Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin buried at St Petersburg cemetery | Russia-Ukraine war News

Secrecy had surrounded the funeral preparations for the Wagner mercenary boss who was killed in a aircraft crash on August 23.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group chief who died in a plane crash final week, has been buried at a cemetery on the outskirts of St Petersburg.

The funeral befell on Tuesday, away from the glare of the media and in stark distinction to the brazen, self-publicising fashion with which Prigozhin had fanned his repute far past Russia for ruthlessness and ambition.

“The farewell to Yevgeny Viktorovich befell in a closed format. Those that want to say goodbye could go to Porokhovskoye cemetery,” his press service stated in a brief put up on Telegram.

Photos revealed on social media confirmed Prigozhin’s darkish granite tombstone surrounded by a sea of flowers, principally purple roses, within the cemetery on the northeast fringe of his hometown.

Secrecy had surrounded the funeral preparations for the Wagner mercenary boss who was killed in a aircraft crash on August 23, two months to the day after he staged a mutiny in the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s rule since he rose to energy in 1999.

The top of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried in St. Petersburg.

Russian channels revealed a photograph of Prigozhin’s grave, his father is buried close by.

Peskov stated in the present day that Putin wouldn’t attend Prigozhin’s funeral. pic.twitter.com/CGLkIOZTjI

— Sprinter (@Sprinter99800) August 29, 2023

It meant the occasion couldn’t be was a large-scale public present of assist for Prigozhin, a brutal determine who was nonetheless admired by some in Russia for throwing his fighters into the fiercest battles of the warfare in Ukraine and talking brazenly concerning the shortcomings of the Russian army and its management.

In current days admirers had heaped flowers on makeshift shrines to Prigozhin in Moscow, St Petersburg and elsewhere.

The Kremlin has rejected as an “absolute lie” the suggestion that Putin ordered his demise in revenge for the June mutiny. It stated earlier on Tuesday that the president wouldn’t attend the funeral.

Two different high Wagner figures, 4 bodyguards and three crew members have been additionally killed when Prigozhin’s Embraer Legacy 600 non-public jet crashed north of Moscow.

It’s nonetheless unclear what prompted the aircraft to crash, however villagers close to the scene instructed Reuters information company they heard a bang after which noticed the jet plummet to the bottom.

Mutinous mercenary

After months of insulting Putin’s top brass with quite a lot of crude expletives and jail slang over their perceived failure to battle the Ukraine warfare correctly, Prigozhin took management of the southern metropolis of Rostov in late June.

He then marched in the direction of Moscow earlier than turning again 200km (125 miles) from the capital. Putin initially solid Prigozhin as a traitor whose mutiny might have tipped Russia into civil warfare, although he later made a cope with him to defuse the disaster.

The day after the crash, Putin despatched his condolences to the households of these killed and stated he had identified Prigozhin for a really very long time, because the chaotic years of the early Nineteen Nineties.

“He was a person with a troublesome destiny, and he made critical errors in life,” Putin stated, whereas describing him as a gifted businessman.

Earlier than the mutiny, Prigozhin had quipped that his nickname ought to have been “Putin’s butcher” moderately than “Putin’s chef” – a moniker acquired after his catering firm received Kremlin contracts.

He at all times professed loyalty to Putin, although he stated his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, was so incompetent he ought to executed for his treachery.

After Prigozhin’s demise, Putin ordered Wagner fighters to signal an oath of allegiance to the Russian state – a step that Prigozhin had opposed attributable to his anger on the defence ministry that he stated risked shedding the Ukraine warfare.

Investigators stated on Sunday that genetic exams had confirmed the identities of all 10 folks killed within the crash, who additionally included two pilots and a flight attendant.

Earlier on Tuesday, Valery Chekalov, the top of Wagner logistics, was buried at one other St Petersburg cemetery.