How to align a group (instead of text) along a path in svg?

Question

Lets assume I have programmatically created a circle and some text, that I want to align along the circle. I am able to do so usin

Answer 1

In addition I have a rectangular image (or any svg group ), that I also would like to align to the circle (see red rectangle in the example image below).

However, textPath only seems to work for text elements.

You can use the rectangle unicode character ▮

In this case you will be able to include it in one textPath command along with other words

You can use any unicode character that suits you

If necessary, you can make the animation of the letters