More than two decades after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is very much back in the news—and not in a good way. Recent aggressive moves are raising fears of a renewed Russian expansionism. How might this play out in Bible prophecy?
Russia has been in the news a lot lately—mostly for negative reasons. Ukraine, once a part of the Soviet Union, has been rocked by turmoil from Russian-backed factions. In 2014 the Crimean peninsula, also part of Ukraine, was taken over and annexed by Russia, violating a 1994 treaty in which Russia had committed to respecting Ukraine’s existing borders.
There is good news for Russia—and the rest of the world. Jesus Christ is returning to put an end to human politics, greed and war.
Now a part of Eastern Ukraine is in armed conflict, and Ukrainian troops are fighting pro-Russian forces aided and armed by Russia. Europeans and other neighbors are quite alarmed by this aggression, and they fear it can spill over to other European territories neighboring Russia, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Fearing more Russian aggression, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, recently called for the formation of a united European army, since “a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union”
(Andrew Sparrow, “Jean-Claude Juncker Calls for EU Army,” The Guardian, March 8, 2015) .
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