(3 June 2026) It is now 11 pm MST June 3, or, 5 AM GMT, June 4. We have been watching world and Mideast events surrounding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the IRGC.
The Strait has been closed to normal traffic for 95 days. Oil inventories around the world are being drawn down. It is estimated the world has only until September 1 or so before refineries begin shutting down.
The idea of the Second Signpost having started March 2 (with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz) is still in play. And it will remain in play and then either be disproved when the regime is completely disbanded, or will be confirmed when the Ram runs out across the Middle East.
Ukraine Attacks on Russia
The Enforcer reports that Ukraine sent a large contingent of drones into Russia earlier today, to St. Petersburg. Among other targets such as oil depots used to export Russian oil, drones hit the Russian corvette ship Boykiy in dry dock. Enforcer provides several short video clips of these attacks.
These drones are supplied by various NATO nations. Attacks have been going on at Russian refineries for months now, but this was the first time St. Petersburg was hit, as well as a Russian navy ship.
At 19:10, the news switches to Iranian attacks on Kuwait. The Kuwaiti airport was heavily damaged. US CENTCOM earlier claimed that there was no damage as missiles were intercepted and no one was hurt. However, as it turns out, the airport was hit by a dozen missiles or so and 63 people were hurt.
Conclusion
NATO is playing with fire by letting Ukraine hit Russia. At some point, a red line will be crossed and Russia may lash out.
Though the Iran War has been the main story in the news these days, we cannot forget that the Russia-Ukraine War is going on in the background and could escalate at any time.
Iranian attacks on Kuwait prove two things. First, there were no interceptors available to take out the missiles. Second, Iran still has missiles capable of taking out targets.
When will the next step up in war occur with Iran possibly destroying the Arab oil facilities? I don’t know. But I do take each day to prepare a little more, and a little more, physically, and spiritually, reminding myself that my own preparations will likely go to neighbors and brothers and sisters.
Keep watch.
Categories: In The News, Signpost #2: Iran, World in the End Times
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
Russia has been threatening to give Armenia the “Ukraine treatment,” by which they mean to invade.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260604-russia-ramps-pressure-on-armenia-ahead-of-sunday-s-crucial-election
https://www.the-express.com/news/world-news/206917/vladimir-putin-armenia-invasion
https://uatv.ua/en/budanov-warns-russian-aggression-against-armenia-is-entirely-realistic/
https://lansinginstitute.org/2026/01/21/russias-ukraine-playbook-in-armenia-likelihood-triggers-actors-and-scenarios/
If Russia did invade Armenia, and then was to join Iran when Iran pushed west, north, and south, that might be the Ezekiel 38 or Psalm 83 war.
“NATO is playing with fire by letting Ukraine hit Russia. At some point, a red line will be crossed and Russia may lash out.”
Russia is the one who crossed a red line. It’s called a “full-scale invasion of another country, targeting civilians en masse with war crimes.”
(I tried to submit this twice as as Adamant, but WordPress did not allow it. Now I try again as Adamantane)
I fear the Ukraine war is more important for what can/will happen around or during a second and/or third signpost, and what not, than most of us realise. Almost from the beginning the Ukraine war began to connect with Iran.
I assume that most readers of this website are well acquainted with the situation of the US, Israel and the Middle East; possibly also Asia/Pacific because of China becoming ever more important. I also assume that most know much less about Europe, Ukraine, their present war with Russia and nuclear weapons issues, the latter becoming rapidly more relevant, possibly risking WWIII as Mark pointed out above.
So I wrote the following background text to help understand how we got where we are now:
During World War I, at the Russian Revolution in 1917, Ukraine declared independence from Austria/Hungary (Western Ukraine) and Russia (Middle and Eastern Ukraine). This lead to the Ukrainian war of independence, until in 1921 Ukraine was entirely conquered by the Russians, including Western Ukraine that was not Russian before.
Other nations in Eastern Europe fared better: After World War I, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (the Baltic States) and Poland became independent from Russia, Germany and Austria/Hungary.
