Putin Wants Ceasefire Which Freezes Current Lines In Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin is offering a ceasefire with Ukraine and its Western backers to end what has long been a full-fledged proxy war. But it's unlikely to be agreed to by Kiev as he reportedly wants to freeze current positions.

"Putin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire - to freeze the war," a senior Russian source said to be close to the Russian leader told Reuters. If it happened, Putin would most certainly present this as 'victory' to his people and to the world.

Putin himself told a press conference Friday that peace talks with Ukraine should be renewed, but they "must reflect realities on the ground."

Reuters writes that "Three of the sources, familiar with discussions in Putin's entourage, said the veteran Russian leader had expressed frustration to a small group of advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie negotiations and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's decision to rule out talks."

Any scenario which sees current lines frozen would mean Ukraine would have to cede substantial chunks of four Ukrainian regions. And in Kharkiv, for example, where a new Russian offensive is taking place, the border has been moved deeper into Ukrainian territory over the last weeks.

But Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out ceasefire negotiations with Moscow so long as Putin remains in power, calling this "impossible".

The fact that the US just recently passed Biden's $61 billion in new defense aid for Ukraine also provides less incentive for Zelensky to come to the table, even if Ukraine continues losing many troops.

Ukraine media and officials have charged that any Putin ceasefire offer is in the end a ploy meant to buy time to reenforce and resupply his troops, and to solidify current battlefield gains.

If the lines were frozen today, what would it look like? Forbes outlines:

Russia occupies about 18% of Ukraine, including parts of the country’s four southeastern regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson—according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-based think tank.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters Russia did not want “eternal war,” adding Russia would not return territory in those four regions to Ukraine because they are now a permanent part of Russia.

Three sources suggested Putin would be against further advances into Ukraine because it would require another nationwide mobilization, after a previous call-up resulted in a dip in popularity for Putin.

Putin is now said to be of the view that "gains in the war so far were enough to sell a victory to the Russian people."

According to more from the new Reuters report, "the sources said that Putin, re-elected in March for a new six-year term, would rather use Russia's current momentum to put the war behind him. They did not directly comment on the new defense minister."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-wants-ceasefire-involving-freeze-current-lines-ukraine

DARPA And DoD-Backed AI Chip Company Seeks To Raise $70 Million

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that DARPA is hurriedly throwing in with the ongoing AI trend…

In fact, Bloomberg reported this week that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for an additional $70 million to help further its "quest to develop an ultra-efficient chip for artificial intelligence technology".

It is backing a company called EnCharge AI Inc., which seeks to build chips specifically suited for AI.

he company is pioneering in-memory computing—a technology mainly theoretical until recently that could significantly reduce the energy consumption of AI processing chips. It started from work conducted at Princeton.

CEO Naveen Verma, who is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton, noted that EnCharge was launched with substantial support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the DOD.

The report says that this technology has the potential to perform data processing directly where it is stored, thereby conserving energy by eliminating the need to move data across different components.

EnCharge is not alone in its research; major firms like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Intel Corp., and Samsung Electronics Co. are also exploring similar advancements.

Currently, the U.S. government, emphasizing a shift towards boosting American manufacturing, has shown significant interest in such innovations, providing over $23 million in funding to EnCharge, with additional private investment nearing double that amount from entities including Raytheon Technologies’ venture arm.

This is part of a broader initiative backing startups and enhancing the domestic production capabilities.

In addition to the technology's appeal to private sector firms, the U.S. government sees crucial applications in defense, particularly for running AI-driven military applications in power-constrained environments such as remote areas and aircraft, Verma explained.

EnCharge is preparing for its next investment round and is in pursuit of strategic investors, although Verma did not disclose specifics about the funding discussions or the company’s valuation.

The startup has already started deploying its chips, which are tailored not for training AI models like those of OpenAI or Anthropic, but for applications utilizing these models for predictive tasks.

With a workforce of 50, EnCharge anticipates launching products manufactured by TSMC in the coming year and currently has customers evaluating its technology.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/darpa-and-dod-backed-ai-chip-company-seeks-raise-70-million

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/darpa-and-dod-backed-ai-chip-company-seeks-raise-70-million

Sure, they're not making skynet