英文部分，是《经济人》杂志的封面文章。我自己试着翻译成中文，哪不对，大家指出。 6park.com
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普京的下一步 6park.com
俄罗斯总统威胁他的人民和邻居。西方应该提高他的恶行的代价。 6park.com
一个人统治着一个警察国家。另一个却被锁起来，快要死亡了。尽管如此，弗拉基米尔·普京还是担心着自己的囚犯。阿列克谢·纳瓦尼（Alexei Navalny）身体虚弱，在绝食一个月后，他于4月19日被转移到监狱医院，也许是为了更好的被强制喂食。但是他（纳瓦尼）仍然是俄罗斯最有威望的反对派领袖。他那给人带来愉快，而揭露事实真相的录像，也引起了选民的共鸣。录像其中之一是普京否认拥有的华丽宫殿的导览，这则视频已经被浏览超过1.16亿次了。纳瓦尔尼先生嘲笑克里姆林宫的谎言，从而发起了一场运动，并在选举中对普京的政党提出了挑战。这就是为什么他去年被毒害，然后又因虚假指控而入狱。这就是为什么他的组织被冠以“极端主义者”的烙印，并且受到越来越少的无情打击和关闭的原因。这也可以解释为什么普京先生急于改变话题并激怒爱国的俄罗斯支持者，但是俄罗斯的民粹主义又再次威胁到了邻国。 6park.com
普京在俄罗斯与乌克兰接壤的边界上集结了超过10万多名士兵，这个国家已经因为在东部地区的顿巴斯（Don bas）抢夺克里米亚并支持亲俄罗斯的分裂国家而被部分肢解。他的发言人警告说，那里的俄语使用者即将发生种族灭绝（但假想中）。其中200,000多本已获得俄罗斯护照，这给普京提供了借口，如果他们声称自己有危险，那么俄罗斯就可以进行干预。军事分析家怀疑全面入侵真的即将到来，因为部队的行动过于公开，无法进行突击袭击。但是普京的海军威胁要封锁刻赤海峡，从黑海砍掉部分领土。他的目标可能是恐吓其领导人并逼迫他寻求让步，例如顿巴斯的正式自治权。或者，也许他想激起乌克兰的反应，为战争的提供一个借口，克里姆林宫的官员说这可能是“乌克兰末日的开端”。他在4月21日发表的国情咨文只提供了最模糊的线索。 6park.com
普京许诺向冲突地区的群众分发援助物，并向敌人施以痛击。他重复了一个关于西方试图暗杀白俄罗斯独裁者亚历山大·卢卡申科的阴谋论。他发誓，那些威胁俄罗斯安全的人“将对自己的行为感到后悔，而不是他们以前所感受过的后悔”。就想他说的，他周围不少持不同政见的蠢货那样。普京先生比他的外表虚弱，自己的虚弱使他感到危险。他在乌克兰冒险行为，是在俄罗斯经济陷入困境且他的民意调查需要提高的时候。今天，他的个人民意支持正在不断下滑，大概只有四分之一的俄罗斯人支持他的政党。反对派纳瓦尼在一月份被捕的抗议活动是十年来最大的抗议活动。白俄罗斯的事件令普京先生感到担忧：卢卡申科先生被抗议活动所削弱，以至于他现在依靠俄罗斯的支持来继续执政。如果俄罗斯的普京发生类似现在白俄罗斯的事情，他却无人可求。面对国内的抗议活动，他可能在国外，乌克兰，白俄罗斯或其他地方受到大肆抨击。 6park.com
所有这些对拜登总统和他的谎言都构成了挑战。在决定如何阻止普京时，西方应该是现实的。没有人希望与核大国开战，而制裁通常是无效的。如果他们是单方面的，或者他们的目标过于激进，那么这些行动往往很难取得成功。即使是最严格的禁运，也未能驱逐古巴和委内瑞拉的小暴君。俄罗斯已经形成了一种围困经济，既有看起来不健康，经济发展也停滞不前，但局外人很难节制。同时，关于对俄罗斯石油和天然气出口实行禁运的说法是幼稚的。世界上有一天必须找到化石燃料的替代品，但是突然关闭像沙特阿拉伯这样规模的供应商会导致全球经济震荡，因此对石油或天然气的禁运是不会发生的。 6park.com
制裁的目的应该是适度的：而不是为了颠覆政权，而是要增加普京在国外的侵略和在国内的压迫的代价。拜登先生开了一个很好的开端，对俄罗斯黑客和选举干预采取了一系列金融制裁措施，如果普京的违法行为进一步加重，美国可以加强制裁。对西方金融机构与克里姆林宫挂钩的公司进行交易的严厉限制将加剧普京的痛苦。拜登还试图劝诱盟友表现出与美国是统一的战线，因为迄今为止这些盟友并没有这样做。德国应停止旨在绕开和挤压乌克兰的北溪二号的天然气管道。英国应进一步打击洗钱活动。涉嫌的个人应冻结其财产，并禁止这些人进入整个西方世界。 6park.com
北约应更加努力。它必须取得平衡：不让克里姆林宫的偏执狂发作在俄罗斯的邻国。一些俄罗斯人认为，北约可能会武力手段以帮助乌克兰夺回失去的地盘。拜登先生应明确表示不会。但是北约应加强在黑海的存在，其成员应继续向乌克兰提供防御武器。在世界经济或气候谈判方面，俄罗斯远没有中国重要。但这仍然也很重要。它是欧洲边界上最不稳定的最容易引起骚动的一个，并且可以说是富裕民主国家中最有朝气的麻烦制造者，资助极端主义政党，散布虚假信息和纠纷。西方如何处理它也树立了先例。中国领导人当然也在关注这俄罗斯的行动。如果拜登让俄罗斯武力解决乌克兰，那北京也可能会认为武力解决台湾也是一个对等的好手段。 6park.com
与前任总统不同的是，拜登先生清楚地看到了普京的底细。他没有拥抱他，而是称他为刽子手。但他也保持着他们之间沟通的畅通。他提议举行首脑会议。如果这个提议只会提高普京的声望，而不会加剧军事紧张局势并发出决心的话，那这将是一个错误的提议。在此之前的外交准备工作将至关重要。幸运的是，拜登先生已经聘请了许多俄罗斯专家，并实际上接受并听取了他们的意见。 6park.com
最终，决定俄罗斯的未来的不是局外人。替代普京错误统治是长期而艰巨的任务，这只能由俄罗斯人自己来完成。同时，民主国家应该像苏联时期那样，向俄罗斯民主人士提供道德支持。拜登先生应敦促纳瓦尼立即获释，不受伤害。世界需要像他这样的持不同政见者才能控制克里姆林宫。没有这种制约，俄罗斯将仍然是一个肆无忌的盗贼统治国家，其邻国将永远无法安全。 6park.com
Putin’s next move 6park.com
Russia’s president menaces his people and neighbours. The West should raise the cost of his malign behaviour 6park.com
One man commands a police state. The other is locked up and close to death. Nonetheless, Vladimir Putin fears his prison­er. Alexei Navalny may be physically weak: after most of a month on hunger strike, he was moved to a  prison hospital on April 19th, perhaps for force－feeding. Yet he is still Russia’s most effec­tive opposition leader. His jocular, matter－­of－­fact videos resonate with voters. One, a guided tour of a gaudy palace that Mr Pu­tin      denies owning, has been