Prior to 2005, he was the paper's Moscow bureau chief, where he covered the rise of Vladimir Putin and “managed democracy” in Russia, as well as the cracks that neo-authoritarian system developed. He covered the bloody war in Chechnya, as well as the mass hostage-takings at Beslan’s School No. 1 and Moscow’s Dubrovka Theatre.

MacKinnon led the foreign press corps in reporting on the Western efforts to undermine Putin and the new hard-line Kremlin as Moscow reasserted its influence across the former Soviet Union. The New Cold War is the culmination of that work, and includes groundbreaking reporting on how American-funded non-governmental organizations played key roles in organizing the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and its predecessor, the Rose Revolution in Georgia.

The book also reveals how the real prize in the new struggle between the Kremlin and the White House is control over the oil and gas pipelines that crisscross the Caucasus and Central Asia.

MacKinnon has reported for The Globe and Mail since 1998, working first as a business reporter based in Toronto, then as a parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa. A graduate of Carleton University, he previously worked at The Edmonton Journal and the Eastern Province Herald, a daily newspaper in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

He has covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and Lebanon.