Russia Sends the Centuries-Old Remains of a Medieval Warrior Prince to Its Front Line in Ukraine, Hoping to ‘Spiritually Strengthen’ Troops

The Russian Orthodox Church has sent a roughly 650-year-old fragment of a medieval warrior prince’s remains to its soldiers in Ukraine, a gesture meant to “spiritually strengthen” units fighting in Donetsk. Framed in an ornate reliquary topped with reinforced glass is a piece of the right hand of Dmitry Donskoy, a 14th-century royal who ruled for roughly 30 years as the prince of Moscow and the grand prince of Vladimir, and was canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988. Donskoy is widely regarded as a national hero for his role in securing, in 1380, Russia’s first battlefield victory over occupying Mongols.

In what is now known as the Battle of Kulikovo, he led his troops against the Tatars of the Mongol Golden Horde, who had imposed their rule on Russian lands for well over a century. Donskoy collapsed from his wounds yet survived the one-day engagement, which is remembered as a catalyzing first step in Russia’s eventual road to independence. Events from that day were chronicled in the Zadonshchina, one of Russia’s most famous medieval literary epics, which was published by the end of the 14th century.

Donskoy’s outsized involvement is a central element of the passage. According to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has claimed more than one million lives, and Russia now occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. Donskoy’s remains were discovered this summer during renovation work underneath Moscow’s Cathedral of the Archangel, which sits within the Kremlin fortress.

The cathedral was known to contain the burials of some 40 czars and princes, though the locations of every crypt, including Donskoy’s, had not previously been pinpointed. His sarcophagus was found, unexpectedly, split into four pieces; mortar and white stone debris had fallen through its cracks. The well-preserved remains of the prince, who died in 1389 at age 39, were wrapped in an ornate burial fabric and attributed to Donskoy through analysis of the body’s height and age at the time of death.

Textile remains and several fragments of remains were collected for subsequent laboratory analysis, but the objective was to avoid damaging anything and preserve the prince’s remains as they were found.” Following its discovery, Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected the open sarcophagus and lit a candle for the prince inside the cathedral. This isn’t the first time Donskoy has been invoked during war. Firstpost reports that a Soviet tank column, funded by the Russian Orthodox Church during World War II, was named after the medieval prince.

Critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—launched in February 2022 to overthrow the Ukrainian government and gain control of its sovereign territory—say that appealing to Donskoy is another attempt to frame the war as an existential defensive struggle for Russia. The reliquary will travel more than 600 miles along Russia’s front line to be displayed to combat units. Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago.