I’m very sad to read that Donald Sutherland has died at the age of 88. I don’t have many celebrity stories, but I do treasure my spectacular interactions with Donald in the summer of 2015. Please do read on. (1/16) theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/arti… In July 2015, as a federal election approached, the Ontario Court of Appeal held up a move by Canada’s Conservative government to bar expats who had been living outside the country for five years or more from voting.

The letter that Russian opposition figure ⁦@IlyaYashin⁩ wrote to me from his Moscow prison is on the front page of today’s ⁦@globeandmail⁩. Story online soon "A month before the arrest, I was directly told that if I didn’t immigrate in the nearest future, I would end up behind bars. Why didn’t I leave? To be honest, even the way and the fact that the question was asked felt humiliating. Russia is my home."

I’ve left Ukraine for now. Will be back soon. There are many great journalists who remain on the ground. Do follow @berdynskykh_k, @ChristopherJM,
@yarotrof, @_EmmaGH, @KSergatskova, @rmnua, @ngumenyuk, @NeilPHauer, @bbclysedoucet, and the entire staff of @KyivIndependent 1/2 I’m the region, I look to @ElenaChernenko, @Nat_Vasilyeva, @maxseddon, and @meduza_en, as well as my Globe colleagues @pwaldieGLOBE, @janicedickson, @ereguly and @begemotus_. Follow them all. 2/2

Twenty years ago, Sharif Sharaf helped me evade the Taliban on my first assignment to southern Afghanistan. After last month’s fall of Kabul, a few of us set out to try and repay the favour. This is the story how The Globe and Mail got its translators out: theglobeandmail.com/world/article-… In a video shared by Ukrainian special forces, it’s clear that only the luckiest, those with the right connections, were escaping Kabul. The unlucky – including women clutching their children, cowering as bullets flew past – were left behind theglobeandmail.com/world/article-…

A quick thread on “Colour Revolutions” since a) they’re in the news, both in Belarus and the US and b) I, um, wrote a book about them. (1/12) Q: Are they a thing? A. Yes. They aren’t an invention of Russian propaganda, though they do happen to fit the favoured narrative in Moscow, Beijing and now (checks notes)… Washington, DC. (2/12)