Russian state media has accused Ukrainian troops of practising black magic after a ‘satanic seal’ was reportedly found daubed on the walls of a military base in Ukraine.
State news agency RIA Novosti recently released images of the battered remnants of a Ukrainian artillery post on the outskirts of a village called Trekhizbenka in the Luhansk region.
RIA claims that the presence of the symbol, along with other markings apparently made with blood, were evidence that Ukrainian soldiers were 'practising black magic' at the abandoned outpost.
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According to a so-called ‘expert’ on the topic, Russian culturologist Ekaterina Dias, the symbol – an anarchy sign with scribbles sketched in between the spaces – represented a hybrid insignia of Nazism and occultism.
"This is a magical sigil (symbol) consisting of many intersecting lines,” Dias said.
"What it means is difficult to say for sure, in it you can see both the inverted sign of anarchy, and part of the "SS" sign, the rune zig, it is clearly visible in the extreme left sector of the circle, and the Hebrew letter "zein" written in German, meaning a sword or weapon."
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Regarding the word ‘Zein’, which was scrawled crudely underneath the symbol, Dias said: "Perhaps the spell's authors performed rituals to strengthen weapons or 'asked' for more weapons to be sent to them."
She also highlighted the fact that the symbol had been drawn in one continuous movement as further ‘proof’ of its occultist nature, and suggested that 'disciples of otherworldly forces’ had been trying to consecrate their weapons with blood rituals in order to make a pact with a demon to give their weapons extra strength.
RIA Novosti claimed that Ukrainian soldiers had also been using blood in their alleged practice of the dark arts, pointing to a press release covered in blood from inside the military building as further proof of the Ukrainian military’s satanic intentions.
“There are lines of blood on the document, although there are no such traces anywhere else,” the report says, suggesting that Ukrainian soldiers had used the blood to contact supernatural forces.
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Regardless of the true intentions or origins of the symbol, such reports are less about seriously accusing Ukrainians of practising satanic magic and more likely yet another propaganda tactic from the Kremlin intended to reinforce the idea that Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state in need of liberation, by harking back to the well-worn trope of Nazi Occultism during World War II, which became a topic of much speculation and fascination in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century.
Tom Sanders