Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been buried in a private funeral in St Petersburg, his press service has said. It said the ceremony was held in “a closed format”, and all those “wishing to say goodbye can visit the [city’s] Porokhovskoye cemetery”.
Prigozhin, 62, was confirmed dead by Russian authorities after genetic analysis of 10 bodies found in crashed plane on 23 August near Moscow.
The Kremlin has denied speculation it was to blame for the crash. But a number of Russia watchers – both in the country and abroad – have described Prigozhin as a “dead man walking” since an aborted armed mutiny he led back in June.
All 10 people – including Prigozhin’s right-hand man Dmitry Utkin – died in the crash in the Tver region, north-west of Moscow.
The Wagner press service gave the information about Prigozhin’s funeral in a short statement on Telegram on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin leader would not be attending Prigozhin’s funeral.
Credit: bbc.com