XPost: soc.culture.russian, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox,   
   alt.politics.religion   
   XPost: alt.christnet.religion   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   Secret Belief Means Wagner’s Most Dangerous Men Won’t Back Down   
      
   ‘SPIRITUAL CRUSADE’   
      
   The poorly understood Rodnovery pagan religion is at the heart of   
   Wagner’s most notorious unit of fighters who want vengeance for their   
   murdered leaders.   
      
   Will McCurdy   
      
   Source: The Daily Beast https://t.co/FJoRe3xFL5   
      
   All eyes are on the Russian mercenary group Wagner in the aftermath of   
   a mysterious plane crash that presumably killed the group’s leader,   
   Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, last week.   
   Angry over what many suspect was an assassination plot ordered by   
   Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, many factions within the   
   infamous mercenary group are now emerging with shadowy threats of   
   vengeance and violence.   
      
   The “Rusich” Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group, a Wagner-linked   
   unit of fighters that have received additional sanctions for “special   
   cruelty" in battles in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine, has recently   
   taken to Telegram to post one such ominous warning. “Let this be a   
   lesson to all. Always go all the way,” the group said in a statement   
   after the plane crash.   
      
   There’s good reason for Vladimir Putin to take threats from Rusich,   
   and other like-minded Wagner fighters, seriously.   
      
   That’s because behind the headlines, many of the Wagner units most   
   known for their violence—including the Rusich battalion, and even the   
   now-deceased commander Dmitry Utkin—are fighting what they believe is   
   a spiritual battle, taking religious and ideological inspiration from   
   sources far removed from the Russian mainstream.   
      
   These soldiers are shunning Jesus, Mary, and the Russian Orthodox   
   patriarchs, and instead booking to Gods such as Perun— the ancient   
   Slavic god of thunder and lightning—for protection and inspiration.   
      
   The “Rusich” battalion is formed almost entirely of adherents of a   
   variant of Slavic neopaganism known as “Rodnovery,” according to   
   former unit commander Alexei Milchakov’s interviews with local Russian   
   media. Marat Gabidullin, who served in the Wagner group from 2015 to   
   2019 and rose to the rank of commander in Syria, also confirmed these   
   reports to The Daily Beast.   
      
   Members of the Rusich group, which has been active in Ukraine’s Donbas   
   region, Africa, and Syria since 2014, have often adorned their badges,   
   tanks, and banners with images of what’s known as the ‘kolovrat’. This   
   spinning wheel—one of the critical symbols of the pagan revivalist   
   belief system—could be easily mistaken for a swastika by the untrained   
   eye. Pagan symbols such as the ‘Valknut’ and ‘Black Sun’ have also   
   frequently appeared on the groups’ uniforms and banners.   
      
   These pagan symbols have prompted disgust and confusion in several   
   news outlets, in both Ukraine and Africa, due to the symbols bearing a   
   distinct similarity to the SS imagery of Nazi Germany. Outside of the   
   Rusich unit, these pagan beliefs are common among members of the   
   Wagner Group, and the Russian military more widely, according to   
   several sources who spoke to The Daily Beast.   
      
   ‘Rodnovers’ practice polytheism, the belief in multiple gods, roughly   
   seven, all said to be manifestations of the one true god Rod. These   
   ideas began to take root in the ’90s, when the collapse of the Soviet   
   Union and state atheism led to a revival of religious faiths of all   
   kinds, including Christianity.   
      
   Men are hugely overrepresented in Rodnovery, particularly those   
   involved in martial arts clubs and the heavy metal community, where   
   its imagery often crops up. A core text of Rodnovery, “The Book of   
   Veles” places the Slavs as a type of chosen people, with a unique   
   destiny. Though texts like the above have proven likely to be   
   19th-century forgeries and much of the faith represents guesswork   
   based on incomplete records from Medieval scholars, that hasn’t   
   stopped these beliefs from slowly rising in popularity.   
      
   There are estimated to be between several 100,000 to several million   
   Pagans in Russia, divided between different sects with quite diverse   
   beliefs. The deity that receives the bulk of the attention, at least   
   among male devotees, is Perun, a deity who in the Book of Veles   
   engages in constant war against the forces of evil, not unlike the   
   popular Norse god Thor. The belief in reincarnation is also common   
   among believers.   
      
   Gabidullin, the ex-Wagner soldier, told The Daily Beast the practice   
   of Rodoverny within the group as merely a type of “fashion hobby” for   
   a marginalized community of soldiers.   
      
   The ex-mercenary says the popularity of these beliefs stems from the   
   “laziness to study the scientific school of history” and the desire to   
   find a justification “for self-aggrandizement in the past.” He terms   
   the vision of the history of Rodverners in Wagner as an: “invented   
   version with great ancestors and achievements.”   
      
   Expressing sympathy with Rodnovery may even get you promoted within   
   the Wagner Group. A group of anonymous informants, who served in the   
   Wagner group in Syria, told a Ukrainian publication Radio Liberty in   
   2018 “it is desirable to be a Rodnover” to progress in the Wagner   
   group.   
      
   Gabidullin, in a previous interview with a Russian language   
   publication, has alleged that Dimitry Utkin, the group’s recently   
   deceased commander, has Pagan beliefs of his own, alleging the general   
   has multiple Rodnovery-inspired tattoos.   
      
   The insider also alleged that there was “an ideological department   
   within the Wagner PMC (private mercenary company),” formed back in   
   2019 that is promoting the movement, which he derides as merely a   
   “disguised form of Nazi ideology.”   
      
   Denys Brylov, a Ukrainian scholar focused on religion in the Slavic   
   world, believes that the actual specific religious practices of the   
   Rodnovers serving in Wagner may come secondary to the wider   
   ideological component it can provide for soldiers.   
      
   Brylov believes that for Wagnerites neo-paganism is attractive due to   
   its ability to provide a spiritual justification for the “cult of   
   force”. In these types of fringe, hardline interpretations of pagan   
   beliefs, the very act of battle or the shedding of blood can be   
   “considered as an act of sacrifice to the pagan patron deities of   
   warriors and war.”   
      
   That said, Brylov feels that in many cases persons “inclined to   
   cruelty” may simply gravitate to neo-pagan ideology to justify these   
   instincts, rather than the beliefs themselves being inherently   
   warlike.   
      
   Rusich commander Alexei Milchakov, for instance, went viral on   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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