Russia sends Dmitry Donskoy's relics to Ukraine front — SkimNews
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- The Russian Orthodox Church dispatched a fragment of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy's right hand — "the very same right hand with which he wielded his sword on Kulikovo Field" — to Russian combat units in Donetsk as a morale-boosting relic.
- Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, who defeated the Mongol Golden Horde at the 1380 Battle of Kulikovo and died in 1389, had his sarcophagus uncovered this summer during restoration at Moscow's Cathedral of the Archangel inside the Kremlin; Putin personally inspected the remains in August, calling them "an absolutely unique and marvellous discovery."
- The relic, housed in a small ornate casket beneath toughened glass, will be toured along the more than 1,000-km front line and was carried through Moscow's streets in a huge Orthodox procession over the weekend.
- Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin's first deputy Kremlin chief of staff, joined military commanders and the Russian-installed regional head in kissing the casket at a World War Two memorial ceremony in Donetsk on Tuesday, as a priest read a prayer.
- The relic tour coincides with a Russian parliamentary election later this month and comes as Russian forces seek full control of the Donetsk region — one of four Ukrainian areas Putin claimed to incorporate in 2022, a move Kyiv rejected as illegal — and diplomatic efforts to end the war have yet to yield a breakthrough.
- Orthodox priest and historian Alexander Zanemonets of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center accused the Church of breaking religious protocol to please the Kremlin, questioning why remains "whose location was broadly known for decades" were recovered and venerated only now, 38 years after Donskoy was declared a saint.
Why it matters: The Church's relic tour arrives as Russia enters its fifth year of war with no diplomatic breakthrough and a parliamentary election approaching — turning a 645-year-old saint into campaign-era propaganda for Putin's "special military operation," while critics inside the Church itself say Moscow is violating protocol to weaponize a national hero.
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