Remember the story about Yuri Kerpatenko, the conductor from Kherson who was killed by the Russians for refusing to take part in a concert put on by the occupiers? We went to Kherson and found out what really happened. The truth was far murkier, darker and in some ways more tragic than the original story.

Earlier this year, I was in Dubai talking to a businesswoman who told me something I had never heard before: some of the famous Instagram influencers who populate the city, she said, were selling sex, and making serious money. I decided to investigate. Things got weird: I guess the first thing to know is that a large number of very rich people have moved to Dubai since the pandemic started. They've been joined by a lot of influencers.

We went to the first Ukrainian checkpoint after Russian-held territory in Zaporizhzhia. All the men we spoke to said they were fleeing mobilisation into the Russian army. A few things: As of Thursday, men between 18-35 are banned from leaving Russian-held Zaporizhzhia to Ukraine OR to Russia / Crimea. Some still managed to bribe their way out.

If you want to see what the future of climate change looks like, go to Kuwait City and Basra in July. They cities are both oil rich, and 80 miles apart. But in one, there is 24/7 electricity and air conditioning. In the other, people live with constant power cuts. Living at 52 degrees, with no AC, is hell. Your eyes hurt, you can't sleep. Your kids are exhausted and cranky. It's too hot for them to go to school. You can't really go out and work. Your health is at risk.

All that news you're seeing about new weapons coming to Ukraine? They're significant. But they're not the whole story. In Donbas, soldiers described an extremely different picture, one where some units had suffered 50% losses and were constantly running out of ammunition. Many soldiers just back from the front told us they didn't have shells to fire back at the Russians units constantly bombarding them. They were just crouching in their trenches, taking heavy casualties.

Last week I went to Transnistria and Chisinau to look at what might come next for Moldova. A few thoughts: People in Transnistria I spoke to are genuinely afraid that Ukraine is going to attack them. This is the line that is being pushed in the pro-Russian local media: scary ultranationalist Ukrainians, armed by the US, will pour over the border.

Thousands of civilians are pouring out of eastern Ukraine, fearing a Russian assault and atrocities like the ones committed in Bucha. In Bakhmut last week one young woman told me: “I’m not so scared of dying. But I don’t want to be raped.” She and her mum were fleeing to western Ukraine after having held out throughout this war, and for the last eight years. Their windows were blown out by shelling on the other side of the road. But it was the fear of what occupying Russian soldiers would do that made them leave.

Yesterday night, at a morgue in Kramatorsk, we watched volunteers carry out bodies of civilians killed in the Russian missile strike on the station. Among them was a 12 year old girl in a purple hoodie and white trainers. She had been waiting for the train when she was killed by flying shrapnel. No one knew where her parents were, or if they had survived. "She was alive when she came," a nurse told us.

In the woods outside Bucha today we met Maria, 80, who hadn't minded the Russian soldiers so much when they turned up at her house. It was only after they withdrew that she found out they had tied up and executed her neighbours. thetimes.co.uk/article/bodies… Russian forces retreated from this area in the last few days. They left absolute horror behind. Soldiers told us they'd found mutilated bodies of men, women and teenagers inside a basement of a holiday home. Others that corpses left in the street had been mined.

So on Thursday I met Irina Bryzhyk, a beautician from Kherson, to talk about life under occupation. Instead she told me the truly insane story of how she organised a huge convoy that got dozens of civilians out of the city, past Russian checkpoints through an active war zone. I can't overstate how mad this story is. She planned the whole thing with military precision, through a Telegram group she started with other beauticians, her friends and clients. Got up to date intel from people in villages along the road out. Made everyone carry burner phones.

Our latest investigation: healthy young men who travelled to Qatar to work on World Cup-related projects are coming back with chronic kidney disease, which often kills them within a few years (thread) thetimes.co.uk/article/qatar-… We met Amit Ali Magar in a dialysis ward in Kathmandu. He is 24 years old and probably won't live much longer. He's a massive football fan. (Photographs by Tripty Tamang Pakhrin)

I went to Baku last week. A few things: everyone I spoke to, even avowed members of the government opposition, supported Azerbaijan's role in the conflict wholeheartedly. There was a real martial ardour on the streets. Hatred towards the other side and disinformation about the conflict is widespread. It isn't possible to access social media without a VPN. The government narrative is the one that is widely believed. Everything else is dismissed as "fake news".

"This life is like death" - I went to Idlib with @ysfsymn and @mahmoud_basha8 for The Sunday Times. This is what we saw:
thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/i… @ysfsymn @mahmoud_basha8 The opposition-held province has been under bombardment for months as the regime advances. In Idlib city we went to a hospital treating civilians mutilated from the bombs - doctors working overtime under threat of death.

If you wanted any further proof that Russia/regime propaganda influences the US President’s decision-making (from my story in @thesundaytimes this weekend): This summer UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt pitched the idea of rescuing some of the White Helmets in southern Syria to the US President