Although Russia has been in the news,
China is the huge red army of World War III. Control of the South China Sea and America's weakness may start World War III but fighting quickly spreads to China, India, Pakistan and all the way to the Euphrates River in Iraq. China, India, United States and Far East have about half of the world's population. With five nuclear powers, the war may start conventional with cyber but then go nuclear. Revelation 9 says a third of humanity (~2.5 billion people) will die (
Revelation 9:15-16). After Antichrist's coronation, Russia is the leader of World War IV.
The beast [European Union] which I saw was like unto a leopard [Germany], and his feet were as the feet of a bear [Russia], and his mouth as the mouth of a lion [United Kingdom]. And I saw one of his [seven] heads [or nations - Germany] as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast (
Revelation 13:2-3).
The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 and on December 25, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev passed power to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He transformed the socialistic economy by increasing crony capitalism and profited from changes. Most of government businesses transferred to friendly Russian oligarchs. Yeltsin needed a successor to ignore his corruption. Former KGB agent and St. Petersburg mayor's deputy, Vladimir Putin, became Yeltsin's hand-picked successor.
Putin became president on December 31, 1999. The Russian bear finished hibernating and went back to its old Soviet ways. He took corruption beyond Yeltsin, making billions. Despite term limits, he went to prime minister then back to president. The European Union and Russia played tug-of-war with Georgia and Ukraine. In 2008, Georgia leaned west so Russia invaded Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2014, the Russian friendly Ukraine president was ousted with western help. Putin retaliated by annexing Crimea and invading
Ukraine. In 2015, Russia intervened in the Middle East to help Syria and unite with
Nuclear Iran and Turkey against a future war with Israel.
We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia are from each other, nations that do seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models, pursuing veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic and security decisions.
---- US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, January 2018