Month: April 2022

Yahoo! News

Russia-Ukraine war latest: Former NATO commander warns that West must gear up for war

Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – April 28, 2022

LONDON — As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hits its 64th day, a former NATO commander urged the West to prepare for a “worst case” scenario: war with Russia. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday visited areas around Kyiv that were formerly held by Russian forces. “The war is evil,” he said while standing beside destroyed apartment blocks in the town of Borodyanka.

‘Worst case is war with Russia’

In response to comments made by the U.K. foreign secretary over the West’s needing to “double down” on its support for Ukraine, former NATO commander Richard Shirreff told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program it was “absolutely the right approach” and that “it’s got to be followed through with significant resources, and it’s got to be done right across the alliance as a whole.”

Shirreff, formerly a NATO deputy strategic commander for Europe, went on to caution that the Kremlin is likely to respond to this aggressively and that the West should be prepared for a worst-case scenario. “The worst case is war with Russia,” he said. “By gearing itself up for the worst case, it is most likely to deter [Russian President Vladimir] Putin because ultimately Putin respects strength.”

U.N. chief visits Ukraine

Standing outside burned-out apartment blocks in Borodyanka on Thursday, Guterres said: “When I see those destroyed buildings … I imagine my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic.” He added: “The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. And when you see these situations, our heart of course stays with the victims, our condolences to their families. But our emotions are … there is no way a war can be acceptable in the 21st century.”

Later in the morning, Guterres visited the site of a mass grave in Bucha, telling reporters he fully supports the International Criminal Court’s investigation of Russia’s alleged war crimes. “When we see this horrendous site, it makes me feel how important it is [to have] a thorough investigation and accountability,” he said. “But when we talk of war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself.”

Alleged war crimes being probed

Thousands of alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops are under investigation by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office. A total of 8,653 crimes have been registered with the office, and 620 suspects have been accused of the aggression, the office revealed on Thursday. The office also reported that 217 children have been killed and 393 others have been injured during the war.

Russia is blackmailing Europe with energy, says Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of engaging in “energy blackmail” against Europe after Moscow halted natural gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria. In his nightly address to the nation on Wednesday, Zelensky said the Kremlin considers not only energy but trade as weapons to use against European countries.

“[Russia] is just waiting for the moment when one or another trade area can be used to blackmail Europeans politically, or to strengthen Russia’s military machine, which sees a united Europe as a target,” he said. “Hence, the sooner everyone in Europe admits that it is inadmissible to depend on Russia in trade, the sooner it will be possible to guarantee stability in European markets.”

Europe relies on Moscow for more than a third of its gas needs, and Russian state energy company Gazprom holds a monopoly on the pipeline supplies.

Yahoo! News

Amal Clooney tells United Nations: Ukraine is a ‘slaughterhouse’

Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – April 28, 2022

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Wednesday urged the United Nations to hold Russia accountable for the alleged war crimes it has committed in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse right in the heart of Europe,” Clooney said during an informal U.N. Security Council meeting in New York.

Clooney is part of an international task force that is advising Ukraine on its legal options amid Russia’s military invasion, now in its third month.

President Biden has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “war criminal” who should be tried for war crimes, as atrocities from Moscow’s deadly invasion of Ukraine continue to mount.

“Putin’s aggressive war is so outrageous that even after repeated warnings from the U.S. and Russia’s long criminal record, Ukrainians couldn’t believe that this could happen,” Clooney said. “And I still read news headlines not knowing quite how to process them.”

“Could it be that thousands of children are being forcibly deported to Russia?” she continued. “Could it be that teenage girls are being raped in the street in front of their family and their neighbors? Was a building that had the word ‘children’ on it really bombed? And are civilians today in Mariupol systematically being tortured and starved to death? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.”

The International Criminal Court formally opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine a week after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.

“This is a time when we need to mobilize the law and send it into battle,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said at the meeting. “Not on the side of Ukraine against the Russian Federation, or on the side of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, but on the side of humanity.”

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said this week that a total of 8,653 alleged war crimes have been registered with the office. At least 217 children are reported to have been killed in the war.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres visited Bucha, Ukraine, where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russian forces withdrew from the town.

According to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 2,829 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia’s war began. But the agency believes the actual death toll is likely much higher.

Yahoo! News

Russia shells field hospital in Azovstal steel plant, Ukrainian forces say

Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – April 28, 2022

Ukrainian forces holed up in the Azovstal steel factory in the besieged city of Mariupol said Thursday that Russian forces had bombed a field hospital in the plant.

Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th Marine brigade forces in Mariupol, said about 600 people, including civilians, were wounded in the attack.

Videos released by the Azov Battalion show soldiers and civilians inside the factory in the aftermath of the apparent attack.

“The situation is difficult,” Volyna told Sky News. “As for medical support, it is absent.”

Russia’s weeklong bombardment on the strategic port city has made it nearly impossible for humanitarian aid to reach the factory, which has emerged as the last pocket of organized resistance in the siege.

An estimated 2,000 troops and up to 1,000 civilians are believed to be holed up in nuclear bunkers underneath the structure. It’s unclear how much food, water and other supplies the survivors have left.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s National Guard released new video footage of what it said were women and children sheltering in underground tunnels. “We want to see peaceful skies. We want to breathe in fresh air,” one woman said in the video, according to a translation by the Associated Press.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Mariupol had been “liberated” and publicly told his defense minister to call off the storming of the Azovstal plant, ordering that it be “blocked off” instead. But Ukrainian officials say the factory continues to come under assault.

According to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 2,829 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Russia’s invasion began. But the agency believes the actual death toll is probably much higher.

CBS News

Mysterious explosions rattle Ukraine’s neighbor, Moldova

CBS News – April 28, 2022

A series of mysterious explosions have taken place across Transnistria, a pro-Kremlin breakaway territory of Moldova that hosts Russian troops, sparking fears that the Russian invasion of Ukraine may spill over to other countries in the region.

Moldova is facing “a very dangerous new moment,” Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu said Thursday, warning of unnamed forces attempting to stir tension in Transnistria, a narrow strip of land that shares a border with Ukraine.

Transnistria proclaimed independence from Moldova in 1990 and de-facto runs itself independently of Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, but is not internationally recognized.

The attacks come days after the Russian military commander signaled that Moscow could be seeking a path to Moldova in its “second stage” of the military operation.

“Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population,” the acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District Rustam Minnekaev said, in what is the most direct threat to Moldova voiced by Russian officials to date.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used the alleged discrimination against Russian speakers in Ukraine as justification to launch a brutal attack on Ukrainian cities in late February.

This week Transnistrian authorities said explosions targeted a state security ministry headquarters in Tiraspol, the breakaway territory’s main city; a military unit in Parcani village; and two radio towers that rebroadcasted Russian news, according to Transnistrian authorities.

On Wednesday, local media outlets reported a shooting incident had occurred near Russian arms and ammunition depots on the outskirts of the Cobasna village.

No one immediately took responsibility for the attack, and there were no reported casualties. But Transnistrian officials pointed fingers at Ukraine.

“We imposed a special emergency mode: a red terror alert,” Transnistrian foreign minister Vitaly Ignatiev told Russian news agency Interfax. “According to preliminary data, the traces of those who organized the attacks are leading to Ukraine.”

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said Tuesday that the attacks were an attempt to escalate tensions and blamed “pro-war factions” and infighting within the breakaway territory’s administration.

“We condemn any challenges and attempts to lure the Republic of Moldova into actions that could jeopardize peace in the country,” Sandu said. “Chisinau continues to insist on a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.”

Moldova has accepted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the war broke out on February 24. Its government has condemned Russia’s war and submitted a bid to join the European Union along with Georgia and Ukraine. It is also seeking the EU’s support in handling the influx of refugees and calling on the bloc to step up support for the country.

But it is also trying to carefully balance its neutral stance with NATO to signal it is not willing to be the next target for Russia.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said the alleged attacks in Transnistria were a provocation organized by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

“We clearly understand that this is one of the steps of the Russian Federation. The special services are working there. It’s not just about fake news. The goal is obvious — to destabilize the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source intelligence and military analytics group that has been monitoring the invasion of Ukraine, said a daily briefing: “We see how the tension in the region continues to escalate. The President of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky, says he does not want to drag his country into this war. At the same time, we see that checkpoints are starting to appear in Tiraspol and other places in Transnistria to Moldova’s concern.”

“Our assumption is, although it is not confirmed yet, is that Krasnoselsky is under pressure from the local Ministry of State Security, which is probably a local branch of the FSB, and is somehow pushing him to war or mobilization.”

According to CIT, roughly two battalion tactical groups are located at the Russian base in Transnistria. General mobilization would allow Russian forces to recruit around 10 more such groups.

“This cannot significantly affect the situation in Ukraine, but it can force Ukrainian troops to keep part of their forces near Odesa,” CIT said. Odesa is a key port city in Ukraine’s south that Russia has failed to capture in its campaign to make Ukraine landlocked.

