Secret Belief Means Wagner's Most Dangerous Men Won't Back Down

[Eugene]

Source: Daily Beast

Secret Belief Means Wagner’s Most Dangerous Men Won’t Back Down

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
Published Sep. 04, 2023 8:00PM EDT

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.

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Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/rodnovery-pagan-spirituality-means-wagner-wont-back-down

[getagrip_already]

1. This is what the magats and the right have been searching for....

A God of vengeance and fury and not of peace and love. One who they can bend to their own sick beliefs.

It may unify the terrorists in an ugly, Norse beer hall orgy of hate and violence.

[hedda_foil]

2. Bannon

Ivakhiv feels that Rodnovery, in some but certainly not all manifestations, can play into the vaguely esoteric, right-wing sort of spirituality you can find the world over, uniting the Steve Bannon wing of the American right with the “Alexander Dugin wing” of Russian conservative politics that is intensely anti-secular.