In 1932-33 Stalin’s Russia starved to death millions of Ukrainians. This was hell on earth; many people only survived by becoming cannibals. This nightmare is called the holomodor. The terrible memories of lost independence and the holomodor made many Ukrainians hate and fear Russia so much that they welcomed Nazi Germany als a most welcome liberator when it invaded Russia in 1941. “The enemy of our enemy is our friend!” This and the Russian occupation after WW II explain why even until now some Ukrainians sympathise with aspects of Nazism, such as wanting to abolish the Russian language, even in the east where part of the Ukrainian population remained pro-Russia.
During WWII Russia retook al of the Baltic States and Poland, oppressing them and Ukraine until Soviet Russia collapsed around 1990. Then they all again retook their independence ASAP. They knew their histories and so never trusted Russia. They strove to become members of the European Union and of NATO ASAP before Russia would again have become strong enough to reconquer them.
They were proven right. After coming to power in 2000 Putin has been clear that these countries (except Poland) are inseparable parts of Russia and must come back under the rule of Moscow. (The Poles take no risks however.) Without EU and NATO memberships, including the American nuclear umbrella, Putin would have reconquered them all in his desire of making Russia as powerful as the Soviet Union again.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it became clear that Ukraine should never have given their nukes to Russia and declare neutrality in 1991 as they had done.
Soon after the Russian invasion on 2022, millions of Ukrainian refugees were welcomed with open arms in many European countries. Many Europeans regarded them entirely as “they belong to us” and even suspended anti-immigration laws and quota to be able to help the Ukrainians as much as possible. Many even took Ukrainians in their own homes. European governments started to help Ukraine military (through NATO) and economically (Through the EU).
Neutral Finland and Sweden also feared Russia after WWII, so they kept powerful militaries of their own. But when Putin invaded Ukraine they knew they could be next if Russia won, so they joined NATO like the Baltic States and Poland had done earlier, and also started supporting Ukraine.
The European population for the most part supports the Ukrainian war effort too. Few believe that Putin will stop after reconquering Ukraine. Many Europeans believe that Ukraine is fighting for them too. In the beginning of the war, some Europeans took part in crowd-funding actions to buy Turkish bayraktar drones for Ukraine. Some citizens with military experience even joined the Ukrainian military, completely voluntary. Many of them gave their lives. Nowadays some European citizens use their own private 3D printers to make parts for the Ukrainian war drones in their own homes. European companies are doing this increasingly too.
Ukraine also had to become very good at anti-drone warfare, because Iran sold masses of their Shahed drones to Russia, which used them to terrible effect against Ukraine. Now the Ukrainian anti-drone systems, while far from perfect, are the best in the world, better than what the US can provide. So Ukraine is now helping the Gulf states defend themselves against Iranian drones. So Iran’s drone-support to Russia has backfired to an extent.
Trump’s war against Iran seemed to be the greatest gift he could have given to Putin. Oil prices rose so high that Russia could now earn so much money that they could turn the tide of war against Ukraine. So Ukraine had no choice but to hit Russian oil infrastructure much more than they already did, to make up for the high revenues of Russian oil exports.
After four years of war the Ukrainian inventiveness with drone and anti-drone warfare is hurting Russia ever wider and deeper. Far-away St Petersburg was hit very recently, and now the Russians are scrambling to protect even their Northern Fleet (including strategic nuclear submarines) with anti-drone nets.
All together: from the beginning, this was a war between Europe and Russia. Russia knew this, so they started asymmetric warfare against Europe, slowly increasing cyberwar and sabotage, including preparations to cut all under-seas internet and power cables inside Europe and to the US. So the European governments increasingly warn their citizens to prepare against all sorts of disruptions and emergencies.
For several years the US choose to support their NATO allies and Ukraine against Russia, believing that US security depended on European security, as the US had been doing since 1941. But that has changed fundamentally since in 2024 Trump, Vance, Rubio and Hegseth became vocal in no uncertain terms that they prioritise their contest with China over supporting Europe against Russia.
