IN DECEMBER last year Vladimir Putin used a surprise visit to Syria to declare that Russia’s mission there was “basically accomplished”. His troops had saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Russia had played the decisive part in a conflict that America had failed to control. Coming after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, his message was clear. Russia is back.

去年12月，弗拉基米爾·普京突然造訪敘利亞，宣布俄羅斯在那里的任務(wù)“基本完成”。他的軍隊拯救了巴沙爾·阿薩德政權(quán)。而俄羅斯在這場美國未能控制的沖突中發(fā)揮了決定性的作用。2014年克里米亞被吞并后，他傳達的信息是明確的，俄羅斯回來了。

Just ten weeks later, Mr Putin’s boast looks premature. Within a few hours last weekend Iran first sent a large surveillance drone from deep inside Syria into Israeli airspace and Israel responded by shooting it down and destroying its controlling infrastructure near Palmyra. When an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, on its way home from the raid, was brought down by a salvo of Syrian air-defence missiles, Israel hit back by destroying around a third of Syria’s anti-aircraft batteries. Russian military advisers may have been among those killed.

僅僅10周之后，普京的吹噓看起來還為時過早。在上周末的幾個小時內(nèi)，伊朗首先從敘利亞腹地發(fā)射了一架大型無人偵察機進入以色列領(lǐng)空，以色列用擊落并摧毀它在帕米爾拉附近的控制基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施作出回應。當一架以色列F-16戰(zhàn)斗機在襲擊后返回的途中，被敘利亞防空導彈擊落，以色列反擊，摧毀了敘利亞約三分之一的防空炮。俄羅斯軍事顧問可能也在被殺之列。

The skirmishes hold two messages. Far from winding down, the war in Syria is entering a new and possibly more dangerous phase. And while fighting rages, Russia must stay.

這些小沖突傳遞兩條消息，敘利亞戰(zhàn)爭非但沒有結(jié)束，反而進入了一個新的、可能更危險的階段。而在對抗肆虐的同時，俄羅斯必須留下。

未完待續(xù)...