Red Storm

By Matt Ward

Three weeks ago President Vladimir Putin contacted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and made an offer he believed couldn’t be refused. Putin offered to guarantee the safety of Israel’s newly discovered Leviathan gas fields using the full might of the Russian military. Netanyahu politely declined.

The very next week on the direct orders of Vladimir Putin fighter jets, tanks, sophisticated battlefield communications equipment and Special Forces began landing in Syria. It has become an open secret that many thousands of elite marines will follow shortly after.

After just one week the widely held belief is that Russian forces are already engaged in real combat operations in Syria, carving out a safe zone from which they can operate.  Russian troops have already engaged in active combat is an assumed reality because Russian R-166-0.5 (ultra) high-frequency signals (HF/VHF) vehicles were spotted on Syria’s Highway 4 just a few days ago. This highway links Homs and Aleppo.

These vehicles, called “mobile war rooms” by Western armies, were accompanied by BTR-82 troop carriers transporting Russian marines. These mobile communication centers provide up          to the minute communication relays to troops engaged in live combat operations up to 1000 kilometers away. They are a crucial part of Russia’s war machine, strongly indicating Russia is already actively involved inside Syria. “Boots” are already on the ground.

Even more alarmingly, Russia has also deployed advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries to bolster their force. The question though, is against whom exactly are these highly advanced missile deployed? ISIS does not have an Air Force so who are they meant to deter?

These missiles are clearly to deter Israel and they will seriously impact upon the IAF’s ability to act in Syrian and Lebanese air space should they so desire.

This impressive Russian arsenal is further augmented by the ominous presence of a Russia nuclear submarine, off Syria’s coast in the Mediterranean. This provides Russia with the ultimate deterrence, if it were needed.

Clearly Russia are in Syria for the long game, not the short.

Russia’s aims in Syria seem to be threefold. Firstly, defend the Syrian naval port of Tartus. Although ostensibly a Syrian port, as Al-Assad is a client ruler of Putin, the port is in effect Russian and it is through this port that Russia has the absolutely crucial access it requires to the Mediterranean.

This sea port is at the centre of Russian aspirations for this region as it remains a key strategic goal for Putin to dominate the entire Mediterranean basin area militarily. Without a functioning deep sea port this is impossible.

The second aim is to maintain the power of Bashir Al-Assad. Assad is a proxy ruler of Syria on behalf of Putin’s Russia. Assad effectively rules Syria on Putin’s behalf. This might not have been so a decade ago, but it certainly is now. Assad knows full well that the only reason he and his family are still alive today is because of Vladimir Putin. Assad’s government continues to exist because Russia have bolstered them against ISIS; that is the only reason it still stands.

Recently, Putin has been taken aback by ISIS, their string of stinging victories over Assad’s forces and now recognizes the genuine possibility that without direct Russian intervention,  Assad and Syria will fall to ISIS.

If Assad falls Putin’s hold over Syria will fail and his influence over the entire Middle East will have suffered a devastating blow. Russia’s real access to the Middle East is through Syria, therefore Putin will not let Assad fall.

The final Russian objective relates to Israel and regards the “hook” that God Himself will place in Gog’s jaw. At some point Gog will have an “evil thought” and will determine to invade the beautiful land to “take a spoil.” It seems increasingly likely that this “evil thought” centers on the Leviathan gas fields of Israel, an oil field so vast it could dwarf the existing Saudi and Iraqi fields making Israel, or whoever owns them, the richest nation on planet Earth. These oil fields also sit easily within what Russia perceives as their legitimate sphere of influence. It is within their grasp. 

To this aim Putin has allowed the establishment of a separate front to open against Israel in the Golan Heights. Under the cover of the Syrian army their ally Iran is trying to “build a second terrorist front against us,” or so Benjamin Netanyahu has complained. Iran is occupying Syria along with Russia.  

We truly live in days of awe. We are blessed to see what we see today. We are witness to the real time build-up of the horde that will seek to vanquish Gods very own inheritance, as described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Multitudes past have gazed at these days from afar through the lens of scripture yet we are privileged to see these events in real time as our present day reality.

ISIS and the abject horrors they have wrought have forced the mass migration of entire people groups clearing vast swathes of Syria before them. This will make the Russian take over all the more simple. Iran, now a legitimate player in the region because of Obama’s absence of any form of Middle Eastern leadership, now enjoy a meaningful presence in Iraq and Syria. The fruits of “leading from behind.”

At the very same time Israel have discovered a gas field that potentially dwarfs all others in the Middle East, the Leviathan gas field. In his vision Ezekiel saw a horde led by Gog attacking Israel so that they may, “…take a spoil.” This is that horde forming now.

The alliances necessary for Ezekiel 38 and 39 to come to pass are in place, and functioning well. Russia and Iran are very close. Turkey have become natural allies to Iran due to a hatred for Israel. Indeed, Recap Ergogan, President of Turkey openly despises Israel, he is a vicious hater of Israel who talks often of the need to free Al-Quds from the hands of the Jews. Al-Quds is known in Arabic as Jerusalem.
 
Gog is taking up military positions right on Israel’s border and has already expressed an interest in Israel’s “spoil.” Gog is also bringing with him all the allies named in Ezekiel 38 and 39. We will now witness the full and rapid militarization of Syria by Russia and Iran.                                     

Israel must look tantalizing to Vladimir Putin. In the White House sits a president who is openly hostile to Israel, a man well known for his utter loathing of Benjamin Netanyahu, a president who does not care one jot for the tiny Jewish State. The Middle East stands in ruins because of the Arab spring, ISIS and failed military intervention from the West.

European nations that would stand against Gog if he were to move against Israel are becoming swamped by their own crisis of humanity, threatening their very way of life. These same European nations have also had their stomach for a fight ripped out of them by more than a decade of failed military intervention in this same region.

The world-wide economy is teetering on the brink of collapse and because of this all Western NATO nations have significantly cut back on their armed forces spending.  The exception of course being NATO’s old foe Russia, who have instead injected billions into their military machine, completely revitalizing it and igniting a renewed militaristic optimism within the Russian military apparatus.

Then there is little Israel, sitting all alone in the Middle East. Little Israel sitting on an oil field of immense size and almost incalculable value. Little Israel, hated and scorned by all nations of the world, openly despised, seemingly without a true friend or a real protector. Little Israel, isolated, alone, very exposed.

Or so Gog thinks.

Blessed be the Lord God, who has revealed these things to his servants! He has not left us alone but has revealed to us what is shortly to come to pass. Though the world will look on these things in days to come with fear and dread we should not. We know the end from the beginning! 

Israel is rapidly approaching her appointment with destiny and it will not be man who comes to her aid in her hour of desperate need. God Himself on that day will stand up and fight on her behalf, and woe to Gog and his allies, for mighty is the Lord God who will save her.

Ezekiel 38: 3-12

“And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:

Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.

Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:

And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.”

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