Immediately after they recovered from this shock, the European governments started rearming in earnest. This was highly overdue, for after 1991 Europe had depended too much on US support and did not invest enough in their defences. First they mistakenly believed that Russia would never become a threat to them again (the warnings of the Baltic States and Poland about this were ignored all this time), and after 2022 they believed that the US would keep supporting them and Ukraine indefinitely.
Since the present Gulf war started, the US cannot even help any more even if it would want to, because of too much spending of munition, overusing and tiring out navy crews, etc.
To make up for the loss of US support at least partially, France has offered its own nuclear umbrella to several other European states, who welcome it as at least a partial replacement for the US nuclear umbrella. The UK, also having a few nukes, supports Europe too.
But maybe the US nuclear umbrella is not lost to Europe. After all, nukes is the one type of munition the US has not spent yet…
See this news of only two days ago:
“Nuclear weapons could soon be hosted in more NATO nations”
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/02/nuclear-weapons-us-nato-europe-jets.html
Maybe the US wants to compensate Europe for it losing the conventional US support.
Maybe the US sees the French nuclear initiative and does not want to lose power in Europe to France.
Maybe the US has second thoughts and wants to keep Europe aboard in the strife with China.
Maybe the US in this way will pay the European nations back for joining the US against Iran.
Maybe this news is just some ruse.
Of course all of this is very important for what can and cannot happen around and during a second and/or third signpost; and/or Russia’s government becoming desperate, maybe even at the same time.
If the US keeps or even extends its nuclear umbrella, Russia may not dare to use nukes. If the US takes it away completely, Russia may choose to risk the much smaller French/British nuclear umbrella and use nukes when they see fit.
K,
I agree with everything except respectfully the Ezekiel 38 war. Russia will not be a part of it. This is traditional teachers of prophecy trying to fit in on the fly, current world situations. Tracking current situations is good if you have the right interpretation of the events.
Keep in mind the word “rosh” appears almost 800 times in the OT and it ALWAYS means “first” or “chief” but for some reason it appears here in Ezekiel 38 and it means “Russia.” That supports a narrative.
Also, keep in mind that all the nations listed in Ezekiel 38 existed in the time of Ezekiel and exists today. Russia was not going to exist for another 1,600 years after Ezekiel.
Adamant(ine) –
Yes the Ukraine War is interlaced with the Iran War. These two posts (March 19, 2026, September 23, 2022) show how both the Ukraine War and Iran War are part of the Jewish 7-year cycle calendar.
@Mark, Nothing about that specifically rules out Russia. Where I disagree with certain ‘traditional’ teachings about Ezekiel 38, which only became tradition with the rise of the Soviet Union during the Twentieth Century and which, having collapsed, obviously isn’t going to play the leading role that certain teachers used to say it would, you said at one point that the “north” in Isaiah 14:13 didn’t mean “north.” There is simply no way to make that fit with any correct interpretation. Other teachers have tried to make the case that Russia won’t be involved using the same argument, but always fail on the same point.
During the time of the prophets, there were no major settled powers that we know of in what is now modern Russia, but those tribes’ ancestors who formed the Slavs lived then in what is now Turkey, so even the ‘Gog-in-Anatolia’ argument still does not exclude Russia. You made an interesting case regarding the ancient Pelasgians being ancestors of the modern Albanians, which to my ears sounds like “Pulaski,” a name of Slavic origin. Their ancestors that we have attestations of from Roman times, the Venedi or what later medieval sources call the “Wends,” hadn’t yet replaced the Germanic Goths and Suebi, nor the eastern Finnic tribes who then lived in the north of what is now Russia. The Finns and related peoples used to live spread out across much more land than they do now, but still had low population density and are exceptionally unlikely to be the ones anyone was calling a threat to Israel. Gog is notable for being the “head” of those people, and that is from scripture, not from some extra-biblical tradition.
You made the case for re-examining “seaward-west” in Daniel well, though.
