(23 June 2026) It is now 11 pm MST June 23, or, 5 AM GMT, June 24. We have been watching world and Mideast events, waiting for escalation of what looks to be the Second Signpost.
The Strait of Hormuz was closed for 112 days. It has now been open for three days, according to marinetraffic.com.
The US had its naval blockade stand down while the peace talks continue.
Conditions in Russia and Crimea
This news video from The Enforcer reports current conditions in Crimea and Moscow.
Russian president Putin has said Russia will hit back on the military installations of the countries providing all the drones and missiles Ukraine uses to devastate infrastructure and oil refineries in Russia.
Striking back could include the use of nuclear weapons. So far, NATO has violated the red line set by Russia many times. Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that Russia has not struck back yet.
Conclusion
Iran, Russia, Ukraine, NATO, China, and Taiwan all together form a complex relationship in which the spark for a great escalation to WW3 could occur any time.
This is going on in the background with the musical chairs of when Iran might lash out and hit the Arab oil infrastructure.
Do not assume we have days and weeks ahead of “normal life.” We might, but we shouldn’t assume so.
Keep watch. Be aware.
Categories: Signpost #2: Iran, In The News, World in the End Times
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
Mark: If Russia only bombed drone factories wouldn’t that be like swatting a hornets nest? Yes one kills a few hornets but the hornet counter attack would not be trivial. Doesn’t Russia have to nuke the hornet’s nest?
It will be interesting to see how this take and / or actions juxtaposes against the Russia / Alaska US Bering strait tunnel project that is currently in baby steps progress now. I would say it is a continuation of Europe getting hung out to dry by President Trump. It would be a welcoming crushing of globalism to have Europe squashed. Stu
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Karl,
Unfortunately, yes.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine and unexpectedly met stiff resistance, it has threatened Ukraine and its supporting countries with nukes time and again.
This is an important reason why the USA and Europe in the beginning were very reluctant to support Ukraine against Russia.
But because of the many Russian brutalities and the unexpected valiance of Ukraine in defending itself, political and popular support to help Ukraine grew steadily.
This was stepped up gradually over months and years. Every time Russia threatened with nukes, everybody looked carefully what Russia did on the nuclear front, and every time it did nothing. So the nuclear threats were taken ever less seriously, and support was stepped up again and again.
Only once US Intelligence estimated that there was no less than a 50% chance that Russia would actually use nukes. That was during the one successful Ukrainian counter offensive, when it took back large swaths of territory in a blitzkrieg in close cooperation with US intelligence. The Russian front collapsed and Russian soldiers fled en masse, leaving most of their tanks, trucks and artillery behind.
It seems the US then cautioned Ukraine to slow down.
Also China, which supports Russia in all sorts of ways, openly warned Russia that nukes should never be used.
Russia has been mapping all under-seas power cables and internet cables in Europe and between Europe and the US, to make them easy to cut. That is a very concrete threat. Also most of Russian industry and economy have been turned to war use, at the cost of everything else.
At present, Russia is forcing ever more groups of people into the army. And it recently has started preparing in earnest for huge compulsory drafts. Putin for years did not dare do this because it would make him extremely impopular in Russia. But of late Ukraine’s drone troops have become so effective at killing Russian soldiers that only a massive draft will make up for the losses.
These last two paragraphs point to stepping up conventional war, not to nuclear war.
What Mark wrote above is true:
Iran, Russia, Ukraine, NATO, China, and Taiwan all together form a complex relationship in which the spark for a great escalation to WW3 could occur any time.
It is just that at this moment nothing that is publicly known points to nuclear war soon.
If Russia nukes Europe, that would be the end of Russia. If Putin was really suicidal he would have jumped off a bridge by now.
Misselfdt, wasn’t that Russia-Alaska tunnel project canceled years ago because the US finally figured out that building a free access highway to an expansionist nuclear-armed dictatorship was a bad idea?
Karl, part of the problem for Russia is that they’re still dependent on Europe letting their shadow fleet tankers pass through the Baltic and North Seas and the English Channel. Even if the Europeans took no response to a Russian nuclear attack whatsoever, which is highly unlikely, 1) winds blow radioactivity back towards Moscow and St Petersburg, and 2) those seaways would likely be closed by someone with drones who simply wouldn’t tolerate the Russians anymore. Russia has red lines they can’t cross either.
