Mark MacKinnon Profile picture
Senior International Correspondent for The Globe and Mail. Now based in London, after stops in Moscow, the Middle East and Beijing.
Jun 20, 2024 23 tweets 5 min read
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.
May 29, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
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 Image "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."
Mar 19, 2022 4 tweets 9 min read
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
Sep 10, 2021 11 tweets 6 min read
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-…
Sep 18, 2020 12 tweets 2 min read
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)