Good morning. A quick programming note: I’m Danielle Groen, the new writer for Morning Update. (Hello!) In addition to guiding you through the day’s top news, I’ll be going deeper on a big story – like our intimate journey to Ukraine’s front lines from The Globe’s foreign correspondent Mark MacKinnon. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Liberals will not release names of parliamentarians accused of collaborating with hostile foreign states
- Police use gas and batons, arrest pro-Palestinian protesters at McGill after they occupied building
- Premier Doug Ford unveils cabinet shuffle as Ontario legislature breaks until October
Illustration by Miko Maciaszek
The Globe in Ukraine
Meet The Fearless
Last September, not far from Kyiv, soldiers led my colleague Mark MacKinnon through the back door of an abandoned hotel into what was once its laundry room. There, wedged between old washing machines and cardboard Clorox boxes filled with bags of ammunition, the leader of Ukraine’s most feared battalion sat smoking a cigarillo.
Mark figured he had 15 minutes, but the special-forces fighter, code-named Shaman, was in an expansive mood. Talk turned from the battlefield to questions of religion. The cigarillos were traded for a hookah pipe. Mark ran out of questions before Shaman – who called this laundry room his thinking spot – ran out of time.
The two men hadn’t met before, but Mark knew of Shaman’s work. Two years earlier, he was among an elite team of Ukrainian fighters who rescued hundreds of people – including a Globe translator and his family – from Kabul right before the Taliban takeover. And after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mark began checking in with those same fighters: over text, over beers and, increasingly, from the front lines of every major battle to defend their country’s independence.
Mark has covered international affairs since 9/11, and started writing about Russia and Ukraine in 2002, when he became The Globe’s Moscow bureau chief. His remarkable reporting on the rescue team, online today and in a special section in tomorrow’s paper, gives us the inside story of their war back home.
An unexpected introduction
Throughout August 2021, Mark tried pulling every string with every government to get two colleagues out of a chaotic Kabul. Then he spoke to a senior Ukrainian intelligence officer, who had a plane on the ground and a breezy confidence in his team’s ability to evacuate anyone needing help. “They’d been fighting against the Russian army in the Donbas region for seven years,” Mark told me. “For them, going into Kabul to face a couple of lightly armed Taliban guys was almost seen as a vacation.”
It was a short reprieve. Six months later, Russian missiles – quickly followed by Russian ground troops – moved on cities all over Ukraine. The Kabul fighters scattered across the map, popping up in the hottest of hotspots: Mark found them in Mariupol, in Kharkiv, in Bucha and Balakliya, even reclaiming Snake Island from the Russian warship that had so memorably been told to screw off.
Hope and heartbreak in Ukraine
The soldiers confided in Mark at the start of the conflict that they worried it would be a quick rout. Six months in, though, a mix of Russian blunders and gutsy resistance contributed to a feeling the war was tilting their way. Western governments began to pony up more advanced weaponry. “The guys were optimistic, maybe overly optimistic,” Mark said. “But we all were.”
Now, as the war enters its 833rd day, that optimism has been replaced with total exhaustion – and, as Mark makes clear, deep-rooted fear about what comes next. More money and arms have finally landed, but the holdup just serves to underscore Ukraine’s serious reliance on Western military support – and the U.S. in particular. “So they’re staring at the November election and wondering if that support will get cut off,” Mark told me. “It’s like the first days of the war again: How long can we hold on?”
The Shot
‘I wouldn’t open a burger shop if I didn’t enjoy a good burger.’
Yeah, that's watermelon.Christie Vuong/The Globe and Mail
Chefs across Canada are reaching for kimchi and paneer to spiff up the barbecue staple. Crib their best burger recipes here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Bars across Edmonton will be standing-room-only on Saturday night, when the Oilers suit up against Florida for their first Stanley Cup final in nearly two decades.
Abroad: Voting continues through Sunday in the European Parliament elections, with Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni poised to play kingmaker.
On the tube: Pat Sajak takes a final spin on Wheel of Fortune tonight, to be replaced by the truly omnipresent Ryan Seacrest. But everyone knows Vanna White is the real star of that show.
In the trash: Raccoons have fanned out far beyond their North American turf, taking over in Japan (where they’ve damaged most of the temples) and in Mallorca (where they’re getting a nice tan).