The Skeleton Putin Needs

Over the past days, one of the most talked-about figures in Russia has been a man who died nearly 650 years ago. Russian state television and pro-Kremlin media have launched an extraordinary campaign around what they call the “discovery of the relics” of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, the legendary fourteenth-century ruler of Moscow. Vladimir Putin himself was brought to see the medieval prince’s remains. He was delighted, calling the event “absolutely miraculous.” In a country short on present-day heroes, a skeleton has become the latest star of state propaganda.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church insist that the timing is no coincidence. Dmitry Donskoy, who defeated a Mongol army in the legendary Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, has, they say, revealed himself at precisely the moment when Russia is once again at war. Russia’s main state television channel, Channel One, put it even more bluntly: “The victor comes out to meet us.” The implication is that the fourteenth-century defender of the Russian lands and Russian soldiers fighting today are engaged in the same struggle against “absolute evil.” The Mystery of the Grave Almost everything about this story is remarkable. But the most remarkable thing is that there was no archaeological discovery at all. Dmitry Donskoy was not found in an unknown grave. No one stumbled upon the long-lost remains of a medieval prince. There had never been any historical mystery about what became of him. Other Topics of Interest Russian Agent Near SBU HQ May Have Guided Shahed Strike, Expert Says A Ukrainian electronic warfare expert says the drone which struck the SBU HQ on Friday may have been guided in real time using a portable device near its target. It has always been known that after his death in 1389, Dmitry Donskoy was buried in the Archangel Cathedral inside the Moscow Kremlin, near the cathedral’s southern wall. That is exactly where his remains are today. So what actually happened? In the summer of 2026, emergency conservation work began inside the Archangel Cathedral after sections of the floor started to sink, threatening to damage the tombs of the princes buried there. To carry out the repairs, restorers had to dismantle brick structures covering several burials along the southern wall. Beneath them were three sarcophagi, including those of Dmitry Donskoy and his father. It turned out that Dmitry Donskoy’s sarcophagus did, in fact, contain Dmitry Donskoy. His remains were almost entirely intact; reports said only that the left heel bone was missing. Yet within a matter of days, what would normally have been a routine event in the restoration of a historic monument was transformed into a state-sponsored miracle. The patriarch held a prayer service beside the sarcophagus. Church authorities decided to remove portions of the remains, place them in reliquaries, and send them to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and other churches for public veneration. Putin visited the Archangel Cathedral. State television devoted lengthy reports to the supposed “discovery” of the relics. And representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church began explaining that Dmitry Donskoy’s reappearance at this particular moment carried a special meaning in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Now part of his skeleton will be taken to the front lines to inspire Russian soldiers. Who Was He? An equally surprising part of this story is Dmitry Donskoy’s actual historical significance, because it differs considerably from the version familiar to generations of Russians from their school textbooks. In traditional Russian historical mythology, Dmitry Donskoy is the prince who challenged the Golden Horde and defeated it at the Battle of Kulikovo. The battle of 1380 is usually portrayed as almost the first decisive step toward liberating the Russian lands from Mongol rule. This is the source of Donskoy’s familiar image as a national hero: a Russian ruler who rose up against foreign invaders. The problem is that the reality of the fourteenth century was considerably more complicated. Dmitry Donskoy did not exist outside the political system of the Golden Horde, nor was he a freedom fighter seeking to overthrow it. Like other Russian princes of his time, he was deeply embedded in the Horde’s political order. A prince’s right to rule had to be confirmed by the Horde; Russian princes paid tribute, traveled to the khans’ courts, and became involved in the struggles among rival factions within the Horde itself. The second half of the fourteenth century was a period of severe internal crisis in the Golden Horde, with competing factions fighting for power. One of the central figures was Mamai. Strictly speaking, Mamai was not a khan at all: he was not descended from Genghis Khan and therefore had no legitimate claim to the title. At the same time, Tokhtamysh, a descendant of Genghis Khan, was fighting to reunify the Horde under his own rule. The