Almighty God, who willest to be glorified in thy saints, and didst raise up thy servant Gregory the Illuminator to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Shine, we pray thee, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth thy praise, who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

#OTD March 23, 332:(traditional date)
Gregory the Illuminator, who converted a nation before Constantine even embraced Christianity, dies. A missionary to his homeland of Armenia, he converted King Tiridates, and much of the kingdom followed suit. Soon Christianity was… pic.twitter.com/fIjfTq2RTg

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) March 23, 2024

Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is restructuring and expanding the country’s military in anticipation of a conflict with NATO within the next 10 years, Estonia’s foreign and military intelligence chiefs said in an interview on Wednesday.

Contrary to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expectation of seizing the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days, the first months of the invasion revealed profound shortcomings in Russian military planning as poorly equipped troops foundered in the face of fierce resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces. Experts as well as U.S. and foreign officials were quick to declare the Russian army a paper tiger.

“The Kremlin often claimed it had the second-strongest military in the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech last June. “Today, many see Russia’s military as the second-strongest in Ukraine.”

But as the war enters its third year, Putin is looking increasingly confident. His main political rival, Alexei Navalny, is dead; vital U.S. military aid to Ukraine is stalled in Congress; and Russia has shifted its economy to a war footing, fueling defense production and economic growth in defiance of international sanctions.

Read it all.

Moscow is rebuilding its military in anticipation of a conflict with NATO in the next decade, Estonian officials warn. https://t.co/Xun0nsVFtd

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) March 15, 2024

Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.

Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN, as well as sources familiar with Western efforts to arm Ukraine. Collectively, the US and Europe have the capacity to generate only about 1.2 million munitions annually to send to Kyiv, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.

The US military set a goal to produce 100,000 rounds of artillery a month by the end of 2025 — less than half of the Russian monthly output — and even that number is now out of reach with $60 billion in Ukraine funding stalled in Congress, a senior Army official told reporters last week.

Read it all.

Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine https://t.co/7Q2OG8b0V3

— Harmine Pak M.D (@PakHarmine) March 12, 2024

The General Synod has renewed its call for a just peace in Ukraine, after a debate to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which fell on Saturday.

The motion, which was carried almost unanimously on Tuesday at the end of a five-day meeting in Westminster, referred to the “ongoing suffering and terror” experienced by Ukrainians two years into the war, and called on churches and politicians to work for an end to the conflict and a restoration of the international order.

During the debate, the motion was amended to include a further call to UK politicians to “affirm their continued support for Ukraine until such time as a just and lasting peace is secured”.

First to speak was the Archbishop of Canterbury, recently returned from his second visit to Ukraine (News, 23 February). He had also spoken, directly but remotely, with Patriarch Kirill. “But I am not neutral on this,” he said. “Ukraine is paying for our security with blood.”

Read it all.

Ukraine is paying for our security in blood, Archbishop Welby tells Synod https://t.co/vz6s408Ovc

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 29, 2024

Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis.

Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.

Read it all (registration).

Ukrainian officials say there is a risk of Russia breaking through its defenses by summer unless allies can supply more ammunition https://t.co/rw47Nhtngn

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) February 29, 2024

So extensive is Moscow’s network of informants and agents that it is impossible to eradicate Russian interference, Danilov said. “Students, wives, tourists ― all of them are used by Russia to do their bidding abroad.”

The FSB, Russia’s security service, was also issuing contracts to European criminal gangs, a relationship that had been made easier by the advent of cryptocurrencies, he said.

“It was the modus operandi of the KGB, and it is the case again today where they are using a combination of European criminal gangs to do their work in conjunction with trained officers.

“There are criminals sitting in the Kremlin and they use criminals to do their work for them. The country is run on criminality.”

Read it all (subscription).

Russian spies have developed an artificial intelligence tool that Moscow is using to meddle in elections in Britain and the United States on a scale “exponentially greater” than ever before, Ukraine’s national security adviser has warned ⬇️https://t.co/sOHGAOpU7a

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) February 27, 2024

Christians around the world have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposi­tion leader Alexei Navalny. Armed po­­­lice dispersed citizens trying to do so publicly in Russia last Friday.

