Wagner Group Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin Laid to Rest in Private Funeral After Plane Crash
About a week after he and nine other people perished in a plane crash in Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, was buried in a private ceremony on Tuesday, according to his press agency.
According to his press service’s Telegram post, Prigozhin, 62, was buried in the Prokhorov Cemetery of St. Petersburg in a private ceremony. According to a cemetery staffer, 20 to 30 people attended the 40-minute “VIP” burial. No military uniforms were seen among the attendees, who included Prigozhin’s relatives and close friends, according to the employee.
Businessman Prigozhin, who later rose to prominence as a potent global paramilitary figure, was once a close supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin had stated to reporters earlier on Tuesday that he would not be going to Prigozhin’s funeral.
On August 23, Prigozhin’s private plane crashed inexplicably close to Kuzhenkino, a town north of Moscow.
Russian investigators claimed this week that DNA tests revealed the bodies recovered from the scene matched all 10 passengers on the passenger list, including Prigozhin and co-founder of the Wagner Group Dmitry Utkin. U.S. officials said last week that their preliminary examination suggests that the crash may have been caused by an explosion within the aircraft, possibly by a strategically placed bomb.
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Prigozhin’s Mysterious Plane Crash
The U.S. Department of Defense claims there was no evidence the accident was caused by a surface-to-air missile.
Prigozhin passed away exactly two months after organizing a one-day rebellion against Moscow. On June 23, in the evening, forces belonging to the Wagner Group—which had been engaged in combat in Ukraine—turned from their base in Rostov-on-Don, a significant Russian city close to the southern border.
They made a U-turn in less than a day. Karine Jean-Pierre, a press secretary for the White House, responded to a question about whether the United States thinks Putin was responsible for the plane crash that killed Prigozhin on Tuesday by outlining the Kremlin’s “long history” of “killing its opponents,” and asserting that what happened is “pretty evident what happened here.”
The Kremlin has categorically rejected any responsibility for the jet disaster. An investigation into the incident has been opened by Russia’s Investigative Committee.
A day after the accident, Putin claimed that Prigozhin was “man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life.” in a televised speech.
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Source: ABC News
