Putin sends relics of 14th-century warrior Dmitry Donskoy to the front in Ukraine

Grand Prince Donskoy is revered in Russia as the first to challenge the Mongol Golden Horde. His remains were unearthed during renovations at the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin.

And now, bone fragments from the right hand of the “holy commander” have been sent to the front in Ukraine, to “take an invisible place in the same ranks of warriors as the defenders of the Fatherland,” the Russian Orthodox Church writes in a communiqué quoted by The Guardian.

Donskoy lived from 1350 to 1389 and was part of the Rurik dynasty, named after the Swedish Viking Rurik, who in the 9th century founded Kyivan Rus', a state in what is now Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.