battle between Mamai’s army and Dmitry’s turned out to be enormously advantageous to Tokhtamysh. In its aftermath, Tokhtamysh was able to bring the main territories of the Golden Horde under his control and establish himself as its undisputed khan. The result is rather ironic. The most celebrated victory of the man whom later Russian tradition transformed into a liberator from the Horde actually helped restore the unity of the Horde itself. And then came the part that Russian school mythology tends to mention far less often. Just two years after the Battle of Kulikovo, in 1382, Tokhtamysh marched on Moscow. Dmitry Donskoy fled the city. Moscow was captured, looted, and burned, and thousands of people were killed. There was no liberation from the Horde after Kulikovo. Moscow once again acknowledged the khan’s authority and continued paying tribute. Moscow’s dependence on the Mongol empire did not finally end until roughly a century later. Dmitry Donskoy lived from 1350 to 1389, in the world of medieval Europe — the world of the Hundred Years’ War and the Great Western Schism. His contemporaries included Chaucer, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Pope Urban VI. And now a man from that world has unexpectedly become one of the central political figures in Russia in 2026. Six hundred and thirty-seven years after his death, state propaganda has sent Dmitry Donskoy off to war once again — while assigning him a biography that the historical Dmitry Donskoy, in all likelihood, never had. The Myth-Making Machine There is one more detail that makes the Russian state’s sudden fascination with Dmitry Donskoy especially intriguing. As independent Russian journalists have pointed out, this new wave of historical mythmaking happens to coincide with a very concrete cultural and bureaucratic project. Nikita Mikhalkov — the director of Burnt by the Sun, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995, and who over the following three decades became one of the most powerful figures in Russian cultural politics and one of Putin’s most vocal supporters — is now working on a major film about the Battle of Kulikovo. Its hero is, naturally, Dmitry Donskoy. And he is to be played by Yura Borisov, arguably the best-known Russian actor in the world today. In 2025, Borisov became the first Russian actor ever nominated for an Academy Award, for his role in Sean Baker’s Anora, which went on to win Best Picture that same year. Yura Borisov starred in Sean Baker’s Anora, was nominated for an Oscar, and became the most popular actor in Russia So Dmitry Donskoy’s miraculous “rediscovery” comes at precisely the moment when Russia’s state-backed cultural machine is preparing to turn him into a movie hero. The medieval prince is appearing simultaneously in the Kremlin as a saint, on television as a precursor to today’s Russian army, and on the big screen as the hero of a forthcoming historical blockbuster. There is, however, one area in which the Russian public has proved unexpectedly disobedient. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin did indeed try to turn cinema into another instrument of patriotic mobilization. But Russian audiences have shown tastes that are considerably less martial than the state’s cultural policy. The defining movie genre of wartime Putinism has turned out not to be the war epic, but the fairy tale. The Russian box office has changed dramatically since the war began, and overtly propagandistic films have generally failed to attract mass audiences. The one genre that consistently does well in Russian theaters is the fantasy fairy tale for children — stories with no military victories, no obvious connection to the war, and very little imperial grandeur. If anything, their popularity may suggest a society that is frightened, hesitant, and eager to retreat from reality rather than one yearning to celebrate imperial power. The highest-grossing Russian film of 2025 was The Wizard of the Emerald City (essentially the Russian version of The Wicked). Other major hits included Finist: The First Bogatyr, Gorynych, and Alice in Wonderland. Repeatedly, Russian audiences have chosen stories that allow them to leave reality behind and enter worlds of talking animals, wizards, legendary warriors, dragons, and miracles. The most popular film in Russia last year was The Wizard of the Emerald City — Russia’s answer to Wicked Perhaps that is precisely why the Russian government needs Dmitry Donskoy now. The historical Donskoy has to be transformed into a fairy-tale figure: a flawless Russian bogatyr who defeated a kind of medieval “collective West” six centuries ago and has now miraculously returned to promise another victory. And here the circle closes. The most popular genre in contemporary Russia has turned out to be the fairy tale. The state has simply decided to make one of its own. A medieval prince who died in 1389 has been mobilized for the war of 2026. Reprinted from the author’s blog, The Last Pioneer. See the original here. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.