Another point of interest is the Greek word “demagogue.” It comes from ἀγωγός, ăgōgós, meaning “leading.” This is likely related to the origin of the king either named or titled Agag of the Amalekites during King Saul’s time. For Pelasgians living along the Ionian coast during the Bronze Age or early Iron Age to have migrated north into eastern Europe fleeing pressure from the Mycenaeans, Persians, Celts and others, to have remained a coherent people group, they likely had to have leadership. The medieval Khazars converted to Judaism following their leaders’ dialogues with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars and religious leaders, with the Khazar leadership finding it most logical to cultivate the oldest faith that, in their view, had produced the other two and thus likely had the deepest roots. The Khazars’ scholars were likely educated in both Greek and Hebrew. They likely would have called the leadership of any Slavic peoples they competed with “ăgōgós” along with words of similar meaning when using Greek, and “rosh” when using Hebrew.
You’re right, Mark, that as far as we know today, ancient Slavs didn’t originally call themselves “Rus’,” and there’s still debate about how the name came to apply to them. Some scholars even say it was the Finns who named them that. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297155351_Rus'_in_the_system_of_ethnonyms_as_a_clue_to_the_origin_of_the_term
That hypothesis threw me for a loop. I was used to hearing that it came from some Germanic dialect and meant “red.”
As far as “Russia” not being a nation in Old Testament times, well, the people who became the Russians didn’t just fall out of the sky, and Russia is still too intricately involved in both Middle Eastern and wider world events for the name and involvement to be coincidence. To consider it is too much like shoehorning.
K
K,
A couple points here.
First, I never said “north” didn’t mean “north.” Of course it is “north.” I said earlier that the Hebrew word translated “uttermost” is not necessarily “uttermost”, but is better translated as “recesses.”
The same word is used to describe Jonah sleeping in the lower decks of the ship while in the big storm. Jonah wasn’t sleeping in the uttermost depth of the ship as that would be considered the keel, but in the recesses of the ship, i.e. a lower deck.
A verse in Proverbs talks about how one’s wife is a fruitful vine in the “recesses” of your house rather than the “uttermost” of the house.
Likewise, its not “uttermost north”, but more likely “recesses of the north” which can really be anything north of Lebanon, so that includes Turkey.
And again, one doesn’t change a translation of a word used 800 times just for that one instance, so its not “prince of Russia and Magog” its “chief prince of Magog.” By this logic of Rosh being Russia, we should say “Russia Hashanah” not “Rosh Hashanah.”
That, and every other nation listed existed at Ezekiel’s time, but Russia did not. And the peoples to later form Russia may not have even been there yet as the Slavs at that time were migrating and just starting to become a people, while Togarmah, Cush, Phut, Persia, were all well established peoples an nations at that time. Today we have the west slavs, the south slavs and the east slavs. And they did not live where they do now until Roman times at the earliest. And we know this from the Goths, Visigoths, Huns, Franks, etc, etc, showing up at Rome’s door in the fifth century and they had to come from somewhere, like the territory of what is now Russia.
And the theory that Russia’s ancestors lived in Turkey at the time of Ezekiel I don’t believe holds water as Turkey was filled with Magog, Meshech and Tubal, while the ancestor of the Celts and the Slavs was likely Ashkenaz who is not even listed in Ezekiel 38. Togarmah are the people of Central Asia starting with Armenia and going northeast.
One point you bring up about the Pelasgians and “Pulaski” is that all peoples north of Greece were looked down upon by the Greeks because the varous tribes had varying degrees of genetic mixing with the south slavic peoples. Macedonia and Orestis (Albania) were the least intermixed as they were both on Greece’s doorstep.
“Gog” is, I believe” a spiritual entity (chief prince, again) perhaps entering the man who will be Antichrist. Keep this in mind – the word “Gog” in Hebrew may very well be “Gok” in Turkish (Magog/Meshech) which means “sky.” Note that a large fraction of Turkish town names start with “Gok-” and the ancient religion of the turks prior to Islam was of Tangri the sky god (i.e. Satan, the god of the air). So “gok” features prominently in Turkish. To add to the importance of gok, sky, moon, and their old religion to the Turks, note also that the crescent moon in Islam was only introduced by the Turks as a vestige of their old religion. You see it today on Islamic nation flags – those nations who are either turkic (like turkey, Turkmenistan) or were provinces of the Ottoman Empire (like Algeria), or were discovered and settled islands by Ottoman merchants and navy in the Indian Ocean (like Maldives) – have the crescent moon on their flag. Pakistan is the exception.
