I have long been fascinated by statements in the scriptures indicating that the lost tribes of Israel are in “the north countries.”  (Ether 13:11, D&C 110:11, D&C 133:26-32, Isa. 49:12, Jer. 3:18).

I worked in the Boise Temple with Steve Buss, who served as a co-mission president in Siberia.  I asked him, “What do the patriarchal blessings say about those people?”

He replied, “Well, that's very interesting.  There are no stakes in Siberia, so patriarchs have to be sent from Church headquarters.  They sent a patriarch who gave 70 blessings.  He found people from every tribe.  That raised red flags for the brethren back in Salt Lake, so the next time they sent a different patriarch.  He gave 120 blessings, and found the same thing.”

I have maintained for a long time that something is going to happen in Russia which will fulfill the prophecies that the 10 tribes will be brought from the north.  The 10 tribes will have to come to Ephraim to receive their blessings.  The prophecy is that they will come here, occupy our temples, and will keep the temples running day and night while doing their ordinance work.

That means a lot of people.  How will they get here?  When will they come?  What are the circumstances that will bring them?

These prophecies are ancient.  Even Isaiah foresaw these things:

“Thus saith the Lord God, “Behold I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set my standard to the people, and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.

“And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers ...”  (1 Nephi 21: 22-23 and Isaiah 49).

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.  A month has passed.  Three million women and children of the 50 million inhabitants of the country have fled, largely going into neighboring Poland.  All the world, with just a few exceptions (China, for one), is vilifying Russia for this unwarranted attack.  All the world is united in support and sympathy for the beleaguered Ukrainians.  Even our Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress are united in the condemnation of Russia, and in the support of the Ukrainians.  Our president has pledged to admit 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to the United States.  Kings and queens around the world are rushing to their aid.

This morning I suddenly realized who the Ukrainian people are.  I believe that Ukraine is where the 10 tribes ended up.  If so, they are now undergoing the fifth exodus in their history.

The first was when they voluntarily left Egypt under the leadership of Moses.  They subsequently became the northern kingdom of Israel where they lived for 200 years.

The second exodus was a forced exodus which took place in 721 B.C. when Sargon, king of Assyria, conquered Israel and carried the survivors “away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”  (2 Kings 17:6).

From there the 10 tribes went north, and were lost to history.  Why they went north, we don't know.  This would have constituted their third exodus.  It may have been voluntary, or it may have been forced upon them.

If one looks at Bible Map number 5, the Assyrian Empire, it is easy to see that the route taken by the 10 tribes as they went “north” was a route that lay between the Caspian and Black Seas.  I have long assumed that above those seas, their route would have bent toward the right, and into present-day Russia and Siberia.  I was stunned this morning when it occurred to me that to the left is the vast, fertile plain that is present-day Ukraine above the Black Sea.

The 10 tribes likely settled there.  Not much is known about the early inhabitants of that area.  It was invaded by the Mongol Tartars.  From about 1300 to 1700 A.D. It was ruled by the Poles and the Lithuanians.  The native Ukrainians were tied to the land as serfs, or in other words, were slaves to the landholders.  The Ukrainian area then passed into the hands of the Russians who continued the suppression and captivity of the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians certainly fit Nephi's prophecy that the House of Israel would be scattered and hated of all men (1 Nephi 22:5), and that they would eventually be brought out of captivity.  (1 Nephi 22:12).

The only time that Ukraine was a country unto itself was for a very brief time in 1917-18 following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.  The communists in Russia quickly asserted control over Ukraine and made it one of the Soviet Socialist Republics.  The Ukrainians resisted Russian control.  The Russian response was to send hundreds of thousands of the Ukrainians to Siberia to be punished, and to work and to die as slaves there.  Perhaps as many as 1.3 million were thus deported.  These deportations would account for the fact that our patriarchs have found people there from every tribe of Israel.

These deportations would have been what I would call the 10 tribes' fourth exodus, if my assumptions are correct.

The Ukrainian serfs who remained in their homeland suffered an even worse fate.  The communists collectivized the farms, confiscated food and grain during poor crop years in 1932-33, and purposely left the people to starve.  Russia denies that this ever happened, but the Ukrainians have a name for it—Holodomor—the deaths by starvation of 10.5 million of their people, and commemorate that genocide each year on the fourth Saturday of November.  Those Israelite deaths exceed the six million that the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews a few years later in the Holocaust.  Until today I'd never heard of Holodomor.

Ukraine became an independent country when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.  Russia's Vladimir Putin declared that “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20^th century.”  He wants to restore Russia's power and dominions.  The invasion of Ukraine is the beginning of his efforts to rectify what he sees as Russia's “tragedy.”

The European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States, and most of the world are united in condemning the Russian invasion and in offering aid and sympathy to the Ukrainians in this, their fifth, exodus event.

How will things play out?  Are the Ukrainians a part of the 10 lost tribes as I suspect?  The Church would know through their patriarchal blessings.  The Church has a sizable presence in Ukraine.  The Church has a temple in Ukraine's capital, Kiev.  Will President Nelson ask in next week's general conference for us to help the Ukrainian refugees?  Will this be the start of the restoration of the 10 tribes which is to take place before the Lord's Second Coming?  Will there be spin-off events which will bring the other Israelites out of Siberia?  Will Putin's attempt to regain Ukraine expand into attempts to re-annex the other former Soviet republics?  Will China join Russia's effort?  Will they together work to repress the United States, and bring on a third world war?  Will a nuclear holocaust follow?

All of that is possible.

I believe that the Ukrainian situation is the beginning of “the restoration of the Ten Tribes”  which has been so long foretold.  (Article of Faith 10).  I believe that Mr. Putin is fulfilling prophecy.  I believe that the Lord is in control.  We live in momentous times.  I believe that the Lord's will is being done, and that the way is being prepared for the Lord's Second Coming.

I believe that will occur in about 12 more years.  Before that time the 10 tribes must appear, they must do their temple work, the New Jerusalem must be built, and the remnant of the House of Israel will have gone through to tread down the Gentiles as the Lord stated three times when He personally taught the Nephites.  (3 Ne. 16:10-15, 20:15-17, 21:12-19 and Micah 5:8-14).

These are scary times, as well as momentous.  But I believe we will be safe and that we need not fear.  We need to prepare.  Nephi assured us seven times in seven verses in 1 Nephi 22:16-22 that the righteous would be preserved.  I know that righteousness will prevail.  These prophecies are not conditional.  They will occur.  They will occur soon.  We are witnesses, and we are a part of it all.  We will be all right provided we are faithful and prepared.