俄罗斯志愿者战士渴望打击ISIS
Bondo Dorovskikh is ready. “Since childhood I have been dreaming about going to war, but things never really worked out,” says the Russian businessman. “Now, in Syria, we are needed.”
邦多多罗夫斯基赫(Bondo Dorovskikh)已经准备好了。“我从小的梦想就是当兵打仗，但从未真正实现过。”这位俄罗斯商人说，“如今，在叙利亚，我们有用武之地了。”
Last year, Mr Dorovskikh went to eastern Ukraine to fight as a volunteer alongside pro-Russian separatists in the self-declared Lugansk People’s Republic, but he returned in December. “They had told us that we were coming to the rescue of the Russian population, to fight the fascists, but it wasn’t like they told it on TV,” he says. “The enemy there was not real, and the local population didn’t support us.”
去年，多罗夫斯基赫曾前往乌克兰东部，作为一名志愿者战士在自封的“卢甘斯克人民共和国”(Lugansk People’s Republic)与亲俄罗斯的分裂分子并肩作战，但在12月他返回了俄罗斯。“他们曾告诉我们，我们是来拯救俄罗斯人、抗击法西斯分子的，但现实并不像他们在电视中所讲述的那样。”他说，“那里没有真正的敌人，当地人也不支持我们。”
On his return to Moscow, the 41-year-old found what he thinks is a worthier cause: fighting the Islamist radicals of Isis. Since April, he has been liaising with former Donbass fighters and other Russian men keen to volunteer, and searching for ways to join the Syrian war through International volunteer units fighting alongside Kurdish formations.
回到莫斯科后，41岁的多罗夫斯基赫找到了一项他认为更有价值的事业：抗击“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)的伊斯兰激进分子。自今年4月以来，他一直在联络曾在乌克兰顿巴斯呆过的战友以及其他渴望志愿参战的俄罗斯人，并试图通过与库尔德武装并肩作战的国际志愿兵组织设法加入叙利亚战争。
Igor Girkin, the Russian former commander of separatist fighters in Donbass, claimed last week some Russians had already gone to Syria straight from eastern Ukraine. And Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, has repeatedly declared his readiness to send Chechen fighters to Syria as well.
曾担任顿巴斯分裂武装指挥官的俄罗斯人伊戈尔吉尔金(Igor Girkin)最近称，一些俄罗斯人已从乌克兰东部直接奔赴了叙利亚。车臣共和国领导人拉姆赞愠德罗夫(Ramzan Kadyrov)也一再宣称自己已准备好将车臣武装人员派往叙利亚。
In the Ukraine conflict, volunteer fighters have been a central part of Russia’s now-notorious hybrid war. Incited by a propaganda campaign which spoke of the need to protect fellow Russians from “fascists”, they poured into Donbass by the thousands, thus helping obscure the activity of special forces, regular troops without insignia and Chechen units who played a leading role in inciting and organising the war.
在乌克兰冲突中，志愿者战士一直是现已臭名昭著的俄罗斯混合战争(hybrid war)的中心部分。在声称需要保护俄罗斯同胞免遭“法西斯分子”迫害的宣传攻势的煽动下，成千上万的志愿者战士涌入了顿巴斯，他们的存在帮助掩盖那些在煽动、组织这场战争中发挥了主导作用的未戴徽章的特种部队、正规部队以及车臣部队的活动。
Therefore, talk about Russian volunteers heading to Syria rings alarm bells among those who believe Moscow might broaden its intervention from the air strikes it started on September 30 to a covert ground operation. But the Syrian war is very different, and volunteers are extremely unlikely to play a key role.
因此，有俄罗斯志愿者战士在奔赴叙利亚的传闻在一部人中间敲响了警钟，他们认为莫斯科可能会将对叙利亚的干预从9月30日开始的空袭扩大到进行秘密地面行动。但叙利亚战争与乌克兰危机迥然不同，志愿者战士极为不可能发挥关键作用。
Most importantly, the personal and emotional ties many Russians have with Ukraine are absent in the Syrian conflict. “In Ukraine, it appeared logical to many that ethnic Russians needed support because so many people in our country have friends or family there, and the propaganda line that it was a fight against ‘fascists’ was in line with beliefs about Ukrainian nationalists that are widespread in Russia,” says Lev Gudkov, head of Levada Center, the independent pollster. “But nothing like that exists with Syria.”
最重要的是，许多俄罗斯人对叙利亚冲突没有他们对乌克兰的那种私人与情感纽带。“我们国家有那么多人在乌克兰有朋友或亲戚，并且打击“法西斯分子”的宣传口号也与俄罗斯人关于乌克兰民族主义者的普遍看法相符，因此就乌克兰而言，那里的俄罗斯族裔需要支持的说法在很多人看来合乎逻辑。”独立民调机构列瓦达中心(Levada Center)负责人列夫古德科夫(Lev Gudkov)说，“但在叙利亚，不存在这层关系。”
There are, of course, war aficionados like Mr Dorovskikh. Born in Tadjikistan with one Russian and one Georgian parent, into a family of soldiers and Afghanistan war veterans, he says his relatives declared him crazy when he went to eastern Ukraine. “In Donbass, there were about 40,000 of us; to Syria you could probably get a brigade, up to 1,500 fighters, if it’s well-organised,” he says. But even those men face huge financial and logistical hurdles.