viewed more than 116m times. Mr Navalny has built a movement by mocking the          Kremlin’s lies, and challenges Mr Putin’s party at elections. That is why he was poisoned last year, and then jailed on bogus charges. It is why his organization has been branded “extremist” and is being ruth­ lessly shut down. It may also explain why Mr Putin, eager to change the subject and fire up patriotic Russian supporters, is once again menacing the neighbours (see Briefing). 6park.com
He has massed more than 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, a country he has already partly dismembered by grab­ bing Crimea and backing pro­ Russian secessionists in the Don­ bas, an eastern region. His propagandists warn of a looming (but imaginary) genocide of Russian­ speakers there. More than 200,000 of them have been issued with Russian passports, giv­ ing Mr Putin a pretext to intervene if they claim to be in danger. Military analysts doubt that a full­scale invasion is afoot—the troop movements are too blatant for a surprise attack. But Mr Putin’s navy has threatened to block the Kerch strait, cutting off parts of Uk­ raine from the Black Sea. His goal may be to in­ timidate its leaders and extract concessions, such as formal autonomy for the Donbas. Or perhaps he wants to provoke a Ukrainian reac­tion, to furnish an excuse for a war that a Krem­ lin official said might be “the beginning of the end of Ukraine”. His state­－of－­the－­nation speech on April 21st offered only the vaguest of clues. 6park.com
In it, Mr Putin promised handouts for the masses and pain for his enemies. He repeated a conspiracy theory about the West trying to assassinate Alexander Lukashenko, the despot of next­ door Belarus. He vowed that those who threaten Russia’s securi­ ty “will regret their actions more than anything they’ve regretted in a long time”. As he spoke, his goons rounded up dissidents. 6park.com
Mr Putin is weaker than he looks, but that makes him danger­ ous. His previous Ukrainian adventures came when the Russian economy was in trouble and his polls needed a boost. Today, his personal polls are sliding and barely a quarter of Russians sup­ port his party. Protests against Mr Navalny’s arrest in January were the largest in a         decade. And events in Belarus worry Mr Pu­ tin: Mr Lukashenko has been so weakened by protests that he now   depends on Russian support to stay in power. If something similar were to happen to Mr Putin, he has no one to   turn to. Fac­ing protests at home, he may lash out abroad, in Ukraine, Bela­rus or elsewhere. 6park.com
All this poses a challenge for President Joe Biden and his al­ lies. When deciding how to deter Mr Putin, the West    should be realistic. No one wants war with a nuclear power, and sanctions are often ineffective (see Finance       section). They rarely work if－they are unilateral, or their aim is too ambitious. Even the strict­est embargoes have  failed to dislodge lesser tyrants in Cuba and Venezuela. Russia has fashioned a siege economy, in ward ­look­ing   and stagnant but hard for outsiders to throttle (see Briefing). Talk of an embargo on Russian oil and gas exports, meanwhile, is naive. The world must one day find alternatives to fossil fuels, but suddenly shutting off a supplier as big as Saudi Arabia would cause global economic tremors—so it won’t happen. 6park.com
