分析。普京在乌克兰赌上了一种古老的武器：时间

 分析。普京在乌克兰赌上了一种古老的武器：时间

作者：Guy Faulconbridge

普京认为西方对乌克兰的决心会减弱

他说俄罗斯将不计代价实现其在乌克兰的目标

他认为战争对俄罗斯具有重要意义

分析师预测战场上将出现 "丑陋 "的僵局

伦敦，7月22日（路透社）--俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔-普京将赌注押在一种比美国及其欧洲盟国目前向乌克兰提供的任何导弹都要强大的古老武器上：时间。

自普京于2月24日下令入侵乌克兰以来，将近五个月的时间里，俄罗斯希望西方的决心会因为对全球能源和食品价格飙升的担忧而消退，这场战争已经助长了这种担忧。

俄罗斯官员和国家电视台对英国和意大利总理鲍里斯-约翰逊和马里奥-德拉吉的倒台公开表示幸灾乐祸，将他们的辞职描述为西方对俄罗斯实施 "自残 "制裁的结果。

他们问，西方国家中谁会成为下一个倒下的领导人？

10月份就满70岁的普京本月告诉西方，他在乌克兰问题上才刚刚开始，并敢于让美国--对俄罗斯享有经济和常规军事上的优势--试图打败莫斯科。他说，这将是失败的。

美国前驻莫斯科大使、中央情报局局长威廉-伯恩斯（William Burns）本周在阿斯彭安全论坛上说："普京的赌注是，他能在一场磨人的消耗战中取得成功"。

这位前克格勃间谍打赌，他可以 "扼杀乌克兰经济，削弱欧洲公众和领导人，并且他可以削弱美国，因为在普京看来，美国人总是患有注意力缺失症，你知道，会被其他东西分散注意力，"伯恩斯说。

伯恩斯去年11月被美国总统拜登派往莫斯科，警告普京入侵乌克兰的后果，他说他认为俄罗斯领导人的赌注会失败。

但克里姆林宫没有显示出退缩的迹象，称俄罗斯将在乌克兰实现其所有的目标。 阅读全文

普京18年的外交部长谢尔盖-拉夫罗夫周三表示，俄罗斯在乌克兰的野心现在远远超出了东部的顿巴斯地区，包括南部的大片领土和 "其他一些领土"。 阅读全文

撤军

美国国家安全委员会周二表示，它掌握的情报显示，俄罗斯正准备吞并整个顿巴斯以及乌克兰南部海岸线上的土地，包括赫尔松和扎波罗热。 更多

这将使俄罗斯对超过18%的乌克兰领土的控制正式化，此外，莫斯科在2014年通过吞并克里米亚获得了大约4.5%的领土。

拉夫罗夫说，如果西方向乌克兰提供更多的远程武器，如高机动性炮兵火箭系统（HIMARS），俄罗斯的领土欲望将进一步增长。

"伦敦经济学院国际历史教授弗拉迪斯拉夫-祖博克(Vladislav Zubok)说："拉夫罗夫似乎在向西方传递的修辞信息是：战争持续的时间越长，我们的要求就越多。

"这可能纯粹是虚张声势，但如果俄罗斯想保留南部领土，我不会感到惊讶。"

美国国防部长劳埃德-奥斯汀说，美国已经向乌克兰提供了超过80亿美元的安全援助，将向乌克兰再发送四台HIMARS。

那么，乌克兰的情况如何结束？

"麻省理工学院福特国际政治学教授巴里-R-波森(Barry R. Posen)说："我的最佳猜测是，这将以接近当前战线的僵局而结束，也许是一个丑陋的停战。

"你将进入一个丑陋的政治军事试验期，然后是一个令人不舒服的、没有合法性的解决方案，进入一个冻结的冲突。"

强大的力量？

自从普京在1999年的最后一天从叶利钦手中接过核公文包以来，他压倒一切的首要任务就是至少恢复莫斯科在1991年苏联解体时失去的一些大国地位。

普京多次抨击美国推动北约东扩，特别是对乌克兰和格鲁吉亚等前苏联共和国的讨好，而俄罗斯认为这些国家是其自身势力范围的一部分。

普京认为这些举动的目的是故意削弱甚至摧毁俄罗斯。他为入侵乌克兰提出了各种理由，但越来越多地将其视为与西方的生存之战，其结果将重塑全球政治秩序。

由于俄罗斯仍在出口其巨大的自然资源财富，并得到中国的重要支持，普京正在赌博，认为俄罗斯可以慢慢限制乌克兰，同时能够比他认为腐朽的西方国家承受更多痛苦。

这场赌博在鲜血和财富方面的代价是巨大的。

美国情报部门估计，迄今已有约15,000名俄罗斯人在乌克兰被杀--相当于1979-1989年莫斯科占领阿富汗期间苏联的死亡人数。

伯恩斯说，美国情报部门认为，乌克兰的损失可能比这少一点。乌克兰和俄罗斯都没有对自己的损失作出详细估计。

"伯恩斯说："（普京）真的是一个回报的使徒。"他确信他的命运......是将俄罗斯恢复为一个大国。"

