ST. PETERSBURG – Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin following his dying in a airplane crash, the Kremlin stated Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not say the place or when the chief of the Wagner Group army corporate can be buried, even supposing some Russian media urged it might happen as early as Tuesday in Prigozhin’s house town of St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and a few different media stated Prigozhin, 62, might be put to relaxation on the Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has up to now been used for high-profile army burials. On Tuesday, heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, the place Putin’s oldsters also are buried. Increased police presence used to be additionally reported at every other town cemeteries.
Prigozhin’s most sensible lieutenants, who died in Wednesday’s crash along him, had been additionally anticipated to be buried in St. Petersburg.
The nation’s most sensible prison investigation company, the Investigative Committee, officially confirmed Prigozhin’s death on Sunday.
The committee didn’t say what would possibly have brought about Prigozhin’s trade jet to plummet from the sky mins after commencing from Moscow en direction to St. Petersburg. Just ahead of the crash, Prigozhin had returned from a shuttle to Africa, the place he sought to enlarge Wagner Group’s actions.
A initial U.S. intelligence overview concluded that an intentional explosion brought about the airplane to pass down, and Western officers have pointed to a protracted record of Putin’s foes who’ve been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations that the Russian president used to be in the back of the crash as an “absolute lie.”
The crash got here precisely two months after Prigozhin launched a rebellion towards the Russian army management, main his mercenaries to take over the army headquarters within the southern town of Rostov-on-Don after which launching a march on Moscow. They downed a number of army airplane, killing greater than a dozen pilots.
Putin denounced the riot as “treason” and vowed to punish its perpetrators however hours later struck a deal that noticed Prigozhin finishing the mutiny in trade for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to transfer to Belarus.
Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, in addition to Wagner logistics chief Valery Chekalov, had been additionally killed within the crash. Utkin, a retired army intelligence officer, baptized the gang together with his nom de guerre and led the gang’s army operations.
The destiny of Wagner, which till just lately performed a distinguished function in Russia’s army marketing campaign in Ukraine and used to be desirous about quite a lot of African and Middle Eastern international locations, is unsure.
Putin stated Wagner warring parties may signal a freelance with the Russian army, transfer to Belarus or retire from provider. Several thousand have deployed to Belarus, the place they’re in a camp southeast of the capital, Minsk.