Yevgeny Prigozhin
The Kremlin is unsure whether the Russian president will attend the funeral, but the modalities have yet to be announced
Monday 28 August 2023 at 12:57pm BST
Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences to the family of Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin said, adding that it does not know when the warlord’s funeral will take place and whether the Russian president will be present.
“The Kremlin does not yet have any information about the format and date of Prigozhin’s funeral, so there can be no answer as to whether Putin will attend it,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists during his daily call.
“Once a decision is made, it will be communicated to the public. Such decisions are always made together with the relatives,” Peskow added.
The Russian investigative committee confirmed on Sunday that Prigozhin was among those 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 “consistent with the manifest.”
Several Wagner members told the Guardian Monday they did not know when or where Prigozhin’s funeral would be held.
“We weren’t told anything. I hope he gets the farewell he deserves,” said a Wagner soldier who fought with the group in Ukraine and wished to remain anonymous.
Makeshift monuments have sprung up across the country, and tearful visitors leave flowers and other tributes to Prigozhin. In St. Petersburg, a Wagner fighter named Yuri Novikov was arrested after firing an AK-47 in the air. According to local media reports, Novikov was concerned about Prigozhin’s death.
Several Telegram messaging app channels close to Prigozhin have speculated that “enemies inside Russia” had him killed in retaliation for his brief mutiny against Russian military leaders in June. The Wagner group has yet to issue an official statement after Prigozhin’s death.
A Telegram account with links to Prigozhin hinted that Tuesday’s warlord’s funeral could take place at a cemetery for Wagner fighters in the Krasnodar Territory of southern Russia.
Others have speculated that an event would be organized in Prigozhin’s hometown of St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg newspaper Fontanka reported that he could be buried at either the Bogoslovsky or Serofimov Cemetery in the city.
Meanwhile, Russia’s investigative committee has yet to come up with a list of possible causes for last week’s deadly crash.
A preliminary assessment by US intelligence concluded that a deliberate explosion caused the crash that killed the mercenary head and nine other people. A Western official describing the initial assessment said it found that Prigozhin was “very likely” to have been targeted and that the blast was consistent with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.” Joe Biden also suspected that Putin could be behind the plane crash
“There’s not much happening in Russia that Putin isn’t behind,” the US president told reporters last week.
Raw flight tracking data suggests that Prigozhin’s plane experienced a sudden drop in altitude and remained airborne for several minutes before falling from the sky. Aviation experts have suggested that the steep drop and widespread debris found at the crash site indicated an explosion or sudden breakup of the plane rather than a mechanical failure.
The Kremlin has denied the killing of the Wagner boss and has called Western intelligence agencies’ assessment of Putin’s possible involvement an “absolute lie”.
Also on Monday, Russian authorities said their air defenses had destroyed a drone approaching Moscow and two in a region bordering Ukraine.
Air defenses in the Lyubertsy district, southeast of the Russian capital, “destroyed a drone flying towards Moscow,” the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram, without specifying whether it was a Ukrainian drone.
Moscow and other Russian regions have been the target of a spate of Ukrainian drone strikes in recent weeks after Kiev vowed earlier this summer to “return” the conflict to Russia.
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