Speaking in Rome, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that news of the death of Mr Navalny, at the age of 47, had caused “astonishment and sadness”. The Cardinal had hoped that the dissident’s plight could be “resolved differently”.

Members of Finland’s Orthodox Church attended a memorial service for Mr Navalny in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Helsinki, led by Archbishop Leo (Makkonen). Dr Markus Dröge, the former Evangelical Bishop of Berlin, where Mr Navalny was treated for Novichok nerve-agent poisoning in August 2020, called for a street or square to be named after him in recognition of his “indomitable and fearless commitment to freedom and democracy”.

Read it all.

Christians worldwide have marked the death in a remote prison camp of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Armed police in Russia dispersed citizens attempting to do so publicly last Friday https://t.co/N0Z71GuddX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 21, 2024

The Archbishop of Canterbury, concluding his five-day visit to Ukraine on Friday, said: “We must long for peace — but not peace that increases the likelihood of more war.”

The UK, he said, “needs to show that we are committed as a nation to justice, to peace, to reconciliation on the basis of security, and respect for international law”, but he was “not capable of trotting out an answer that would probably be wrong” about exactly how this could be achieved.

Asked whether he thought the trip had been worth the time, expense, and risk, he said that he saw it as a “biblical and theological imperative to stand — as much as one is able — with those who are oppressed” and to say: “You’re not forgotten: we love you.”

Read it all.

Our reporter @PhrancisMartin joined the Archbishop of Canterbury @JustinWelby on his pastoral visit to Ukraine last week https://t.co/eE5vplLG7P

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 14, 2024

Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries are using the newest wave of artificial intelligence tools to improve their hacking abilities and find new targets for online espionage, according to a report Wednesday from Microsoft and its close business partner OpenAI.

While computer users of all stripes have been experimenting with large language models to help with programming tasks, translate phishing emails and assemble attack plans, the new report is the first to associate top-tier government hacking teams with specific uses of LLM. It’s also the first report on countermeasures and comes amid a continuing debate about the risks of the rapidly developing technology and efforts by many countries to put some limits on its use.

The document attributes various uses of AI to two Chinese government-affiliated hacking groups and to one group from each of Russia, Iran and North Korea, comprising the four countries of foremost concern to Western cyber defenders.

Read it all.

"#Russia, #China & other U.S. adversaries .. using .. #ArtificialIntelligence tools to improve their #Hacking abilities & find new targets for online espionage, according to a report Wednesday from @Microsoft .. close business partner @OpenAI." @josephmenn https://t.co/V06CVI0Mvw

— Christina Ayiotis, Esq., CRM, CIPP/E (@christinayiotis) February 15, 2024

In a cavernous production hall in Düsseldorf last fall, the somber tones of a horn player accompanied the final act of a century-old factory.

Amid the flickering of flares and torches, many of the 1,600 people losing their jobs stood stone-faced as the glowing metal of the plant’s last product — a steel pipe — was smoothed to a perfect cylinder on a rolling mill. The ceremony ended a 124-year run that began in the heyday of German industrialization and weathered two world wars, but couldn’t survive the aftermath of the energy crisis.

There have been numerous iterations of such finales over the past year, underscoring the painful reality facing Germany: its days as an industrial superpower may be coming to an end. Manufacturing output in Europe’s biggest economy has been trending downward since 2017, and the decline is accelerating as competitiveness erodes.

“There’s not a lot of hope, if I’m honest,” said Stefan Klebert, chief executive officer of GEA Group AG — a supplier of manufacturing machinery that traces its roots to the late 1800s. “I am really uncertain that we can halt this trend. Many things would have to change very quickly.”

Read it all.

