Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to speak with infantry from Ukraine's 14th Brigade. They had just returned from a 90-day posting in Novoekonomichne - one of the hottest parts of the entire front. Their commander, 'Bobruk,' had some very interesting insights.

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Dear followers, I have a request for you. I'm presently back in Ukraine again, and looking to make a reporting trip out to Donbas soon. The costs of this are not low, though, and keep growing as media budgets shrink. That's why I'm asking for your help to make this trip work. /1

Visiting Ottawa this week for a short conference (and presentation on Russia/Ukraine) at my alma mater, @Carleton_U. Have already met so many Ukrainians the past day here 🇺🇦🇨🇦

Latakia, on the Syrian coast. The former heartland of the Assad regime.

We walked down Al Amin street, the heart of the old Jewish quarter of Damascus, and he hailed out to people like he was a rock star. This is his Palestinian friend Nizar al-Aswad. 'I am the Palestinian resistance, and he is the Jewish spy,' Nizar joked.

Meet Bakhour Chamntoub, the new head of Damascus's Jewish community (all 7 of them). The self-proclaimed 'best tailor in Syria,' Bakhour is a real celebrity - seemingly half the Old City knows him. He says he can't leave Syria because he's a womanizer and 'all my girls are here.'

Have just arrived in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda. The local Druze population were stridently anti-Assad for years - but the local leadership does not get along with the new Syrian authorities, either. Promises to be an interesting couple of days here.

When Damascus fell in December, HTS fighters seized both men's homes, along with all their belongings. Both had already tried to flee Syria last year owing to the pressure on them, only to be captured & tortured by the regime. Now they again fear they could again be killed at any time.

Here is Abdurahman today, alongside fellow OPCW witness Omar Diab. They are now facing another problem. Many locals in Douma despise them for the testimony, even if clearly under duress. They believe that the Assad regime bribed them, using new apartments they received as proof.

Some of the survivors were rounded up by the Assad regime and Russia and forced to falsely testify to the OPCW that the attack was staged. Here is Abdurahman al-Hijazi, seen both providing aid in the attack's aftermath - and being forced to deny it, his family held hostage.

This stairwell leads to the basement where women & children were sheltering from the bombing. As they rushed to escape, chlorine gas from the barrel that had landed two floors above them suffocated them. Eyewitnesses showed me horrific photos of the stairs clogged with bodies.

On April 7, 2018, a Syrian Air Force helicopter dropped a barrel of chlorine gas on this street, landing on the building on the left. It was likely targeting an underground field hospital, whose now-blocked tunnel entrance can be seen in the second pic - but it missed.

Today I visited Douma, a northeastern suburb of Damascus that was one of the first strongholds of the Free Syrian Army. It spent seven years until siege and bombardment, with near-constant artillery and airstrikes - including a chemical gas attack.

13 years after I started obsessing over maps and videos of the Syrian war, I am actually here, in Free Damascus. Still feels like a dream. What an absolute privilege to be here and I can't wait to see so much of this beautiful country over the next month! 💚🤍🖤

Hello Beirut 🇱🇧! Landed in Lebanon's lovely capital today for a quick stopover and last preparations. Tomorrow, I will make the journey overland to Damascus and Free Syria 🇸🇾 (when will this emoji be updated!?).

But while I am an experienced conflict reporter, I am still a freelancer, and reporting trips are expensive. You pay for flights, hotels, translators, drivers and food all up front, hoping - but not certain - to make that money back by selling stories to publications.

My trip will take me through the breadth of the country: from the capital Damascus to the Druze heartland of Suwayda in the south, and the ancient city of Aleppo to the Armenian village of Kessab on the Turkish border. It promises to be enlightening and incredible.

Dear Bluesky, I have a humble request today. I am presently planning a long reporting trip to Syria, looking to spend nearly a month in the country telling the stories of its many communities under the Assad regime, as well as their hopes - and fears - for the future.