新聞人物 俄羅斯強人普京的傳奇

As western leaders struggle to respond to the stranglehold Russia has put on Crimea, it is beginning to dawn on them that for Vladimir Putin, this fight started a long time ago.

西方領導人在艱難應對俄羅斯施加於克里米亞的強力控制時，他們開始逐漸明白一點：對弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)來說，這場鬥爭在很久以前就已揭開帷幕。

Within a week, Russia’s president has had his men bring the peninsula on the Black Sea under his control, called the future of the Ukrainian state into question and forced governments from Warsaw to Washington into crisis mode.

在不到一週的時間裏，這位俄羅斯總統就令手下將這個位於黑海的半島置於自己的控制之下。此舉爲烏克蘭國家的未來籠罩上一層疑雲，並迫使從波蘭到美國在內的各個國家的政府進入危機應對模式。

To many in the west, Mr Putin’s actions are those of an authoritarian leader dangerously out of control. Yet back home approval ratings are rising for a man Russians see as having defended the national interest and boosted their living standards.

對許多西方人來說，普京的行動屬於威權領導人極度失控後的危險行徑。但在俄羅斯國內，普京的支持率卻在上升，俄羅斯人認爲他成功捍衛了國家利益，提升了他們的生活水準。

Surprising as this crisis may have been for Europe and the US, for Mr Putin it is the explosion of a grudge that has been building for most of his 14 years in power, a period when he has gone from flint-faced former communist spy to swaggering leader at ease with the trappings of traditional, conservative Russia. “He is disillusioned with the west,” says Igor Yurgens, a former Kremlin adviser. In Mr Putin’s eyes, the revolution in Kiev is only the latest in a long chain of western attempts to encircle and weaken his country.

儘管此次危機對歐美來說可能在意料之外，但對普京來說，這卻是他掌權14年以來的大部分時間裏不斷積累的怨恨情緒的總爆發。在這段時期裏，他從最初那位不苟言笑的前蘇共間諜，變成了一位談吐自如、極度自信的領導人，帶着種種傳統保守的俄羅斯派頭。前克里姆林宮顧問伊格爾•尤爾根斯(Igor Yurgens)說：“他對西方的幻想破滅了。”在普京眼中，基輔發生的革命只是一條漫長鏈條中的最新一環，這條鏈條就是西方企圖圍堵和削弱俄羅斯的陰謀鏈條。

Given the Russian president’s background, hostility to the west almost seems predictable. Born into a working-class family in 1952 in what was then Leningrad, Mr Putin spent his early years with his parents living in one room of a kommunalka, a communal flat. A childhood taste for rowdiness was tempered in his teenage years when he embraced the discipline of martial arts. He also volunteered to join the KGB, an ambition he realised in his early twenties.

考慮到這位俄羅斯總統的出身，他敵視西方似乎是不難預料的。普京1952年生於一個工人階級家庭，當時他的出生地還叫列寧格勒。他早年間與父母住在一種稱爲“kommunalka”的集體公寓裏（中國的類似建築稱“筒子樓”——譯者注）。普京小時候屬於那種喜歡折騰的孩子，青少年時代接受的嚴格武術訓練讓他收斂了心性。他還曾志願加入克格勃(KGB)，並在20歲出頭的年紀實現了這一夢想。

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – an event he has described as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century – Mr Putin swapped spying for politics, first in his home town of St Petersburg (as Leningrad was once more called) and then Moscow, where he joined the presidential office under Boris Yeltsin. Within five years he was handpicked by Yeltsin to succeed him as president.

1991年蘇聯解體（普京曾將這一事件稱爲20世紀最大的地緣政治災難）後，他放棄了間諜生涯，投身政壇。他的政治生涯始於家鄉聖彼得堡（也就是曾經的列寧格勒），隨後又來到莫斯科，進入總統辦公室，處於鮑里斯•葉利欽(Boris Yeltsin)的領導之下。不到五年，他就被葉利欽親手選定爲總統接班人。

At the start of his first presidential term, there was little sense of any cold war chill. “He honestly and wholeheartedly proposed engagement with the west,” says Mr Yurgens. After the September 2001 attacks on the US, Mr Putin offered Washington the use of military bases in Central Asia. Russia also gave up a radio intelligence station in Cuba and a base in Vietnam – steps for which Mr Putin expected something in return but received little.

在普京的首個總統任期之初，人們並沒有感受到什麼冷戰的寒意。尤爾根斯說：“他曾真誠而全心全意地提倡與西方接觸。”2001年9月美國遭受襲擊後，普京曾向華盛頓方面提出，允許其使用俄羅斯在中亞的軍事基地。此外，俄羅斯還放棄了位於古巴的一個無線電情報站，以及位於越南的一個基地。普京本以爲這些舉措能換來某些回報，最終卻什麼也沒得到。

His expectation that Nato expansion would stop at the German border was disappointed. So were hopes that the western alliance would not build a missile defence shield in Europe and that Moscow would reclaim its global role as an equal to the US. Mr Putin began to take the rebuffs personally. “He is very good at telling people what he knows they want to hear,” says a former US official. “But when issues come up, he can be very quick to bristle and get quite angry.”