当然，还有像多罗夫斯基赫这样的好战分子。罗夫斯基赫出生在塔吉克斯坦，父母分别是俄罗斯人和格鲁吉亚人，家族中有不少军人和参加过阿富汗战争的老兵。他说，当他去了乌克兰东部时，亲戚们都说他疯了。“在顿巴斯，大约有4万名像我这样的志愿军战士；到了叙利亚，如果组织得力的话，或许可以组建一个旅，最多可达1500名战士，”他说。但即使这些人也面临着巨大的财务和后勤困难。
Travel costs from Russia to Syria alone are about Rbs30,000 ($485), and fighters’ living expenses are about $200 a month. In Ukraine, many of these costs were met by donations; this seems unlikely to be replicated for Syria.
光是从俄罗斯到叙利亚的路费就要约3万卢布（合485美元），还有每名战士每月约200美元的生活费。在乌克兰，这些开销大部分由捐款负担，但在叙利亚，这种方式似乎不大可能行得通。
It is also unclear if their presence would be welcomed, either by fighters or by the government. Three other men active in Russian online groups focusing on the Syrian war told the FT they had been trying for months to join that war.
还不清楚他们的到来是否会受到反对派武装分子或是叙利亚政府的欢迎。关注叙利亚战争的俄罗斯网络组织的另外3名活跃人士向英国《金融时报》表示，他们已经尝试加入这场战争数月而未果。
“I wrote to the Syrian embassy but didn’t even get an answer,” says one.
“我曾致信叙利亚大使馆，但连回信都没收到，”其中一人说。
One group of volunteer hopefuls even sent a letter to the Russian defence ministry asking for help. The letter included a proposal to fly them to Syria in military transport aircraft, and an offer to pay for the lift with money from donations. They too received no response.
一个由希望成为志愿者战士的人组成的组织甚至致函俄罗斯国防部寻求帮助。信中提议使用军用运输机把他们空运至叙利亚，并提出用捐款资金支付旅费。他们也未收到回应。
“Fighting with the Kurds is [now] the only option,” says Mr Dorovskikh. He says he contacted the Peshmerga International Detachment (IDET), a combat unit staffed by foreigners that fights with the Kurdish militia in Iraq, as well as an international unit fighting with Kurdish militia in Syria, and expected to go to Syria via northern Iraq with a group of around 20 others within weeks. Contacted by the FT, IDET said it had no Russian members at present and could neither confirm nor deny whether Russian volunteers were joining the unit.
“与库尔德人并肩作战是（现在）唯一的选择，”多罗夫斯基赫说。他说自己联系上了“自由战士国际分遣队”（Peshmerga International Detachment，一个由在伊拉克与库尔德民兵并肩作战的外国人组成的战斗组织，同时也是一个在叙利亚与库尔德民兵并肩战斗的国际组织），他希望在几周内与其他约20个人一起，取道伊拉克北部进入叙利亚。英国《金融时报》联系上该组织，后者称目前没有俄罗斯籍成员，但也无法确认或否认是否有俄罗斯志愿者战士正在加入该组织。
If Mr Dorovskikh and his friends succeed, they might well end up fighting alongside the US-led international coalition, which Moscow opposes. “We are told by the Peshmerga volunteers that we will be given training along Nato lines, and we will have to buy uniforms that fit Nato standards — that’s one reason it’s so expensive,” says Mr Dorovskikh. He is undeterred by the fact that he would be allied with the west. “We are independent,” he says. “As long as we are fighting against Isis, everything is fine.”
如果多罗夫斯基赫和他的伙伴们成功进入叙利亚，他们可能最终将与以美国为首的国际联军并肩作战，而后者正是莫斯科反对的。“‘自由战士’的志愿者战士告诉我们，我们将接受北约(NATO)式训练，我们必须购买符合北约标准的制服——这是开销如此昂贵的原因之一，”多罗夫斯基赫说。他并未因为将要与西方结盟而畏缩。“我们是独立的，”他说，“只要我们能打击ISIS，一切都好说。”
It remains to be seen whether the Russian government sees it the same way. Last Monday, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the armed forces committee in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, said Russian volunteers were likely to appear among the ranks of the Syrian army, and those willing to go could not be stopped. But a day later, he said it was out of the question that Russians would fight in a ground operation in Syria. He added: “To the best of my knowledge, Russians trying to get to Syria, Libya or Iraq to fight there are being stopped by the relevant Russian authorities, and rightly so.”
俄罗斯政府是否也这样认为还有待观察。最近，海军上将、俄杜马（下议院）国防委员会主席科弗拉基米尔科莫耶多夫(Vladimir Komoyedov)表示，俄罗斯志愿者战士可能出现在叙利亚军队中，那些想去的人无法阻拦。但一天后，他又改口称，俄罗斯绝不可能在叙利亚进行地面作战。他补充说：“据我所知，试图进入叙利亚、利比亚或伊拉克境内参战的俄罗斯人都被俄相关部门阻止了，这样做是正确的。”