只有时间会告诉我们，普京22年统治中最危险的赌注是否会得到回报。

报道：盖-福尔康布里奇 编辑：加雷斯-琼斯

我们的标准。汤森路透信任原则。

Analysis: Putin bets on an ancient weapon in Ukraine: time

By Guy Faulconbridge

Putin believes Western resolve over Ukraine will weaken

Says Russia will achieve its aims in Ukraine despite costs

Casts war as existentially important for Russia

Analyst predicts 'ugly' stalemate on battlefield

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting on an ancient weapon more powerful than any of the missiles now being supplied by the United States and its European allies to Ukraine: time.

Nearly five months since Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion that has devastated parts of Ukraine, Russia is hoping that Western resolve will be sapped by alarm over surging global energy and food prices that the war has helped to stoke.

Russian officials and state television openly gloat about the fall of British and Italian prime ministers Boris Johnson and Mario Draghi, depicting their resignations as a result of the "self-harming" sanctions the West imposed on Russia.

Who in the West, they ask, will be the next leader to fall?

Putin, who turns 70 in October, told the West this month he was just getting started in Ukraine and dared the United States - which enjoys economic and conventional military superiority over Russia - to try to defeat Moscow. It would, he said, fail.

"Putin's bet is that he can succeed in a grinding war of attrition," CIA Director William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, told the Aspen Security Forum this week.

The former KGB spy is betting he can "strangle the Ukrainian economy, and wear down the European publics and leaderships, and he can wear down the United States because in Putin's view Americans always suffer from attention deficit disorder and will, you know, get distracted by something else," Burns said.

Burns, who was sent by U.S. President Joe Biden to Moscow last November to warn Putin of the consequences of invading Ukraine, said he thought the Russian leader's bet would fail.

But the Kremlin shows no sign of backing down, saying Russia will achieve all of its aims in Ukraine. read more

Putin's foreign minister of 18 years, Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday Russia's ambitions in Ukraine now went far beyond the eastern Donbas region to include a swathe of territory in the south and "a number of other territories". read more

ANNEXATION

The U.S. National Security Council said on Tuesday it had intelligence that Russia was preparing to annex all of Donbas as well as land along Ukraine's southern coastline including Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. read more

This would formalise Russian control over more than 18% of Ukrainian territory in addition to around 4.5% that Moscow took in 2014 by annexing Crimea.

If the West supplies more longer-range weapons to Ukraine, such as high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), Lavrov said, Russia's territorial appetite will grow further.

"The rhetorical message Lavrov seems to be sending to the West is: the longer the war lasts, the more we claim," said Vladislav Zubok, professor of international history at the London School of Economics.

"It could be pure bluff but I would not be surprised if Russia wanted to keep the southern territories."

The United States, which has provided more than $8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, will send four more HIMARS to Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

So how does it end in Ukraine?

"My best guess is that this ends with a stalemate close to the current battle lines, perhaps an ugly armistice," said Barry R. Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"You’re headed for an ugly period of political-military experimentation followed by an uncomfortable and un-legitimated settlement into a frozen conflict."

GREAT POWER?

Ever since Putin was handed the nuclear briefcase by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, his overriding priority has been to restore at least some of the great power status which Moscow lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Putin has repeatedly railed against the United States for driving NATO's eastward expansion, especially its courting of ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia which Russia regards as part of its own sphere of influence.

Putin has suggested such moves are aimed at deliberately weakening and even destroying Russia. He has given a variety of justifications for his invasion of Ukraine but increasingly casts it as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order.

With Russia still exporting its vast natural resource wealth and with crucial backing from China, Putin is gambling that Russia can slowly constrict Ukraine while being able to endure more pain than a West that he sees as decadent.

The costs of that gamble in blood and treasure are immense.

U.S. intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russians have been killed so far in Ukraine - equal to the total Soviet death toll during Moscow's occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989.

Ukrainian losses are probably a little less than that, U.S. intelligence believes, Burns said. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has given detailed estimates of their own losses.

"(Putin) really is an apostle of payback," Burns said. "He is convinced that his destiny... is to restore Russia as a great power."

Only time will tell if the most perilous bet of Putin's 22-year rule will pay off.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge Editing by Gareth Jones

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