他曾希望北約(Nato)東擴能止步於德國邊境，結果卻讓他感到失望。此外，他還希望西方同盟不要在歐洲建立導彈防禦系統、以及俄羅斯能重新獲得與美國平等的全球地位，這些希望同樣落空了。於是，普京開始認爲這些粗暴的拒絕是衝着他個人來的。一位前美國官員表示：“他很善於告訴人們他知道他們想聽到什麼。不過一旦出現問題，他可能轉瞬之間就會發火，變得怒不可遏。”

Then came the Orange revolution. When Ukrainians took to the streets in 2004 and overturned an election marred by fraud, Mr Putin suspected a giant western intrigue to encircle Russia. “Putin was shocked, he wouldn’t talk to any western leader for days,” says a senior western diplomat. Mr Putin also came under pressure from hardline former security officials in his inner circle who saw Ukraine as a major strategic setback. “You started to hear for the first time suggestions that he might not make it to the end of his second term,” says the diplomat, who served in Moscow.

接着發生了橙色革命。2004年，烏克蘭人走上街頭，推翻了一場被欺詐行爲玷污的選舉。普京當時懷疑，這是西方圍堵俄羅斯的一個巨大陰謀。西方一位資深外交官說：“普京對此感到震驚，他好幾天都不願與任何西方領導人對話。”另外，普京小圈子內的強硬派前安全官員也向他施加了壓力，這些人認爲烏克蘭局勢是一個重大戰略挫折。這位曾駐莫斯科的外交官表示：“人們開始首次聽到他可能無法成功走完第二個任期的說法。”

“Those days changed everything,” says a person whose family is close to Mr Putin and who remembers a “brooding” president.

一位家族與普京關係密切的人士稱：“那些日子改變了一切。”他回想起，這位總統那時候一副“耿耿於懷”的樣子。

Mr Putin began to crack down on political dissent, tighten his grip on the legislature, the regions and the judiciary – a reaction he has repeated following the latest unrest in Ukraine. Mr Putin’s heavy hand has all but smothered Russia’s civil society, says Gleb Pavlovsky, another former Kremlin adviser. “This is the collapse of the Russian intellectual class,” he says. “I think that’s an even worse disaster than what’s happening in Crimea.”

普京開始鎮壓政治異見人士，收緊對立法機關、各行政區和司法機關的控制——在烏克蘭最新的動亂爆發後，他曾多次作出這種反應。前克林姆林宮顧問格列布•帕夫洛夫斯基(Gleb Pavlovsky)表示，普京的高壓手段幾乎扼殺了俄羅斯的公民社會。“這是俄羅斯知識分子階層的垮臺，”他說，“我認爲這場災難甚至比克里米亞的局勢還要糟糕。”

On the international stage the hardening of Mr Putin’s attitude was signalled in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, which former aides say pointed to what was to come. Mr Putin railed against the US and warned Nato off Georgia. A year later he returned to Munich to deliver a veiled warning about western attempts to draw in Ukraine. “And yet again, they didn’t take him seriously,” says Mr Yurgens.

在國際舞臺上，普京2007年在慕尼黑安全政策會議(Munich Security Conference)上的一次演講凸顯出他的態度日趨強硬。他的前助手錶示，那次演講預示着後來會發生什麼。普京對美國展開了抨擊，並警告北約不要插手格魯吉亞事務。一年後，還是在慕尼黑，他針對西方企圖吸引烏克蘭入盟含蓄地發出了警告。尤爾根斯說：“他們依然沒有把他的話當回事。”

The first time Mr Putin made real his threat – the five-day war with Georgia in 2008 – left relations with the US seriously damaged. Since then, the crises that emanated from the Arab uprising have further cemented Mr Putin’s belief that the US is engaged in dangerous “experiments” around the world.

普京第一次把他的威脅變成事實是2008年與格魯吉亞的“五日戰爭”，那件事令俄美關係嚴重受損。此後，阿拉伯國家的起義所引發的危機讓普京進一步堅定了看法：美國正在全球各地插手危險的“實驗”。

While it is impossible for outsiders to tell when Mr Putin decided to move on Ukraine, there is consensus that it was long planned. “The level of precision with which this has all been rolled out is astounding,” says the former US official.

儘管外部人士不可能確定普京到底是何時決定對烏克蘭採取行動的，但人們的一個共識是，這一行動蓄謀已久。上面提到的那位前美國官員說：“這一行動出臺的精準程度令人吃驚。”

The question is where Mr Putin goes from here. If Russia is targeted with tough financial sanctions, the resulting damage could quickly undermine his power. “He has taken a big gamble but he can’t go back,” says the person with personal ties to Mr Putin. The calculus seems to be that Russia will get to keep Crimea as the west will not risk conflict.

問題是，普京接下來要走向何方。如果俄羅斯受到嚴厲的金融制裁，那麼由此帶來的傷害可能會迅速削弱他的權力。一位與普京有私交的人士稱：“他展開了一場豪賭，但他不能走回頭路。”普京打的算盤似乎是，由於西方不願冒險捲入衝突，俄羅斯最終將把克里米亞納入囊中。

Some Russian experts therefore have little more than scorn for German chancellor Angela Merkel’s reported observation that Mr Putin is out of touch with reality. “People in the west think Putin is irrational or crazy. In fact he’s very rational according to his own logic, and very well prepared,” says Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin adviser who is now one of his fiercest critics. “It is not Putin who is out of touch with reality – it is the west.”

因此，一些俄羅斯專家對德國總理安格拉•默克爾(Angela Merkel)的說法嗤之以鼻——據報道，默克爾稱普京與現實脫節。“西方人認爲普京不理智或瘋狂。實際上，按照他自己的邏輯，他非常理性，而且準備得非常充分。”曾任普京顧問的安德烈•伊拉里奧諾夫(Andrei Illarionov)表示，“與現實脫節的不是普京，而是西方。”伊拉里奧諾夫現在是對普京批評最爲嚴厲的人士之一。