How to replace a symbolic link with a copy of a file it links to

ln -f "$(readlink <symlink>)" <symlink>

Just for you I played with Veracrypt(never heard the name before :D).

Have you formatted the drive as FAT? Then thats your problem. When Veracrypt asks you, format it as NTFS instead of FAT and then try again.

FAT32 unfortunately does not support owner, permissions or symlinks. That is why you are getting an Operation not permitted error. Note that this error is not “permission denied”: “operation not permitted” often means “operation not supported”, i.e. nobody can do this.