One thing is very clear: Putin looks very weak,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. But a collapse of Mr. Putin’s government, she added, would pose its own hazards. The United States and its allies “should focus on supporting Ukraine while planning all possible scenarios, including a fall of the Putin regime and its replacement by a hard-right faction that will be more brutal and less restrained when it comes to the war in Ukraine.” |
| “有一点非常清楚：普京看上去非常软弱，”位于华盛顿的欧洲政策分析中心主任阿丽娜·波利亚科娃说，但她补充说，普京政府的崩溃也会带来其自身的危险。美国及其盟国“应该将注意力放在支持乌克兰上，同时为所有可能的情况制定计划，包括普京政权垮台、政府被极右派取而代之，这个派别在乌克兰战争方面更残酷、更不克制”。 |
| Even assuming he holds onto power, policymakers worry that Mr. Putin could grow more erratic if he feels backed into a corner. “Weakness begets riskier behavior on Putin’s part,” said Jon Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to Russia under President Donald J. Trump. “There’s a new ripple in Putin’s ‘invincibility,’ which will be exploited from every angle.” |
| 即使假设普京继续掌权，政策制定者们也担心，如果普京觉得自己被逼到了墙角，他可能会变得更加难以捉摸。“软弱会引发普京更危险的行为，”曾在特朗普任总统期间担任美国驻俄罗斯大使的洪博培(Jon Huntsman Jr.)说。“普京的‘战无不胜’有了新的动荡，这可以从各个角度被利用。” |
| For Ukraine, which has been working in tandem with American arms suppliers and intelligence officials to push invaders out of its territory, the Russian internal strife provided a welcome balm after its long-awaited counteroffensive got off to a slow start. |
| 俄罗斯的内乱给乌克兰带来了求之不得的安慰，乌克兰一直与美国武器供应商和情报官员一起努力将入侵者赶出其领土，但其期待已久的反攻进展缓慢。 |
| The Wagner Group mercenary organization led by Mr. Prigozhin had been seen as the most effective Russian force on the battlefield, but with its charismatic leader heading to seeming exile in Belarus and its troops being absorbed by the Russian Defense Ministry, it may no longer be the ferocious fighting unit that it has been. |
| 普里戈任领导的瓦格纳集团雇佣军组织曾被视为乌克兰战场上最有效的俄罗斯力量，但随着该组织有号召力的领导人看似流亡白俄罗斯，雇佣军正在被俄罗斯国防部吸收，瓦格纳集团也许不再是一直以来凶猛的战斗部队。 |
| Unfortunately for Ukraine, the Prigozhin rebellion ended before major Russian forces were pulled off the front lines to protect Moscow, according to American information. But United States officials anticipate that the discord will fuel doubts already plaguing Russian troops about the point of the war and the competence of their leadership. And few believe that Mr. Prigozhin is a spent force who will simply go back to selling hot dogs, as he did as a young man. American officials expect that he still has cards to play. |
| 据美国的信息，对乌克兰来说，不幸的是，普里戈任的兵变在俄罗斯主力部队为保护莫斯科而撤出前线之前就结束了。但美国官员预测，此次事件将加剧俄罗斯军队对战争的意义和领导人能力的怀疑。而且几乎没人认为普里戈任威势不再，会重操他年轻时卖热狗的旧业。美国官员预计他还有可拿出来的招数。 |
| Indeed, Kurt D. Volker, a former ambassador to NATO and special envoy for Ukraine, said the Prigozhin revolt spells the beginning of the end of the war and Mr. Putin’s tenure, even with the deal that short-circuited the march on Moscow. |
| 的确，曾任美国驻北约大使和乌克兰问题特使的库尔特·沃尔克说，普里戈任的兵变标志着乌克兰战争和普京任期结束的开始，尽管普京与普里戈任达成的协议中断了向莫斯科的进军。 |
| “Don’t trust the reversal,” he said. “This is positioning. Prigozhin wants to be seen as a hero for Russians while he lines up more support and makes demands. The state will go after him and that can be his excuse for ‘reluctantly’ defending himself.” |
| “别相信撤退，”他说。“这是在做准备。普里戈任想在争取更多支持、提出要求的同时被视为俄罗斯人的英雄。普京政府不会放过他，届时那将成为他‘不情愿地’自我防卫的借口。” |
| As Mr. Volker put it, there will be “many more shoes to drop.” |
| 用沃尔克的话说，将有“更多的靴子掉下来”。 |
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