ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — President Vladimir Putin is just not planning to attend the funeral for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin mentioned, following experiences that the mercenary chief who challenged the Russian chief’s authority can be buried Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not say the place or when the chief of the Wagner Group army firm can be buried, including that he couldn’t touch upon a non-public household ceremony.
St. Petersburg’s Fontanka information outlet and another media mentioned the 62-year-old Prigozhin might be laid to relaxation as early as Tuesday on the metropolis’s Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has been used for high-profile army burials. Heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, the place Putin’s dad and mom are additionally buried, however no service was instantly held and elevated police patrols additionally have been seen at another metropolis cemeteries.
Later within the day, a funeral was held at St. Petersburg’s Northern Cemetery for Wagner’s logistics chief Valery Chekalov, who died within the Aug. 23 crash alongside Prigozin.
The tight secrecy and confusion surrounding the funeral of Prigozhin and his high lieutenants mirrored a dilemma confronted by the Kremlin amid swirling hypothesis that the crash was seemingly a vendetta for his mutiny.
Whereas it tried to keep away from any pomp-filled ceremony for the person branded by Putin as a traitor for his insurrection, the Kremlin could not afford to denigrate Prigozhin, who was given Russia’s highest award for main Wagner forces in Ukraine and was idolized by most of the nation’s hawks.
Putin’s feedback on Prigozhin’s loss of life mirrored that cautious stand. He famous final week that Wagner leaders “made a big contribution” to the preventing in Ukraine and described Prigozhin as a ”gifted businessman” and “a person of adverse destiny” who had “made severe errors in life.”
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, famous that Prigozhin has grow to be a legendary determine for his supporters who’re more and more important of the authorities.
“Prigozhin’s funeral raises a problem of communication between the bureaucratic Russian authorities system that does not have a lot political potential and politically lively patriotic phase of the Russian public,” Markov mentioned.
The nation’s high legal investigation company, the Investigative Committee, formally confirmed Prigozhin’s loss of life on Sunday.
The committee didn’t say what may need triggered Prigozhin’s enterprise jet to plummet from the sky minutes after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg. Simply earlier than the crash, Prigozhin had returned from a visit to Africa, the place he sought to broaden Wagner Group’s actions.
Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, a retired army intelligence officer who gave the mercenary group its identify based mostly on his personal nom de guerre, was additionally among the many 10 individuals who died within the crash.
A preliminary U.S. intelligence evaluation concluded that an intentional explosion triggered the aircraft to crash, and Western officers have pointed to an extended checklist of Putin’s foes who’ve been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations the president was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”
The crash got here precisely two months after Prigozhin launched a insurrection towards the Russian army management. The brutal and profane chief ordered his mercenaries to take over the army headquarters within the southern metropolis of Rostov-on-Don after which started a march on Moscow. They downed a number of army plane, killing greater than a dozen pilots.
Putin denounced the revolt as “treason” and vowed to punish its perpetrators however hours later struck a deal that noticed Prigozhin ending the mutiny in alternate for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to maneuver to Belarus.
The destiny of Wagner, which till lately performed a outstanding function in Russia’s army marketing campaign in Ukraine and was concerned in a lot of African and Center Jap international locations, is unsure.
Putin mentioned Wagner fighters may signal a contract with the Russian army, transfer to Belarus or retire from service. A number of thousand have deployed to Belarus, the place they’re in a camp southeast of the capital, Minsk.