We all saw this unfold last week. Many, including myself, were watching in shock and disbelief as this mercenary army called the Wagner Group was marching toward Moscow, coming within 120 miles of the capital. All kinds of military experts, as well as experts on Russia and geopolitics, were trying to dissect what was happening.
Then as suddenly as it all began, it all inexplicably dissipated. We were all left wondering… what in the world was going on here?
The Wagner Group
This Wagner group is led by a man named Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been leading this mercenary army for several years.
The name of this group, Wagner, comes from a composer that Hitler loved in the 19th century, a terrible anti-Semite whose name was Richard Wagner. Dmitry Utkin, the co-leader of this Wagner group with Prigozhin, is a Nazi sympathizer who wears clothing with swastikas and often signs documents with the Nazi symbol “SS.”
In Your Inbox
The Wagner Group is a private military company (PMC) with approximately 50,000 members that were in Ukraine. About 40,000 of the 50,000 members are convicts. Basically, the Wagner group cleaned out the prisons, and they became part of this PMC. Therefore, it’s a very loosely organized, poorly disciplined, and brutal group.
The Wagner group has been fighting in North Africa. They’ve been in Syria. The United States Department of Treasury has declared them to be a transnational criminal organization. Furthermore, this bloodthirsty group has been doing a lot of the dirty work and fighting in Ukraine.
What Happened?
What happened was a feud between the leader of this Russian mercenary army Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian military leaders. Finally, it festered into a mutiny. It’s been called a revolt, an armed insurrection, a rebellion, a coup, and the beginnings of a civil war. Prigozhin called this the March of Justice.
As this was unfolding, all kinds of theories about what was happening were swirling around. Many of you reading likely have heard these as you watch cable news channels or wherever you get your news.
Some people were saying that this was a planned rebellion, that Prigozhin and Putin were in cahoots together and staging all of this to lure Ukraine into taking foolish action they could then retaliate against. Some people still believe that it was planned or orchestrated.
Other people were saying that this was Putin’s last stand. Putin was finished, and this army was going to march all the way to Moscow. Putin would be overtaken in a coup, and Prigozhin would then become the leader of Russia.
Then as quickly as this mutiny flared up came, it fizzled out. It was a bizarre, inexplicable turn of events. I’d watched the news earlier in the day about what was happening, got busy doing some other things, and came back expecting to see this march continuing to Moscow. But suddenly, it was over.
We learned that there had been a deal brokered by the Belarusian President, Aleksandr Lukashenko, between Putin and Prigozhin. The Deal was for Prigozhin to be exiled to Belarus and have protection. Prigozhin backed down, and the coup was averted.
The world has been left reeling in the wake of all of this, scratching their heads, wondering… what just happened and what is going to take place in the future?
Certainly, there will be major repercussions from this, but it is also very significant from a prophetic perspective, specifically relating to the Gog Magog coalition of Ezekiel 38-39.
I want to answer two basic questions, what we don’t know and what we do know.
What We Don’t Know:
Why did Prigozhin halt the march to Moscow?
The Wagner group was 120 miles away. It looked as though he could have gone on in and maybe taken Moscow.
There are different theories about this. Some will say he lost his nerve, realizing what he was up against. Maybe it was a larger force than he anticipated. Some, again, say this was all pre-planned, so he stops this because it was all arranged with Putin ahead of time to try to gain some advantages. Prigozhin, himself, said he did it because he didn’t want to kill Russians.
There’s another theory that makes a lot of sense to me, and that is that they may have kidnapped or threatened his family. Russia and Putin routinely do this.
Will Putin face more challenges?
Has Putin been so diminished and permanently weakened that he will face more challenges? Is this the beginning of the end for him? Are there some structural weaknesses in his government that others will rise up and take advantage of? Do people in Russia now all of a sudden have this idea that they can back somebody else to put Putin out of power?
Will Prigozhin stay in Belarus or make another move?
While watching someone the other day, they explained that if they were Prigozhin, they would stay away from open windows! Certainly, I think there will be attempts to assassinate him. But will he try to make another move? Prigozhin doesn’t seem like a man who would stand down in his ambitions.
Will Putin become even more dangerous?
Right now, Putin is wounded, vulnerable, and seems to feel cornered. It was said that while this march was taking place, there was panic in the Kremlin. Will Putin lash out in this and seek more extreme ways to turn the war in Ukraine around in his favor? Will there be an increased threat of nuclear war?
Is it possible that Putin could blow up the occupied nuclear plant in Ukraine, which many people believe is part of his agenda? We already know he has transferred nuclear weapons to Belarus, where Prigozhin was exiled. This is the first time Russia has sent its nuclear weapons to another country. This transfer, which Belarusian President Lukashenko has been bragging about, is going to be completed by the end of the summer.
Will this push NATO to invite Ukraine into membership?
Ukraine is stepping up calls for NATO to officially recognize their country and admit them to membership in NATO. That would cause all kinds of problems, escalation and would trigger events that could further set the stage for the end times.
What We Do Know:
This was evil versus evil.
Both Prigozhin and Putin are bloodthirsty, brutal, strong men. There were no good guys in this.
We know Biblically that an evil ruler, “Gog,” will lead a coalition attempting to invade Israel. Gog will rise from Russia, and any of these brutal men could fit that bill. This is an evil versus evil situation. There would have been no winners in this. In fact, Prigozhin may even be worse than Putin, and he could have gotten his hands on the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
This further solidified and galvanized the Russian alliance with Turkey and Iran.
The big three in the Ezekiel 38 Gog coalition are Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Turkey and Iran immediately rushed to Putin’s defense, pledging their full support for Vladimir Putin. This event strengthened and cemented their ties even further.
The US is strengthening support for Ukraine in the wake of this.
On Thursday, a new $500 million assistance package from the United States to Ukraine was announced. America and Western countries are seizing the opportunity, seeing an opening to deal a death blow to Vladimir Putin’s efforts.
Russia will continue its aggression.
Russia is going to continue to dominate global and world headlines. Four of the five places mentioned in the Ezekiel 38 Gog coalition are players in all of this. The Wagner group was very active in Libya, one of the nations in Ezekiel 38 referred to as “Put.” Additionally, you have Russia, which is “Gog and Magog,” Turkey, and Iran.
There may be a lot of twists and turns in the future, but the basic matrix of events that the Bible predicts in the future, that coalition of nations, is meshing together. All these things we see happening are further connecting the prophetic and end-time dots.