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The aim of sanctions should be modest: not regime change, but to raise the cost to Mr Putin of aggression            abroad and oppres­sion at home. Mr Biden has made a good start, imposing a raft of financial sanctions for          hacking and election­ meddling, which can be tightened if Mr Putin transgresses more (see United States section). Harsher curbs on Western financial institutions dealing with Kremlin­linked firms would add to the pain. Mr Bi­ den is also trying to cajole allies to present a united front, as they have so far failed to do. Germany should kill Nord         Stream 2, a gas pipeline intended to bypass and squeeze Ukraine. Britain should crack down more on money­      laundering. Individuals implicated in abuses should have their assets frozen and be barred from en­ tering the      West. 6park.com
nato should step up. It must strike a balance: reassuring Rus­ sia’s neighbours without feeding the Kremlin’s        paranoia. Some Russians imagine that nato might invade to help Ukraine recapture its lost turf. Mr Biden should  make clear that it won’t. But nato should beef up its presence in the Black Sea, and its members should               continue to supply Ukraine with defensive weapons. Russia is far less important than China, ei­ther to the world economy or to climate talks. But it still matters a great deal. It is the single most prolific stoker of instability on          Europe’s borders, and argu­ably the most energetic troublemaker in rich democracies, fund­ ing extremist           parties, spreading disinformation and discord. How the West deals with it also sets a precedent. China’s leaders are certainly watching. If Mr Biden lets Russia roll over Ukraine, they may assume that Taiwan is fair game, too. 6park.com
Unlike his predecessor, Mr Biden sees Mr Putin clearly. Rath­er than embracing him, he has called him a killer. But he also keeps communications open. He has suggested a summit. That would be a mistake if it merely boosts Mr Putin’s prestige, but not if it de­escalates military tensions and signals resolve. The diplomatic spadework that precedes it will be crucial. Fortu­ nately, Mr Biden has hired plenty of Russia experts, and actually listens to them. 6park.com

In the end it will not be outsiders who decide Russia’s future. The long, hard task of creating an alternative to Mr Putin’s mis­ rule can be performed only by Russians themselves. Meanwhile, democracies should lend Russian democrats their moral sup­ port, just as they did in the Soviet era. Mr Biden should press hard for Mr Navalny to be released, immediately and unharmed. The world needs dissidents like him to hold the Kremlin to ac­ count. Without such checks, Russia will remain a thuggish kleptocracy, and its neighbours will never be safe.