Tue 29 August 2023:
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian mercenary Wagner’s chief, has been buried privately at a funeral near St Petersburg, according to his press service.
A “farewell ceremony” for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, took place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday in a statement on social media.
“Those who wish to bid their farewell” to the mercenary leader should go to the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St Petersburg, his home town, the statement said.
A “farewell ceremony” for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, took place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday in a statement on social media. #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/W3FVo3qev6
— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) August 29, 2023
Previous media reports about the funeral mentioned other cemeteries in the city as likely sites for the burial, which has been shrouded in secrecy.
Earlier it was reported that Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend the funeral, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
He told reporters the Kremlin did not know about the planned funeral arrangements, saying this was a matter for the family, according to Reuters.
Russia’s investigative committee on Sunday confirmed Prigozhin was among the people killed in a plane crash last Wednesday. The committee said in a statement that after forensic testing, all 10 bodies recovered at the site had been identified, and their identities “conform to the manifest”.
The Kremlin has denied it killed the Wagner chief, calling western intelligence assessments of Putin’s potential involvement “an absolute lie”.
Prigozhin had refused to submit his mercenaries to direct state control, despite a request from Putin during a meeting at the Kremlin in June. His armed uprising that month came days before a deadline that would have forced the group to sign military contracts.
Funeral of Prigozhin’s logistics chief held in St Petersburg
Russian mercenaries gathered today for the funeral of Valery Chekalov, one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s deputies who was killed with his boss in a plane crash last week, as the Kremlin said Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend Prigozhin’s funeral.
Reuters reports that the family of Chekalov, the head of Wagner logistics, was joined by dozens of people, some of whom Reuters identified as Wagner mercenaries, at the Severnoe cemetery in St Petersburg, Russia’s former imperial capital.
A Russian Orthodox priest said prayers and swung a censer before Chekalov’s coffin as family, friends and former colleagues, some holding bunches of flowers, bade farewell, Reuters video showed.
Some, including women and children in sunglasses, came forward to kiss his coffin. Unidentified mourners at the funeral ordered a Reuters videographer and photographer to stop filming.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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