华盛顿——在试图通过敲诈乌克兰来助其连任竞选活动失败七年之后，总统唐纳德·特朗普似乎又故技重施，向乌克兰施压，要求其停止抵抗俄罗斯每晚针对平民的血腥袭击，以助共和党在即将到来的中期选举中获胜。
WASHINGTON ― Seven years after trying to extort Ukraine into helping him with his own reelection campaign, President Donald Trump appears to be at it again, pressuring Ukraine to stop fighting against Russia’s bloody nightly attacks targeting civilians in order to help Republicans in the coming midterms.
“我认为，我认为乌克兰是时候换一位新总统了，”周六在批评乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基攻击俄罗斯石油基础设施后，他对记者说道。“泽连斯基本可以多次结束这场战争。非常多次。但他偏偏选择不这样做。”这场施压行动，加上特朗普与俄罗斯达成的进口柴油协议，旨在帮助那些因高燃料成本而处境艰难的共和党人。
“I think I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” he told reporters Saturday after lashing out at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having attacked Russia’s oil infrastructure. “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to.”The pressure campaign, alongside a deal Trump cut with Russia to import diesel, is intended to help vulnerable Republicans whose standing has been battered by high fuel costs.
然而，这一政治上的“最后一搏”不仅意味着向发动征服战争、导致数万名平民死亡的俄罗斯独裁者提供充满道德争议的援助，而且似乎也不太可能真正降低燃料成本——这一组合方案甚至遭到了它本应帮助的共和党人的谴责。
Yet the political Hail Mary, beyond giving morally fraught assistance to a Russian dictator waging a war of conquest which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, also appears unlikely to meaningfully lower fuel costs ― a combination that has drawn condemnation from the very Republicans it is intended to help.
“我们需要降低柴油价格，但我认为我们不必为此与俄罗斯达成协议，”周二晚在一场辩论中，来自艾奥瓦州的共和党众议员阿什利·欣森说道。她正在这个通常支持共和党的州参加激烈的参议员竞选。前众议员、共和党密歇根州参议员候选人迈克·罗杰斯同样表示反对这项柴油协议。
“We need to lower diesel prices, but I don’t think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it,” Iowa Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is running in a tight race for Senate in the typically red state, said at a debate Tuesday night. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan, similarly said he opposed the diesel deal.
特朗普针对乌克兰的行动如今已不再局限于愤怒的言论。泽连斯基周三告诉美国国家公共广播电台（NPR），特朗普政府官员曾告知他的军事领导人，除非乌克兰停止对俄罗斯炼油厂发动袭击，否则美国将停止与其共享情报。
Trump’s anti-Ukraine efforts have now gone beyond mere angry statements. Zelenskyy on Wednesday told NPR that his military leaders had been told by Trump administration officials that the U.S. would stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine unless it ended its attacks on Russian refineries.
本周，乌克兰一直用来击落俄罗斯无人机的星链（Starlink）导航系统突然被切断。周三下午，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）——其SpaceX公司运营着“星盾”（Starshield）防御系统所用的星链卫星——将责任直接归咎于特朗普政府以及特朗普本人。
And this week, the Starlink-based navigation system Ukraine had been using to shoot down Russian drones was suddenly switched off. Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX operates the Starlink satellites used by the “Starshield” defense system, put the blame squarely on the Trump administration and Trump personally.
“星盾系统由美国政府拥有并控制。任何对速度或使用的限制都由美军决定，最终由美国总统（POTUS）拍板，”马斯克写道。他是特朗普的盟友，曾向共和党人捐赠超过2.5亿美元，以助其赢得中期选举。
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” wrote Musk, a Trump ally who has donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to help Republicans in the midterm elections.
