克里米亚博弈：普京出昏招，接手无底洞

    不过，50亿至60亿美元似乎仍然不足以解决问题，尤其是考虑到腐败成本。毕竟，为了主办刚刚结束的索契冬奥会，俄罗斯在基础设施上投入了500亿美元。其中，连接索契和位于高加索山脉滑雪场地的25英里轨道和公路共计花费了约90亿美元，相当于一英里3.6亿美元。

    我们假设，俄罗斯政府按索契一半的标准，修建一条连接塞瓦斯托波尔到俄罗斯边境的170英里的全新铁路和公路。如果俄罗斯希望它的商品和游客进入克里米亚，这项工程势在必行。仅这一项工程便需要俄罗斯投入300亿美元。此外，俄罗斯还需要在刻赤海峡上修建连接克里米亚与俄罗斯大陆的桥梁——普京显然对这个项目很感兴趣。仅大桥的成本便要30亿美元左右。再乘以3（腐败成本），便等于约90亿美元。也就是说，仅铁路和公路的成本便达到390亿美元，别忘了还有从学校到政府机构等各部门方方面面的开支。

    现在，乌克兰有一个绝佳的机会，让俄罗斯感受一下痛苦。不需要用炸弹，只要把国土让给俄罗斯即可。乌克兰在选举新政府时还应该起草新的宪法，重新考虑边境划分问题，将收益最大化，成本最小化。哪些地区应该保留？哪些地区可以放弃？很显然，乌克兰东部各省涌现出最多亲俄反政府的官员，其中大多数都是老共产党员。如果没有这些人，不论接下来谁执掌乌克兰，日子都会好过一些。此外，这些省份也是乌克兰最贫穷的省份。如果乌克兰放弃这四个与俄罗斯接壤的省份（以及克里米亚）——顿涅斯克、卢甘斯克、赫尔松和扎波罗热，乌克兰每年可以节省20亿美元。

    放弃这些赔钱的省份，甩给俄罗斯一个庞大的财政包袱，同时又能减轻乌克兰自己的负担。不考虑克里米亚并入俄罗斯的成本，俄罗斯今年的预算缺口预计将达到120亿美元。虽然未来几年，俄罗斯经济将保持2.5%的增长速度，但赤字只会越来越严重。要吸纳生活水平本就不高的数百万人，更是雪上加霜。所以，如果在这场小冲突中，乌克兰在军事上无法战胜俄罗斯，那么它不妨退而求其次，让俄罗斯人尝尝破产的滋味。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    But that $5-6 billion figure seems low, especially when you figure in the cost of corruption. After all, Russia just spent around $50 billion on infrastructure to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi this year. Of that $50 billion, it spent around $9 billion to build a 25-mile rail and road link connecting Sochi to the winter ski events in the Caucasus Mountains. That equates to some $360 million per mile.

    Say the government spent half that Sochi rate to build a fancy new rail and road link 170 miles from Sevastopol to the Russian border. This would be imperative if it wanted to bring Russian goods and tourists into Crimea. Such an adventure would cost the Russian government a cool $30 billion. Russia would then need to build the bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland over the Kerch Strait -- a project that Putin is apparently very excited about. The government estimates the bridge alone would cost around $3 billion. Now, multiply that by three (cost of corruption) and it will probably end up being around $9 billion. That's $39 billion for a rail and road link -- and we haven't even gotten to the billions of dollars that would be needed to pay for everything from schools to bureaucracy.

    Ukraine has a golden opportunity here to make Russia feel some pain. It won't be by hurling bombs but by just giving away territory. As Ukraine elects a new government, it should also draft a new constitution and rethink its borders to maximize revenue and minimize cost. Who should stay and who should go? Apparently, the eastern provinces of Ukraine pump out the most pro-Russian and reactionary government officials, most of whom come from the old Communist Party. Losing those folks would make life much easier for whoever takes power in Ukraine. Those provinces are also some of the poorest in the country. If Ukraine would just jettison the four provinces that hug its eastern border with Russia (including Crimea) -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya -- it could save another $2 billion a year.

    Absorbing all of those money-losing provinces would deliver a major financial blow to Russia, while lightening the load for Ukraine. Russia is already expected to post a $12 billion budget shortfall for the year before factoring in the cost of the Crimean annexation. With its economic growth rate stuck at around 2.5% for the next few years, that deficit will just grow larger and larger over time. Having to absorb millions of people, who are mostly poor, will just make things worse. As such, if Ukraine can't win this little skirmish with Russia along military grounds, it should do the next best thing and just bankrupt them.