🇩🇪 #Germany’s Days as an Industrial Superpower Are Coming to an End – Bloomberghttps://t.co/F0E4eUlAXA pic.twitter.com/DCJWqTqSPI

— Christophe Barraud🛢🐳 (@C_Barraud) February 10, 2024

A recent study by women rights organisation Terre des Femmes shows that at least 26 people in Germany were victims of attempted or completed so-called ‘honour killings’ between 2022 and 2023.

According to the research, there were twelve victims of violence in the name of honour in the past two years, ten of whom were women. There were also 14 victims of attempted murders, including nine women, reported German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Terre des Femmes also documented 19 cases of attempted and completed ‘honour killings’ in 2021, so that in the past three years, there were a total of 45 victims, 22 of whom lost their lives.

In most cases, the killings took place at environments dominated by Islam, and the perpetrators often belong to the family of the victims.

Read it all.

Most took place at Islamic environments by members of the own family. “It is the most despicable expression of gender-based violence”, says the minister of Justice.https://t.co/hzyjz039Or

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) February 6, 2024

Russia’s electoral authority has moved to ban the only anti-war candidate, who has garnered more support than anticipated, from running against Vladimir Putin in presidential elections in March.

The Central Election Commission found a 15 per cent error rate in the signatures collected by the campaign of Boris Nadezhdin, he wrote on Telegram on Monday. This exceeds the five per cent threshold that is allowed under electoral rules for a candidate to be registered.

While a final decision about his candidacy is due on Wednesday, the error rate and a smear campaign in state-controlled media highlighted the Kremlin’s concern about the unexpected show of support for the 60-year-old pacifist.

Read it all.

Russia moves to ban presidential candidate from running against Vladimir Putin https://t.co/zoM3SkWxPm

— Dan Azzi (@dan_azzi) February 6, 2024

When one of Anskar’s followers suggested to him that he could work miracles he replied, ” Were I worthy of such a favour from my God, I would ask that He would grant to me this one miracle, that by His grace He would make of me a good man.” No one can read the “Life” written by Rimbert his disciple and successor which, after being lost for five hundred years, was fortunately rediscovered, without feeling moved to thank God for the accomplishment of the miracle for which Anskar had prayed. He was a good man in the best and truest sense of the term. In the character presented to us by his biographer we have a singularly attractive combination of transparent humility, unflinching courage, complete self devotion, and unwavering belief in a loving and overruling providence. The claim to the title Apostle of the North, which was early made on his behalf, rests not upon the immediate outcome of his labours, but upon the inspiring example which he bequeathed to those who were moved to follow in his steps. For whilst the Missions which lie planted in Denmark and Sweden during the thirty-three years of his episcopate were interrupted after his death by the desolating raids of the Northmen, those by whom the work was restarted gratefully recognised him as their pioneer.

Read it all.

God of grace and might,
who sent your servant Anskar
to spread the gospel to the Nordic peoples:
raise up, we pray, in our generation
messengers of your good news
and heralds of your kingdom
that the world may come to know
the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who… pic.twitter.com/LpP9OXFarc

— Canon Phil Harris†, OSL 🇬🇧🇮🇱 (@PhilHs10) February 3, 2024

Almighty and everlasting God, who didst send thy servant Anskar as an apostle to the people of Scandinavia, and dist enable him to lay a firm foundation for their conversion, though he did not see the results of his labors: Keep thy Church from discouragement in the day of small things, knowing that when thou hast begun a good work thou wilt bring it to a faithful conclusion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary in Denmark and Sweden, 865

Image: Panel painting of St Anskar (1457) by Hans Bornemann, in the Hauptkirche St. Petri, Hamburg. Photo: Lawrence OP, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via flickr pic.twitter.com/lwRSk1yswi

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 3, 2024

For decades, Liliana Segre visited Italian classrooms to recount her expulsion from school under Benito Mussolini’s anti-Semitic racial laws, her doomed attempt to flee Nazi-controlled Italy, her deportation from Milan’s train station to the death camps of Auschwitz. Her plain-spoken testimony about gas chambers, tattooed arms, casual atrocities and the murders of her father, grandparents and thousands of other Italian Jews made her the conscience and living memory of a country that often prefers not to remember.