特朗普的白宫并未回应《赫芬顿邮报》（HuffPost）的提问：尽管俄罗斯持续对乌克兰的公寓楼及其他民用目标（包括发电厂）发动袭击，特朗普为何仍偏袒俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京（Vladimir Putin）。
Trump’s White House did not respond to HuffPost queries about Trump’s favoring of Russia’s Vladimir Putin despite his continued strikes against Ukrainian apartment blocks and other civilian targets, including power plants.
他坚持要求乌克兰采取可能危及自身独立国家地位的行动，声称此举旨在降低柴油价格，这已远远超出了他2019年提出的要求——当时他要求泽连斯基调查时任民主党总统候选人的乔·拜登（Joe Biden），作为获得国会批准军事援助的条件。2019年，俄罗斯虽在东部顿巴斯地区发动低强度攻击，但距离2022年发动的全面进攻和入侵仍有三年时间。
His insistence that Ukraine take actions that would endanger its very existence as an independent nation for the stated purpose of lowering diesel prices goes well beyond his 2019 demand that Zelenskyy investigate then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as a condition of receiving congressionally approved military aid. In 2019, while Russia was conducting low-level attacks in the eastern Donbas region, Putin was still three years away from the full-scale assault and invasion he launched in 2022.
“这同样是出于纯粹政治目的而滥用政府权力，”特朗普的首任国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿（John Bolton）表示。与许多批评特朗普的人一样，他在特朗普第二个任期内被特朗普的司法部起诉。
“It is the same use of governmental authority for purely political purposes,” said John Bolton, a first-term national security adviser to Trump who, like many Trump critics, has in the second term been prosecuted by Trump’s Department of Justice.
曾在罗纳德·里根（Ronald Reagan）总统任期内任职于美国国务院、现供职于布鲁金斯学会的罗伯特·凯根（Robert Kagan）表示，特朗普突然转向支持普京、损害乌克兰的做法，其影响将远远超出这场冲突本身。
Robert Kagan, who served in the State Department in the Ronald Reagan presidency and is now with the Brookings Institution, said Trump’s sudden swing to help Putin and hurt Ukraine carry ramifications far beyond that conflict.
“美国现在根本没有外交政策。今天的美国就是一个掠夺性的犯罪企业，”卡根说，“我们的盟友必须尽快意识到这一现实。”近几天来，特朗普一再——且错误地——将柴油价格飙升归咎于泽连斯基。实际上，专家称，柴油价格接近每加仑7美元，正是特朗普自己对伊朗发动战争的结果，这场战争推高了全球石油、汽油、柴油及其他燃料的价格。
“The United States doesn’t have a foreign policy now. The United States today is a predatory criminal enterprise,” Kagan said. “Our allies need to wake up to that reality quickly.”Repeatedly in recent days, Trump has ― falsely ― blamed Zelenskyy for the spike in diesel fuel prices. In reality, experts say, the near $7 per gallon diesel is the result of Trump’s own war against Iran, which has increased oil, gasoline, diesel and other fuel prices all over the world.
尽管如此，面对卡车司机和农民们的愤怒——这些人的生计在传统的共和党州份正因中期选举临近而受到挤压——特朗普仍要求乌克兰停止袭击俄罗斯炼油厂，转而接受一项“协议”，以奖励普京这场已持续近5年的战争。
Despite this, and facing anger from truckers and farmers whose livelihoods in traditionally Republican states are getting squeezed with the midterm elections just weeks away, Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop hitting Russian refineries and instead accept a “deal” that would reward Putin in his nearly 5-year-old war.
“他想给全世界制造麻烦。他想通过柴油问题给我们的农民、牧场主制造麻烦，因为俄罗斯供应着全球很大一部分柴油，”特朗普周六在谈到泽连斯基时说道。
“He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with, uh, diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world,” Trump said of Zelenskyy Saturday.
周五，特朗普在社交媒体上宣布了一项单独的协议，该协议实际上将解除对俄罗斯的制裁，允许其向美国销售柴油。
A separate deal Trump announced in a social media post on Friday would effectively lift sanctions on Russia to let it sell diesel fuel to the U.S.
