Wagner chief Prigozhin secretly buried without fanfare in public cemetery

Russian Wagner chief Prigozhin secretly buried without fanfare in public cemetery as Kremlin seeks to avoid unrest.

Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin was buried in an unusually secret ceremony in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, with his press service announcing that the event was closed to outsiders, after hearses and funeral corteges laid false trails at several local cemeteries and other locations tracked throughout the day by local journalists.

Prigozhin’s press service said in a brief statement that the last rites for Prigozhin were held in secret Tuesday without offering details of the time and location, or providing photographs of the event.

Prigozhin, Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin, other mercenary leaders and their bodyguards were killed last week, along with three crew members, when an Embraer business jet crashed during a flight to St. Petersburg from Moscow.

Earlier Tuesday, the Kremlin had said Putin would not attend the funeral of Prigozhin, his former ally, as the first of the Wagner leaders killed in the crash were buried without fanfare.

Putin’s snub of the funeral risked further angering Prigozhin’s hawkish supporters, who saw him as a war hero and demanded that he be buried with military honors, despite the rebellion he led in June aimed at toppling the nation’s military leadership.

Prigozhin’s press service, which had dutifully promoted his profanity-laden battlefield videos during the months-long siege of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, provided no details of Tuesday’s clandestine ceremony. 

Instead, it issued a curt line to say those who wished to bid him farewell could visit the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Prigozhin’s press service confirmed to the agency that he was buried in a small ceremony with only family and close friends present, according to the family’s wishes.

Local media outlet MSK1 reported that the Wagner boss was buried at about 4 p.m., quoting a representative of the cemetery stating that the family wished the arrangements to be kept secret. 

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Russian Telegram channels also reported that he had been buried in the afternoon at an event carefully concealed from local media.

On Friday, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to questions about the funeral by saying Putin’s schedule was busy. 

Peskov said that he had “no specific information” about the funeral and that decisions rested with the family.

The extraordinary secrecy surrounding the funerals of Prigozhin and the other top Wagner figures highlighted the unease in Moscow as the Kremlin sought to minimize the risk of unrest. 

The Kremlin has strongly denied any role in the crash of Prigozhin’s plane, while Ukraine and Western intelligence agencies have been blamed by Russian state media. 

Russian investigators say they are probing the crash, which Pentagon officials believe was caused by an explosion, potentially sabotage.

On Tuesday, several hearses and funeral corteges were seen at key locations in St. Petersburg, as local media scrambled to find the location of Prigozhin’s funeral. 

Later, they reported that these appeared to be part of a complex diversionary effort.

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