Now she is wondering if it was all wasted breath.

“Why did I suffer for 30 years to share intimate things of my family, of my pain, of my desperation? For whom? Why?” Ms. Segre, 93, with cotton-white hair, a steel-cage memory and an official status as a Senator for Life said last week in her handsome Milan apartment, where she sat next to a police escort. She wondered, not for the first time these days, if “I’ve lived in vain.”

Even as Ms. Segre accepted another honorary degree on Saturday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, rising anti-Semitism and what she considers a general climate of hate have put her in a pessimistic mood.

Read it all.

“Why did I suffer for 30 years to share intimate things of my family, of my pain, of my desperation?” Liliana Segre, 93, an Italian Holocaust survivor, says the rise in antisemitism has made her wonder these days if “I’ve lived in vain.” https://t.co/u9hfj0292B

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) January 31, 2024

It looked like a military campaign. The farmers called it “Operation Paris Siege,” while the French interior minister ordered an “important defensive system” to protect the capital and its airports.

On Monday, angry agriculturalists and their allies deployed their tractors in an attempt to surround Paris, choking major roadways and disrupting not only traffic and trade, but also politics and normal life.

Farmers are emerging as the protest movement of the moment. In multiple countries across Europe, they have been driving their combines and harvesters into the streets to oppose cuts to subsidies and new regulations, some of them designed to reduce climate-changing emissions.

France, of course, is deeply familiar with protests. But as Paris prepares to host the Olympics this summer, and as the country’s ruling political centrists gird for a challenge from the far right in European Parliament elections, the farmer protests have the potential to be particularly destabilizing.

Read it all.

French farmers deployed their tractors to choke major highways, disrupting not only trade and traffic, but also politics and normal life, to protest subsidy cuts and new regulations. https://t.co/I0TVeKa6aq

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 30, 2024

Later on Sunday, Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, wrote on social media that the two murder suspects had been captured.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Telegram, “saying it was in response to a call by the group’s leaders to target Jews and Christians”, Reuters reports.

On Monday, the Anglican Chaplain in Istanbul, Canon Ian Sherwood, praised the response of the authorities.

“Christians in Istanbul enjoy a perfectly peaceable life with their Turkish friends and neighbours of other spiritual persuasions,” he said. “There is great sorrow on hearing the news of the murder at a celebration of the mass at the very moment that we, too, were celebrating the eucharist in our own church.

“The English Chaplaincy was impressed and grateful to see how quickly the Turkish authorities acted. As far as I know, within less than one hour, every open church in the city had a police presence assigned to it for protection and security.”

Read it all.

“We ask for greater security and for the safety of the faithful, of the Christian community, which perseveres in the faith and courageously face very long journeys at times to attend the eucharistic celebration.”https://t.co/SwOv4RI130

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 29, 2024

Holy God, we bless thee for the gift of thy monk and icon writer Andrei Rublev, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provided a window into heaven for generations to come, revealing the majesty and mystery of the holy and blessed Trinity; who livest and reignest through ages of ages. Amen.

Andrei Rublev, Monk and Iconographer, 1430, is commemorated today in the Episcopal Church's Great Cloud of Witnesses

Image: Rublev's icon of The Trinity, 1425-7 (see ALT for description). Public Domain, via Wikimedia pic.twitter.com/XXCH2uEx81

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 29, 2024

Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today's the feast of St Vincent, by tradition a 3rd Century Spanish martyr. In his legend he was tortured on a grid iron above hot coals, as in this 13th Century Burgundian roundel now in @stainedglassmus, Ely. A figure on the right gleefully throws on a handful of salt. His… pic.twitter.com/jOLVVyXksD

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) January 22, 2024

O Lord our God, who didst raise up thy servant Hilary to be a champion of the catholic faith: Keep us steadfast in that true faith which we professed at our baptism, that we may rejoice in having thee for our Father, and may abide in thy Son, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; thou who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

13 Jan: feast of Hilary of Poitiers "Hammer of the Arians" (Malleus Arianorum) #otd He died about 367. pic.twitter.com/w6b3TVAXDu

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) January 13, 2024

In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than
to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,
a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart….