Mark: I was thinking. Ukraine already swatted the hornet’s nest. Drones attacked Russian oil refineries. In World War two we could bomb German and Japanese fuel facilities with little fear of retaliation. Ours were in the U.S. out of reach of the Luftwaffe. With ICBMs every oil refinery is with in reach of the Russians. If they nuked our oil depots we would have no place to put oil if Iran gave it away for free. The U.S. would grind to a halt just as much as if Iran blew up all the oil depots in the Middle East.
K,
Putin and other Russian officials have said over and over in the last few years that if it looks like there will be no one Russia for the Russian people due to Western attacks, what’s the point of the world going on without a Russia? Russia would then take down the West with nukes because the Russian govt believes there would be no Russia anyway.
Medvedev, the Tsar’s court drunk, has repeatedly made threats like that. Putin is no Twelver holding tight to his imama turban, willing or even eager to die for his Mahdi. He would choose to keep his own life over “dying for Russia.” Even Mojtaba’s commitment to dying for the Twelver cause is in doubt since he fled his country in the middle of the war with the US and Israel his ideology supposedly wanted so badly.
Yes, Putin and other Russian officials really have said this over and over in the last few years.
With “No one Russia for the Russian people” they mean: All Russians should be united in one Russian empire. Including all ethnic Russian minorities in other states. So all these other states must be (re)conquered and added to Russia. The not-Russian peoples must be oppressed for this purpose. So it was under the Tsars, so it was under the Soviet Union. That great empire must be restored at any price; there is no limit to the required number of human sacrifices in war to restore it. Sacrifices of Russians and any others. Any outsiders interfering with this grand purpose must be eliminated. And should this fail, and the great empire cannot be restored, then let the whole world burn.
(This is exactly the spirit of the Nazi empire: “Alle Deutsche Heim ins Reich.” All Germans home in the same empire. At the cost of everybody else. China wanting to have Taiwan, against its will, at the cost of maybe a terrible war, is the same again.)
There is something in Russian culture that is really different from what we are used to in “the west” for the past few centuries. Something difficult for us to understand. Human lives always had less value there, also in the eyes of the Russians themselves, and most just accepted that or did not know any better. Russia in several ways is the successor to the Byzantine empire, very top-down, with an almost divine emperor at its head, exactly like in ancient times many kings were regarded as Gods. That is what Putin aspires to / has succumbed to. Nationalism, democracy and freedom have no place there. Many Russians experience things we take for granted as alien.
“The West” in general and Europe in particular puts high value in nationalism, democracy and freedom, and believes this is good for everybody. So the west tries to export these things to other parts of the world. They believe it is good that the German Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian empire, the Russian empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Nazi empire and the Soviet Empire no longer exist, and sympathise with oppressed peoples in middle- and eastern Europe who got their own states.
In principle this also would be true for the Russians. The West should have no problems with there being one big Russia in which most Russians live, as long as that is a nationalist democracy that does not want to conquer and suppress other states. But that is not what many Russians want. And also the West has abandoned Russia after the Soviet Empire collapsed. If the West would have helped its fallen enemy in a Christian way, maybe things might be better now. But I could be wrong here; maybe the Russian spirit would have rejected anyway.
I fear there is a true clash of civilisations here. Europe now feels really threatened by Russia, and will not sell its eastern members to Putins Empire for peace. They know Putin will only get more appetite after getting some, just like Hitler. No matter how many countries were surrendered to Hitler for peace, he always wanted more. The Russian leadership that really believes in their Empire might really turn to nukes one day, and Europe probably will not give up under that threat, because they too have an idea to defend. Then things may get a very bad turn.
If that almost happens, probably the Chinese will try to reign in the Russians again. China does not want to have their own empire in jeopardy because too many other parts of the world are destroyed and maybe radioactive.
In the end, God sets the limits to what happens, and when things happen. We know very little of what happens in the spiritual world. Biblical prophecy only gives partial information and remains focused on the Middle East.
Belarus, is very much under the sway of Russia. There are already many Russian troops there, and it is doubtful its president Lukachenko can make any decisions on his own any more. He went to Putin recently.
Now Belarus seems to prepare for war against Ukraine in earnest. That is bad, but again is only stepping up conventional war, not nuclear war.
There have been many big earthquakes this week: Japan, Northern California, Venezuela. A few good earthquakes shaking oil refineries to bits and the Russians won’t need to nuke our cities.