National Guard corps names military operation after pagan deity
National Guard's Khartia Corps. Photo: Corps' Facebook page
Ukraine's 13th National Guard Brigade, Khartia, named its counteroffensive operation near Kupiansk "Veles," after an ancient Slavic pagan deity, Suspilne Kultura reports.
The soldiers explained that they had fought in an underground tunnel beneath the Oskil River and therefore chose the name of a deity believed in pagan tradition to rule the underworld. According to pagan mythology, Veles was banished from the human world and forced to live underground, where he held back the forces of chaos.
Although Veles was indeed a deity in the ancient Slavic pantheon, many modern beliefs surrounding his cult are inventions. Cultural scholar Nataliia Lysovets noted that popular concepts such as the "Book of Veles" and "Veles Night" are modern fabrications and hoaxes associated with Russian neo-pagans of the 19th and 20th centuries, with no basis in ethnographic sources.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that Azov soldiers had established a pagan shrine in the Kharkiv region.
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