内容摘要：In addition to Microsoft, the Israeli military has extensive contracts for cloud or AI services with Google, Amazon, Palantir and several other major American tech firms.

In addition to Microsoft, the Israeli military has extensive contracts for cloud or AI services with Google, Amazon, Palantir and several other major American tech firms.

Moreover, there are still demands by both Russia and Ukraine that would be hard to reconcile in any kind of peace settlement.Ukraine refuses to cede any land and wants robust security guarantees against future aggression, possibly involving a contingent of peacekeepers -– something a handful of European nations have been discussing and Russia publicly rejects as a nonstarter.

Russia, in turn, demands that it holds onto the territory it has seized as well as no NATO membership for Ukraine. It also wants Kyiv to “demilitarize,” or significantly reduce its armed force.Russian soldiers guard a pier where two Ukrainian naval vessels are moored, in Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula, March 5, 2014. (AP Photo, File)Russian soldiers guard a pier where two Ukrainian naval vessels are moored, in Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula, March 5, 2014. (AP Photo, File)

Radchenko sees the latter as a major sticking point in peace talks, because a strong, viable army is important for Ukraine to defend itself.“If there are restrictions on the kinds of weapons Ukraine can receive (from the West) or the size of the army, then it will be very difficult to get them to accept this sort of agreement,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seemingly raised the stakes further this week by saying that international recognition of regions annexed from Ukraine by Russia was “imperative” for a peace deal.

Achieving that remains unclear, given that dozens of countries have decried the annexations as violating international law.“We are waiting for Putin’s agreement,” he said.

“We agree that, in case there is no real progress this week, we then want to push at European level for a significant tightening of sanctions,” Merz added. He said that “we will focus on further areas, such as the energy sector and the financial market.”Merz welcomed Zelenskyy’s readiness to travel personally to Turkey, “but now it is really up to Putin to accept this offer of negotiations and agree to a ceasefire. The ball is exclusively in Russia.”

Overnight, Russia launched 10 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said. It was Russia’s smallest drone bombardment this year.The Kremlin hasn’t directly responded to