經濟學人The Economist 本期兩篇，值得重視：習近平正在中國繼承鄧小平的威權統治；一個令人不寒而慄卻又極有可能發生的情景：如果普丁獲勝會怎樣？設想西方在烏克蘭可能失敗的情景，是避免災難的第一步。Xi Jinping is carrying Deng Xiaoping’s authoritarian torch in China； A chilling, yet plausible scenario: What if Putin wins? Imagining how the West might lose in Ukraine is a first step to avoiding disaster

 經濟學人The Economist 本期兩篇，值得重視：習近平正在中國繼承鄧小平的威權統治；一個令人不寒而慄卻又極有可能發生的情景：如果普丁獲勝會怎樣？設想西方在烏克蘭可能失敗的情景，是避免災難的第一步。Xi Jinping is carrying Deng Xiaoping’s authoritarian torch in China；  A chilling, yet plausible scenario: What if Putin wins? Imagining how the West might lose in Ukraine is a first step to avoiding disaster

Xi Jinping is carrying Deng Xiaoping’s authoritarian torch in China

Many see China’s leader as a counter-reformer. But he is really an heir

Illustration: Cornelia Li

Jan 19th 2026|5 min read

Editor’s note: On January 24th, China’s defence ministry said it was investigating Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, two high-level military officials. Mr Zhang was one of Xi Jinping’s most trusted military advisors and is the most senior general to be targeted during the president’s anti-graft campaign.

 Russia is just too powerful to fight and, as in Ukraine, will just grind it out. Besides, Mr Trump argues, European weakness practically invited ...

How could Russia win off the battlefield? The European Union's top diplomat and our geopolitics editor, David Rennie, discuss how Vladimir Putin ...

Near the front line, Russians are growing tired of war

A report from Belgorod, where not all residents see Ukrainians as enemies

Old enough to remember the last big war herePhotograph: Alexei Dushutin

Jan 28th 2026|Belgorod and Kozinka|3 min read

Kozinka looks like any other village in Russia’s Belgorod region: brick houses, a school and kindergarten, a grocery displaying its opening hours. But the houses are dark and the shop never opens. The village, less than a kilometre from the Ukrainian border, was shut down by the authorities last year. Fewer than ten of the thousand or so people who lived here remain, at their peril. The evacuees were promised compensation for their houses. They are still waiting.

澤連斯基：每月5萬俄軍損失將摧毀莫斯科的戰爭機器

烏克蘭總統澤倫斯基表示，烏克蘭需要每月在其領土上造成約5萬俄軍傷亡。俄羅斯很可能無法彌補如此巨大的傷亡。

光是2025年12月，烏克蘭軍隊就消滅了3.5萬俄軍。在長達十年的阿富汗戰爭中，蘇聯軍隊的傷亡人數僅為俄羅斯在這場戰爭中一個月損失人數的一半。

「這是俄羅斯開始認真反思其所作所為及其戰爭目的的最佳水平，」烏克蘭總統指出。

莫斯科無法彌補的損失

澤連斯基表示，實現這一目標主要依靠各種類型的無人機、徹底的分析、從實戰中吸取的經驗教訓以及各部隊之間的高水平訓練和協調。

他補充說，確保俄羅斯士兵遭受如此巨大的損失是國防部的責任… GOOGLE

Zelenskyy: 50,000 Russian losses a month would break Moscow’s war machine

Ukraine needs to inflict losses of around 50,000 Russian troops per month on Ukrainian territory. This is a level of casualties Russia would most likely be unable to replenish, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.

In December 2025 alone, Ukrainian forces destroyed 35,000 Russian troops. During ten years of war in Afghanistan, the Soviet army lost half as many troops as Russia lost in just one month of this war.

“It's the optimal level at which Russia will begin to seriously weigh what it is doing and what it is fighting for,” the Ukrainian president states.

A level that Moscow cannot compensate for

Zelenskyy says achieving this goal is primarily possible through drones of various types, thorough analysis, lessons learned from combat operations, and a high level of training and coordination among units.

Ensuring such losses for Russian soldiers, he adds, is the responsibility of Ministry...

Culture | War games

A chilling, yet plausible scenario: What if Putin wins?

Imagining how the West might lose in Ukraine is a first step to avoiding disaster

Photograph: Getty Images

Jan 22nd 2026|5 min read

The job of military scenario planner has never been harder. Just this month Donald Trump has kidnapped Venezuela’s despot, threatened armed action against Colombia, Cuba, Iran and Mexico, started a stand-off with NATO allies over Greenland and finally got his hands on a Nobel peace medal (without winning it). Who could have foreseen all that?