Volodymyr

• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240306357812/en/
  Remofirst cofounders Nurasyl Serik (left) and Volodymyr Fedoriv, who saw a need for a simple and affordable way for companies to legally and compliantly employ global teams, today announced $25 million in Series A venture capital funding.
• This additional funding is a huge milestone for Remofirst, validating its vision for the future of global distributed teams and our superior solution that is affordable and easy to use.
• The Remofirst solution leverages local in-country legal experts to ensure that its contracts are compliant in all locations, avoiding misclassification risks.
• Prior to its Series A round, Remofirst raised $14.1 million in Seed funding in 2022.

• How could NATO get this war-torn European country out of its never-ending “in between” position, a grey zone and a strategic no man’s land that have left it vulnerable to those who deny it the right to exist?
• At the close of the meeting, it’s important o acknowledge that the circle has not been squared.

The dangers of a conditional accession

• This is, of course, welcome and even the Henry Kissinger, a famous proponent of realpolitik who was long opposed to Ukraine’s membership, shifted views earlier this year.
• However, US president Joe Biden cut the enthusiasm short: a “prematured” accession would thrust NATO into a direct military conflict with Russia, which sees the Alliance as an existential threat.
• Volodymyr Zelensky himself admitted that his country could not join as long as the war was still being fought.
• As Zelensky warned: “We must remember that every doubt we show here in Europe is a trench that Russia will definitely try to occupy.”

How to deal with the “interim” period?

• This will be decisive to dissuade Russia from engaging into a new escalation and to place Ukraine in a strong negotiating position when time comes for a peace settlement.
• The debate about “security guarantees” erupted right after the launch of the Russian “special operation”.
• Since then, however, neutrality for Ukraine has been relegated to the dustbin of history.

A military ‘Marshall Plan’

• This kind of military “Marshall Plan”, as Eric Ciaramella, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, coined it, would keep Ukraine under “qualitative military edge”, the technological and tactical advantage to deter and, if necessary, defeat a numerically superior adversary.
• The “Kyiv Security Compact” draws its inspiration from the “hedgehog theory”, under which a state becomes so well armed that its enemies will not try to swallow it.
• The European Union could follow this path, and complement the G7’s offer with its own set of assistance measures.
• Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of the Atlantic Alliance, stated that Ukraine is “now closer to NATO than ever before”.
• More realistically, one could say that the martyred country remains trapped in the antechamber of the new European security order.

• Initially, there were questions on how the dam collapsed or who was to blame, but mounting evidence indicates that the dam was deliberately breached by Russia.
• In my view, as a career U.S. special forces officer, the simplest answer is most often correct and provides the most likely explanation for the dam’s destruction.
• It’s my belief that Russia deliberately destroyed the dam to defend against the Ukrainian counteroffensive that it believed was imminent.

An age-old military strategy

• Quite to the contrary, it is an effective defensive technique that dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
• In another instance, the Chinese military breached levees along the Yellow River in 1938 to slow the Japanese advance.

How Ukraine has used the same tactic

• The Ukranians also deliberately flooded the Zdvyzh and Teteriv rivers to make them unfordable and bolster their defense of Kyiv.
• The destruction of the Irpin dam was fairly limited: 50 of the small village of Demydiv’s 750 homes were destroyed.
• There is also a threat of floating landmines and an ongoing challenge to provide drinking water to thousands.

How the flooding supports Russia’s defense

• In such a posture, the Russian defense has some advantages.
• Defenders fight from fortified positions, whereas attackers must advance from exposed, vulnerable positions while overcoming obstacles, such as flooded streets.
• The defender, by contrast, must spread its forces across the battlefield, if it cannot correctly anticipate the point of attack.

A natural defense

• Nor in my view could they correctly anticipate the location of Ukraine’s main counteroffensive effort.
• It also created a humanitarian crisis that Russia no doubt anticipated, and has further leveraged to its tactical advantage.
• Sadly, the flooding of the Dnieper river will likely be more devastating and last much longer.

• The IoT Community (Internet of Things Community), the world’s largest community of CXOs and IoT professionals and practitioners, announces Intellias, a global technology partner to Fortune 500 enterprises and digital innovators, has become a platinum-level corporate member of its elite IoT ecosystem.
• Volodymyr Demkiv, Senior Delivery Manager and Head of Unit at Intellias, appointed to the IoT Community Advisory Board.
• David Hill, Executive Director of the IoT Community: “We are excited to expand our relationship with Intellias in our IoT Community ecosystem as a new platinum-level corporate member, in addition to adding Volodymyr Demkiv to our Advisory Board.
• Volodymyr Demkiv, Senior Delivery Manager at Intellias: “Becoming an IoT Community platinum member of this prestigious organization is an honor for Intellias, and I am excited to join the IoT Community Advisory Board.