The church prays with Ukraine because their cause is just and because they, like we, are vulnerable and imperiled, and they know it.

Ash Wednesday is about remembering that we will die, and that’s important. We are told to “number our days” (Ps. 90:12) and to remember that life is a vapor soon to vanish (James 4:14).

But it is also about how we died. Joined to Christ, we have died with him—in the most humiliating and shameful way possible. The way to glory is not the way of Rome, of Russia, or of our own desire to exalt or protect ourselves. The way to glory is the way of the cross.

In wartime, dictators should remember that, win or lose, they will die and that there will be no invading or conquering the kingdom of God. At Ash Wednesday—and all year round—we should remember this too.

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“In wartime, dictators should remember that, win or lose, they will die and that there will be no invading or conquering the kingdom of God.” @drmoore on this Ash Wednesday:https://t.co/7twyqJwzzk

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 2, 2022

Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev laid out the new rules in a Facebook post. His constituents could leave home in groups no bigger than two. Cars should drive at low speed. Arrangements were made to collect corpses of Ukrainians killed in the main square and other parts of town, which the city said numbered at least 49, mainly civilians.

“We are experiencing colossal difficulties with collecting and burying the dead, delivering food and medicines, rubbish removal, accidents removal, etc,” Kolykhaiev said.

“For now, the flag flying above us is Ukrainian,” he added. “And in order to stay that way, these requirements must be met. This is all I can offer for now.”

Alongside Kherson, smaller cities that fell to Russian forces this week are Berdyansk and Melitopol, which were captured on Sunday and Monday, respectively.

However, Ukrainians say the Russian hold on these cities has been incomplete and that the occupiers have shown little sign they are equipped to run them, or interested in doing so.

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Russian military rule in Kherson: no groups larger than two people. Cars must drive slowly. The dead should be collected from the main square. "For now, the flag flying above us is Ukrainian. And in order to stay that way, these requirements must be met." https://t.co/sc6uYXCp6A

— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) March 4, 2022

Mr Biden has been keen on arms control since he first ran for the Senate, the same year that Nixon went to China. Last year he extended the New start treaty, which limits American and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 each. He has also tried to entice China into arms-control talks. And he has argued that America should shift to a doctrine declaring that the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack.

Such a change now looks unlikely. China is fast building up its nuclear warheads. The Pentagon reckons a total in the “low-200s” in 2020 might reach 1,000 or more by 2030. America’s allies have lobbied hard for America to preserve “extended deterrence”, which leaves open resorting to nuclear weapons against superior conventional forces. Russia’s threats supply a powerful new argument. Mr Abe says Japan should think of hosting American nuclear weapons, as Germany does. This would be a big shift from Japan’s long-standing “three non-nuclear principles”: not making nukes, not possessing nukes, and not allowing nukes to be stationed in the country.

Like much of the new geopolitics, the effect on nuclear strategy around the world will depend to some extent on what transpires in Ukraine. “If Putin’s threat is seen to be successful, it could spur further proliferation,” says James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. “If the threat ends up being seen as bluster because nuclear weapons are not usable, then it might end up actually reducing proliferation pressures.”

But some worries apply however the war ends. A wounded but victorious Russia may feel emboldened to further threaten nato; a Russia bogged down by a Ukrainian insurgency may want to lash out at those equipping Ukrainian fighters; a Russia which tries to topple its leader will be unstable. The early years of the cold war, notes Thomas Wright of Brookings, were filled with danger—from the Soviet Union’s blockade of West Berlin in 1948-49 to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962—before detente eventually brought greater predictability. As Mr Wright points out, “We are at the beginning of a new era, and beginnings can be dangerous.”

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How the war in #Ukraine is changing geopolitics. Democracy v autocracy; Europe sheds its pacifist robes; Russia cleaves to China; nuclear escalation; and whether America can stitch together its alliances on the Eurasian "Rimland" https://t.co/6q4POINIzB

— Anton La Guardia (@AntonLaGuardia) March 3, 2022

Religious leaders in Ukraine have urged its citizens to continue resisting the Russian invasion…, as churches around the world condemned the war, and Anglicans in Europe held a special service for peace.

“Remember firmly that the truth is on our side — and where the truth is, there is God and victory,” the leader of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany Dumenko, told Christians this week.

“Defenders of Ukraine, brothers and sisters, you have ruined the aggressor’s intentions for a quick victory. The whole world admires how Ukraine has successfully resisted Russian aggression.”

The message was released as Russian tanks continued to advance on Kyiv, despite aborted peace talks. By mid-week, dozens of Ukrainian civilians had been reported killed by missiles and shells in the country’s second city, Kharkhiv.

In a new sign of its distancing itself from the Moscow Patriarchate, the Primate of the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Metropolitan Onufriy Berezovsky, instructed all parishes to pray for God’s mercy amid the “cries and groans of the Ukrainian people” and “making the authorities wise and strengthening our army with courage”.

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“Remember firmly that the truth is on our side — and where the truth is, there is God and victory.” https://t.co/xaJccdOXA6

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 2, 2022

Record food commodity prices are an ordeal by fire for some 45 poorer countries that rely heavily on food imports: the Maghreb, the non-oil Middle East, swaths of Africa, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan. The World Food Programme warned of “catastrophic” scarcity for several hundred million people last November. The picture is worse today.

“Everything is going up vertically. The whole production chain for food is under pressure from every side,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, the ex-head of agro-markets at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“I have never seen anything like it in 30 years and I fear that prices are going to go much higher in the 2022-2023 season. The situation is just awful and at some point people are going to realise what may be coming. We’re all going to have to tighten our belts, and the mood could get very nasty even in OECD countries like Britain,” he said.

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"A billion of the world’s poorest people will go even hungrier thanks to Putin’s deranged misadventure, and some will starve. Our next moral mission is to help them" | Writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/EldrZ5NhzV

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 4, 2022

Almighty God, who dost empower evangelists and preachers: Help us to proclaim thy Word with power, like thy servant Paul Cuffee, that more might come to a deeper life in thee; in the Name of thy Son Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son hast taught us that whosoever will be his disciple must take up his cross and follow him: Help us with willing heart to mortify our sinful affections, and depart from every selfish indulgence by which we sin against thee. Strengthen us to resist temptation, and to walk in the narrow way that leadeth unto life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

DEEP HORIZON
Dawn at New Bedford Harbor – Friday, March 4, 2022 at 5:50 AM. 10-minutes before sunrise. The temperature was 19.7 and wind chill 11 degrees above zero. https://t.co/Z7jt91MXOi pic.twitter.com/yew3qkuhl0

— M.L.Baron (@westislandwx) March 4, 2022

Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

I entreat Eu-o′dia and I entreat Syn′tyche to agree in the Lord. And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.

–Philippians 4:1-9

Hazy sunrise over Charleston on this Friday morning! pic.twitter.com/s6OlZSlZIk

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) March 4, 2022