Russian officials publicly expressed concern about the events in Transnistria.

“We strongly condemn attempts to involve Transnistria in what is happening in Ukraine,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a briefing Thursday. “We call for restraint in Chisinau and Tiraspol and a return to a constructive search for optimal solutions to the issues on the agenda.”

Yahoo! News

Why Russia is dragging the Moldovan region of Transnistria into war

Niamh Cavanagh and Laura Feldman – April 28, 2022

LONDON — Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu said in a Thursday briefing with journalists that the country is facing a “very dangerous new moment” after a series of explosions in the Ministry of State Security building in Transnistria on Monday. Since then, all of the country’s institutions have been on high alert, Popescu added.

On Tuesday, two explosions damaged Soviet-era radio masts in the village of Maiac. Before the attacks, a senior Kremlin commander said, according to Russian state media, that the Russian Armed Forces planned to “make passage” into southern Ukraine to reach the breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova.

Where is Transnistria?

Transnistria is a 248-mile narrow strip of land in Moldova that borders Ukraine and has a population of 470,000. The region is more or less equally divided between Ukrainians, Russians and Moldovans, a former Moldovan ambassador to the U.S told the French outlet L’Illustré. Russians, however, occupy the “highest positions in the administration and form the military and economic elite,” the ambassador said. Transnistria has its own capital and uses its own currency; Russian is its official language. Cobasna, a village in the region, houses a former Soviet (now Russian) ammunition depot that is the largest in Eastern Europe. According to Moldova’s ambassador to the United Nations, the depot contains more than 20,000 metric tons of Russian ammunition.

What is the region’s relationship with Russia?

Although Transnistria is internationally recognized as part of Moldova, it has been controlled by pro-Russian separatist authorities since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. Russian forces have been stationed there since 1992, after a ceasefire was signed between Moldova and Transnistria, following a short border war in which up to 700 people were killed.

The Kremlin props up Transnistria’s economy by supplying free gas to local industries and by paying the elderly the “Putin pension,” a total of $8 a month. In return, Russia keeps soldiers stationed there permanently, in what the Kremlin describes as “peacekeeping.” Russian state media, which is widely available in the region, has also played a significant role in bolstering pro-Russian sentiment.

In Moldova, as in other countries, Russia has used its energy supply to exploit dependencies and exert pressure on the country to adopt policies favorable to the Kremlin, Dorina Baltag, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance, told Yahoo News. “Last year, in October 2021, the Moldovan government was forced to declare a state of emergency, after a gas contract with Russian gas enterprise Gazprom had expired, and a new contract offered by Gazprom included a threefold price increase, which the Moldovan government was not able to pay,” Baltag said. “The contract with Russia, a good deal which the Moldovan government managed to reach, exposes the Moldovans’ biggest vulnerability. So, for Moldova, energy security is most likely the main ingredient for national security.”

What has happened in Transnistria since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24?

According to L’Illustré, foreign journalists have been banned from the territory since Russia’s invasion began. Six weeks into the war, authorities in the region reported an attack on a military unit just hours after two radio masts were blown up. Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, blamed the attacks on the separatist groups and said her government would resist “attempts to drag Moldova into actions that may endanger peace within the country.” No injuries were reported, but separatist authorities raised the terrorist threat level in the region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of attempting to destabilize Moldova, sarcastically comparing the reasoning for the attacks to what the Kremlin has claimed to be the reason for invading Ukraine. “Allegedly there, in Moldova, the rights of Russian speakers are violated,” Zelensky said in an address to the nation last Friday. “Although, to be honest, the territory in which Russia should take care of the rights of Russian speakers is Russia itself: Where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice. Where there is simply no right to dissent. Where poverty thrives and where human life is worthless.”

Is the war about to spread to Moldova?

Baltag said that Moldova’s vulnerability is Transnistria, and that the situation depends on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. “The war in Ukraine brings up two of the main challenges that Moldova has to deal with: the dependency of Russian gas, and the Transnistrian breakaway region, supported by the Russian Federation,” she said.

The Hill

Russian troops making ‘slow and uneven’ progress in eastern Ukraine, US official says

Ellen Mitchell – April 28, 2022

Russian forces are advancing slowly in eastern Ukraine due to continued logistics problems and other issues, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

“We would assess that Russian forces are making slow and uneven and, frankly, we would describe it as incremental progress in the Donbas,” the official told reporters.

Kremlin troops are “only able to sustain several kilometers or so progress on any given day” due to continued pushback by the Ukrainians and logistics issues that have remained since the start of the Russian invasion more than two months ago, they said.

The Russians “don’t want to run out — run out too far ahead of their logistics and sustainment lines,” the official added.

They also noted that “there’s a lot of still back and forth in the Donbas in terms of territory gained and or lost by, frankly, both sides.”

After struggling in the areas around Kyiv, Moscow earlier this month began a renewed offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland and eastern-most region. For that effort, about 92 Russian battalion tactical groups are now in the country — up from 85 last week — with each group made up of about 700 to 1,000 troops.

In southern Ukraine, meanwhile, the U.S. has observed some Russian forces leaving the heavily bombed port city of Mariupol, which has still not fallen to the Kremlin, to head northwest toward Zaporizhzhia.

To bolster the Ukrainian forces in the face of the attacks, the U.S. said it will ship 90 howitzer artillery systems to the country, with “more than 60 percent” now within its borders, the official said.

The U.S. has also begun training Ukrainians on the artillery systems elsewhere in Europe, with the first batch of 50 troops finished and sent back into the country to teach more forces. A second group of 50 Ukrainians has started six days of training, the official said.

Business Insider

US has evidence that Russian troops in the Donbas are executing Ukrainians even as they surrender, official says

Sophia Ankel – April 28, 2022

• An official said the US has “credible information” of Russians killing Ukrainians trying to surrender.
• The US ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice told the UN about the claims.
• This reveals a “disturbing pattern of systematic abuse” by Russian forces, the official said.

The US has evidence that Russian troops in eastern Ukraine have executed people who are trying to surrender, a top US official told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.

“We now have credible information that a Russian military unit operating in the vicinity of Donetsk executed Ukrainians who were attempting to surrender, rather than take them into custody,” Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, said in the meeting.

“If true, this would be in violation of a core principle of the law of war: the prohibition against the summary execution of civilians and of combatants who are hors de combat by virtue of surrender, injury, or other forms of incapacitation.”

Hors de combat is a French term used in international law to refer to someone in war who has clearly expressed an intention to surrender or who is injured and incapable of defending themselves.

Van Schaack continued: “These … reports suggest that atrocities are not the result of rogue units or individuals; they rather reveal a deeply disturbing pattern of systematic abuse across all areas where Russia’s forces are engaged.”

She did not give any more detail about what reports she was referencing.

Since Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russian troops have shelled several cities across the country, hitting multiple civilian targets, including hospitals and schools.

After failing to capture the capital city Kyiv, Russian forces have refocused their efforts in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded more than 3,400 civilian casualties in the country so far, although the number is expected to be much higher.

In the besieged port city of Mariupol, at least 21,000 civilians have been killed by Russian forces, local Ukrainian officials said earlier this month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of committing “genocide” and called Russian soldiers “murderers, looters, butchers.”

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it is targeting civilians. It continues to call the invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.”

Reuters

U.S. accuses Russia of planning to shut down Ukrainian democracy

April 28, 2022

VIENNA (Reuters) – The United States accused Russia on Thursday of planning to short-circuit Ukrainian democracy by forcing the government from power and dismantling local authorities.

“We have information that Russia’s planning for its further invasion of Ukraine includes a forced capitulation of Ukraine’s democratically elected government, including dissolving all local municipal governments in Ukraine,” U.S. Ambassador Michael Carpenter said in an address to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperating in Europe (OSCE).

“New governance structures were to be set up in ‘liberated’ territories under Russian control,” he added in the speech posted online.

Without providing evidence, he said Russian officials and pro-Moscow rebels were developing a new government and new constitution. Planning included “a moratorium disallowing legitimate Ukrainian leaders and those supporting Ukraine’s legitimate government from any leadership positions”.

He said the Kremlin may be preparing “sham referenda” in areas of southern and eastern Ukraine it has seized since its invasion began on Feb. 24 in an attempt to legitimize its military action and assert control over these areas.

Russia says its “special military operation” is designed to demilitarise its neighbour and remove fascists from power.

Last week a Russian general said Moscow wanted to take full control over southern Ukraine, despite previous assertions that it had no territorial ambitions.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Ukrayinska Pravda

Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated a village in the Kharkiv region and held back the Russian Federations offensive – a summary of the General Staff

Katerina Tishchenko – April 28, 2022

ukrpravda@gmail.com (Ukrayinska Pravda) April 28, 2022

The Ukrainian military resumed control over the settlement of Kutuzovka in Kharkiv Region, and also held back the enemy’s offensive in a number of directions. Source: Summary by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of 18:00 Quote: “Enemy units attempted to attack the positions of the Ukrainian Defence Forces in the directions of Brazhkovka and Dovgenkiy (Kharkiv Region – ed.). They did not succeed, suffered losses and retreated.

