Hello John and Doves,
It's in the news that Russia is going to conduct military drills in the Mediterranean.
What is interesting to me is the dates: Sept. 1 - 8. These drills will end near the end of the Hebrew month of Elul. The next month of Tishrei starts sunset Sept 9th, The Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashanah).
Feast of Trumpets is sunset Sept 9th to sunset Sept 10th. https://www.chabad.org/calendar/view/month.asp?tdate=9/30/2018
The Sept dates depend on the calendar you look at - the Torah calendar is set a day later, Sept 10 - 11. http://torahcalendar.com/Calendar.asp?YM=Y2018M7
Add the Mediterranean military drills to Russia's largest war games since 1981 starting Sept 11 - 15. You can see this starts right after Feast of Trumpets (or on Feast of Trumpets, torah calendar).
We've seen military war games 'go live' during the exercises, so that's always a possibility.
Neither Russia nor China are our friends - and with the recent sanctions on Russia and tariffs for China...who knows what might push these two to collaborate on an attack on the U.S. and Israel.
And the cost of these drills/war games for Russia have to be HUGE!! When the Kremlin was "asked if the cost of holding such a massive military exercise was justified at a time when Russia is faced with higher social spending demands, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Perkov said such war games (Vostok-2018) were essential."
And this cost comes right after the Mediterranean drills! So Russia is willing to spend huge amounts of money for these! These drills/war games aren't just for fun - something bad is going to happen. Russia and China are not happy with the U.S.
Just something more to be aware of during the last days of Elul and the High Holy Days of Tishrei.
Maranatha!
Chance
Check out the massive amounts of military equipment involved for each time period.
Russia to hold large-scale drills in Mediterranean amid Western threat of striking Syria
Source: Xinhua, 2018-08-30MOSCOW, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Over 25 Russian battleships and 30 warplanes will participate in military drills in the Mediterranean on Sept. 1-8, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday, after Western countries threatened to bomb Syria again.
The naval force will include ships from the Russian Northern, Baltic, Black Sea fleets and the Caspian Flotilla and they will be led by missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov, the ministry said in a statement.
The air force will consist of Tu-160 strategic bombers, Tu-142MK and Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft, Su-33 and Su-30SM naval aviation fighters, it said.
The group will work out a set of tasks for anti-aircraft and anti-subversive and sabotage defense as well as protection against mines, the ministry said.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will next month hold its biggest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday, a massive military exercise that will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies.
The exercise, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts and involve almost 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all of its airborne units, Shoigu said in a statement.
The maneuvers will take place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, which is concerned about what it says is an unjustified build-up of the NATO military alliance on its western flank.
The war games, which will take place from Sept. 11-15, are likely to worry Japan, which has already complained about a Russian military build-up in the Far East, something Moscow has linked to Tokyo’s roll-out of the Aegis U.S. missile system.
Shoigu said the war games would be the biggest since a Soviet military exercise, Zapad-81 (West-81) in 1981.
“In some ways they will repeat aspects of Zapad-81, but in other ways the scale will be bigger,” Shoigu told reporters, while visiting the Russian region of Khakassia.
Shoigu said that both Russia’s Pacific and Northern Fleets would take part, while the Russian Ministry of Defense has said that Chinese and Mongolian military units will also participate. ((Adding I heard this number was about 100,000 Chinese troops.))
“Vostok demonstrates Russia’s focus on exercising large-scale conflict. It fits into a pattern we have seen over some time: a more assertive Russia, significantly increasing its defense budget and its military presence.”
Shoigu this month announced the start of snap combat readiness checks in central and eastern military districts ahead of the planned exercise.
“Imagine 36,000 armored vehicles - tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored infantry vehicles - moving and working simultaneously, and that all this, naturally, is being tested in conditions as close as possible to military ones,” Shoigu said on Tuesday.