Good discussion.
K,
Interesting. From my perspective I looked at forcing rosh to be Russia as shoehorning.
Mark,
You explained why you think it’s forcing rosh to be Russia. I explained why I’m not convinced it’s as much an issue of forcing as what you’ve said. You aren’t the first scholar to challenge the rosh-Russia connection hypothesis. The late arrival on scene of the name Russia simply does not support your claim in this particular point. Your work is, by and large, solid and done with excellent research.
However, saying that rosh appearing 800 times in the Bible prevents God from naming a country that doesn’t even appear until over a thousand years later with that word is frankly absurd. It would be like claiming that the patriarch Israel having that name would prevent God from naming a nation after him, or that some ancient German with the name Heimrich would prevent that word from being latinized and applied to the Americas over a thousand years later.
Does that guarantee that rosh refers to Russia? No.
Does it rule it out? No.
“Today we have the west slavs, the south slavs and the east slavs”
Right, and that exonym, slav, is unhelpful in tracing the ancient migrations since it originally just meant “slave.” The real clue is right there in the directions you mentioned: west, south, and east. They had to have had an ancient population explosion to have been able to spread and branched out into different tribes out in the face of opposition in every direction. The most likely cause for that population explosion would be an influx of farmers migrating from the Anatolian Peninsula and the Black Sea coast. The soil in the region of the northern Black Sea is extemely fertile even today, making Ukraine and neighboring parts of southwestern Russia the breadbasket of Europe and major grain exporters. Farmers migrating from Anatolia would bring the seed stock, tools, and expertise to put the soil to its most productive use that would cause a population boom lasting several generations before reaching peak sustainable population density, similar to what happened with farmers from the east rapidly filling up the United States, only in this case moving north as far as the climate and defensible settlement locations on hills near rivers would allow.
The Moscow region was too cold and remote to bother with at that time when warmer lands at the same latitude east and west were available, if not easily gained and held. I find the idea of an etymological link between Meshech and Moscow to be more of a stretch than between rosh and Rus’. Moscow is at least as likely to have been named after a river as after an ancient patriarch.
Like you said, good discussion.
K
A Turkic “Gok” as in like the Gokturks? Interesting, maybe kind of like how the modern Strait of Hormuz was named after another ancient spiritual entity, sar malkhut paras/ahura mazda.
As for Ashkenaz, maybe for the Celts, but the Slavic urheimat seems to have been farther east than what would easily explain continuity between the Celts and early Slavs. It’s kind of weird that Germanic tribes were living during Roman tribes both to the east and to the west of the Balts and Polans.
“i.e. Satan, the god of the air” I was just filling that blank in in my mind as I was reading that part of your post, trying it out to see how it fit. That still doesn’t rule out a connection to the Agag by way of Haman the Agagite having become an influential court favorite in Persia in the Book of Esther, while Persia is mentioned in Daniel as being under the influence or supervision of a spiritual prince.
We still don’t know how united or cooperative with each other the spiritual princes really are, although they apparently do interact, make choices, and sometimes enter into confrontation. It’s kind of sad to think that princes appointed by God after Satan’s initial rebellion might have also fallen under his sway, if that is what happened. If they were part of the initial rebellion, that doesn’t quite explain why God would allow them to exercise authority in the way they seem to do. Jesus, when the religious officials accused him of using the power of the prince of demons to cast out demons, asked how a city or house or kingdom divided against itself could stand, and how then could Satan’s kingdom stand? Well, Satan isn’t God. He probably can’t do as good of a job as God can at leading or ruling. It’s possible that the fall of Satan’s kingdom was inevitable anyway, and God is intervening for our sake. After all, it’s also written that if those days had not been foreshortened, no flesh would be saved alive, but that they have been foreshortened for the sake of the elect.
“Pakistan is the exception.” Right, they’re not Turkic. Did they add it to contrast their Islamic Republic with Hindu India?