Read it all.

Se pone entre tus manos el precio de nuestra salvación /Adorazione dei Magi (detalle), Cesare di Sesto. pic.twitter.com/JZr7V6rczC

— Paulo Medina (@goya1881) November 7, 2017

Check them out.

In pictures: Christians across Europe celebrate Epiphany https://t.co/gqPM5Y29gD pic.twitter.com/cnE4TB3riu

— euronews (@euronews) January 6, 2024

Ukraine this year officially moved its Christmas state holiday from January 7th, in line with the Russian Orthodox Church, to December 25th, when most of the Western world observes it. But there won’t be much to celebrate. A long-awaited and much-needed assistance package from the us Congress will not arrive in time for the new Christmas, and lawmakers appear unlikely to approve legislation in time for the old one either.

Throughout the autumn pro-Ukraine lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who form a strong majority in the House and Senate, predicted that eventually Congress would authorise more military aid. Important issues with broad, bipartisan support eventually get a vote, the thinking went. Many expected passage at the end of the year, when big spending packages are often cobbled together quickly, allowing their contents to evade scrutiny and legislators to get home for Christmas.

But Mike Johnson, the House speaker, ran for his job with a plan, “to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus”. So far that has meant punting the main legislative debates until early 2024. Mr Johnson has a point that passing weighty bills with no time for serious debate is suboptimal. But House Republicans, mired in perpetual infighting and unable to govern effectively with a thin majority, squandered their workdays.

Read it all.

Most American lawmakers want more military aid for Ukraine. But a domestic political problem is delaying action https://t.co/uqBowPc9dw 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 22, 2023

The impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.

With more than $110 billion in assistance mired in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in question.

Beyond the potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, some European allies have begun to quietly consider the impact of a failure for North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. They’re reassessing the risks an emboldened Russia would pose to alliance members in the east, according to people familiar with the internal conversations who asked for anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.

Read it all.

The impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.

What then?https://t.co/WxAAQb6yd0

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) December 19, 2023

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Katharina von Bora from a cloister to work for the reform of thy church, grant that all of us may go wherever thou dost call, and serve however thou dost will, for thy honor and glory and for the welfare of thy whole church. All this we ask through Jesus Christ, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.

Today is our First Lady’s birthday. To a phenomenally brave and great woman. Happy Birthday Katharina von Bora, January 29, 1499. pic.twitter.com/NduOOVmtnL

— TheScottishLutheran (@TartanLutheran) January 29, 2023

Great Britain, a principal ally of the U.S. military and the largest defense spender in Europe, has limited military resources with only about 150 operational tanks and around a dozen long-range artillery pieces.

Last year, the scarcity of equipment was so acute that the British military contemplated refurbishing rocket launchers from museums for Ukraine, but this plan was abandoned.

France, another major defense spender in Europe, possesses less than 90 heavy artillery units, roughly the amount Russia reportedly loses each month in Ukraine.

Denmark lacks heavy artillery, submarines, or air defense systems. The German army is reported to have sufficient ammunition for only two days of combat

Read it all.

European militaries increasingly reporting seriously depleted resources. The EU has been freeriding on US defense spending for decades [they have none of the major defense contractors & Lockheed, RTX & Northrup stand to be big winners in their rearmament] https://t.co/IR1hhuFMv4 pic.twitter.com/2L9tUwjLfK

— Cate Long (@cate_long) December 15, 2023

The war in Ukraine has devastated Russia’s preinvasion military machine, with nearly 90% of its prewar army lost to death or injury, and thousands of battle tanks destroyed, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessment shared with Congress.

The intelligence assessment, according to a congressional source, says that 315,000 Russian personnel have been killed or injured since the February 2022 invasion, or about 87% of Moscow’s prewar force of 360,000.