“美国乃至全世界的柴油价格将会大幅下降，而且数量创纪录，速度极快！让美国人，尤其是我们伟大的农民、牧场主和卡车司机享受到更低的价格，是我的最高优先事项，”特朗普写道。
“Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority,” Trump wrote.
这项所谓的协议表面上违反了2022年禁止此类进口的法律，因此遭到了国会成员（包括共和党人）以及美国欧洲盟友的批评，他们认为此举背叛了乌克兰，并愚蠢地支持了一位杀人成性的独裁者。
The purported agreement, which on its face runs afoul of a 2022 law that bans such imports, has been criticized both by members of Congress, including Republicans, as well as U.S. allies in Europe as a betrayal of Ukraine and a foolish embrace of a murderous dictator.
“这一决定的结果令人怀疑，而风险却显而易见：在俄罗斯炸弹持续落在乌克兰城市、为其战争提供资金的同时，却使其行为获得正当性，并削弱了制裁，”意大利总理焦尔贾·梅洛尼周三在对意大利参议院的演讲中表示。
“The outcome of this decision is doubtful, while the risks are clear: legitimizing Moscow while its bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities, financing its war, and weakening sanctions,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday in a speech to her country’s Senate.
无论如何，石油行业专家都表示，允许俄罗斯向西欧销售柴油的协议，并不会给依赖柴油的人们带来实质性的缓解。
In any case, oil industry experts said the agreement to let Russia sell its diesel to the west would not bring meaningful relief to those who rely on it.
“柴油每加仑便宜五美分，”石油服务公司Canary LLC的所有者、共和党捐赠者丹·埃伯哈特（Dan Eberhart）说，“太少了，而且为时已晚。”同样在该行业拥有数十年经验的马特·兰道夫（Matt Randolph）则表示，每加仑5美分的估计值过于乐观。
“Five cents off diesel,” said Dan Eberhart, owner of the oil services company Canary LLC and a Republican donor. “Too little, too late.”Matt Randolph, who similarly has decades of experience in the industry, said the 5 cents per gallon estimate was too generous.
“毫无作用，”他说。“这并不会为全球市场增加任何柴油。把柴油从一个地方转移到另一个地方并不会改变价格，只有增加供应或减少需求才能做到这一点。”特朗普2019年的敲诈企图被挫败，当时他政府内部的一名举报人提出了投诉。民主党控制的众议院展开的国会调查最终导致弹劾程序启动，但由共和党控制的参议院选择不对特朗普进行罢免。
“Zero,” he said. “It adds zero diesel to the global market. Moving diesel from one place to another doesn’t change the price. Only increasing supply or lowering demand does that.”Trump’s 2019 extortion attempt was stymied when a whistleblower in his own administration filed a complaint. A congressional investigation by the Democratic House led to an impeachment, but the GOP-controlled Senate chose not to remove Trump from office.
科罗拉多州的民主党众议员杰森·克劳（Jason Crow）是当时众议院弹劾调查的检察官之一，他表示，特朗普对普京的屈膝不仅会伤害乌克兰，也会损害美国利益。
Colorado Democratic congressman Jason Crow, who was one of the House prosecutors in that impeachment, said Trump’s kowtowing to Putin would hurt not just Ukraine, but America.
“唐纳德·特朗普主动对伊朗发动战争，正是导致油价接近历史高位的原因。总统的政策几乎无法降低成本，却处处讨好像普京这样的独裁者，”克劳说。“通过放松对俄罗斯的制裁，他正在延长战争和民众的苦难，也让美国人民的安全受到更大威胁。”
“Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran is the reason gas prices are near all-time highs. The president’s policies will do little to lower costs but do everything to cozy up to autocrats like Putin,” Crow said. “By easing sanctions on Russia, he’s prolonging war and suffering of civilians, and making the American people less safe.”