How would we know that Russia is 'Gog'? Gog and Magog fight against Jerusalem after the 1000 years in the book of Revelation.
Russia formed as a nation a little over a thousand years ago during the viking age. There were tribes that lived there. Vikings came and set up kingdoms that warred with one another and united into the Rus kingdom. Vladimir the Great had Christian relatives, and at least one wife (my ancestor in a genealogy) whom he had raped in front of her father before killing him. He negotiated with the emperor in Constantinople to marry her sister, too, in exchange for his conversion. Vladimir was dubbed equal of the apostles and given all kinds of titles, and set the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox tsar.