Also, the invaders unsuccessfully tried to take control of the main facilities of Velyka Kamyshevakha. The Ukrainian Defense Forces have restored control over the settlement of Kutuzovka, Kharkiv Region.” Details : The greatest enemy activity on Thursday has been observed in the Slobozhansky and Donetsk directions.

In the Slobozhansky direction, the enemy deployed up to 5 divisions of the Iskander-M OTRK on the territory of Belgorod Region. The enemy continues to regroup his forces. According to available information, the enemy brought a battalion tactical group of airborne troops to the territory of the Russian Federation to restore combat capability due to significant losses in personnel and military equipment.

In addition, the battalion tactical group from the units of the 29th Army of the Eastern Military District was moved from the territory of Belgorod Region of the Russian Federation to Kharkiv Region. The enemy continues aerial reconnaissance with unmanned aerial vehicles.

In the Donetsk and Tavrida directions, the enemy, in order to pin down Ukrainian troops and hold the previously occupied lines, fired at the positions of Ukrainian defenders using multiple rocket launchers and artillery along almost the entire line of confrontation. The enemy tried to completely capture Rubizhne, but had no success, suffered losses and retreated to previously occupied positions.

In the Kurakhovsky direction, the enemy unsuccessfully tried to advance in the directions of the settlements of Solodka and Novomykhailivka. The enemy continued to inflict air strikes on Mariupol. The main efforts were focused on blocking the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of ​​the Azovstal plant in order to prevent their breakthrough.

In the direction of Donetsk – Zaporizhzhia, the enemy carried out an offensive in the direction of the settlements of Neskuchne and Vremovka, but was not successful. He continues to strengthen the grouping of troops.

In the Yuzhnobuzhsky direction, an attempt at enemy assault operations in the areas of the settlements of Oleksandrivka, Tavrichesky, Ivanivka and Zagradivka was successfully repelled. No significant changes in enemy activity were recorded in the Volyn and Polissia directions. Enemy aviation continues to deliver missile and air strikes on targets in Ukraine from the territory of Belarus.

According to the available information, aviation units of the Russian Aerospace Forces continue to use the Baranovichi airfield. The air defence systems of Belarus continue to operate in an enhanced mode. In the Siversk direction, no signs of the formation of a grouping by the enemy to resume the offensive were found.

The occupiers are taking measures to strengthen the cover of certain sections of the border. Thus, additional units of the Russian National Guard have been deployed into the border zone in the direction of Chernihiv and Sumy Regions.

The General Staff also reports that the ships of the occupying fleet in the waters of the Black Sea and Azov Sea continue to launch missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine, carry out missions to isolate the combat area and conduct reconnaissance.

Reuters

Ukrainian farmer shelters in old cellar from war with just pickles to eat

April 27, 2022

STUDENOK, Ukraine (Reuters) – A farmer living close to the frontline of war in Ukraine’s east has converted his old cellar into a bomb shelter with only his last jar of pickles to eat, saying he feels more comfortable there than in his house.

Just 400 of the 1,200 pre-war inhabitants are hanging on in the village of Studenok in the Kharkiv region two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Artem Bogryap is one of them, saying he knows nowhere else to go.

“I am not leaving here, this is my land. My relatives are buried here. So I’m staying in place,” he told Reuters on Tuesday during a welcome spell of calm in the village, as a small pot steamed over a makeshift camping cooker.

“The fighting is really close to here now, so it gets really frightening sometimes,” he said.

Walking down a few steps from his yard into the cellar, he points out a door he has built on the side hoping it would help secure against collapse during shelling.

“It is already quite old, but I feel more comfortable staying inside,” he said while sitting on a bench in the cellar.

“This is a can of pickles, the last one. There is nothing here, just a passage to get through. You cover your head, but of course there’s little (more) you can do.”

Ukraine’s general staff has said Russian forces are pressing their offensive in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions and that they had captured several settlements.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the conflict and describes its actions as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and defeat fascists. Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless and that the war is an unprovoked act of aggression.

(Reporting by Hamuda Hassan and Parniyan Zemaryalai, editing by Mark Heinrich)