Putin not planning to attend funeral of Wagner leader Prigozhin: Kremlin – National | 24CA News
Russian President Vladimir Putin is just not planning to attend the funeral of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin following his demise in a aircraft crash, the Kremlin mentioned Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say the place or when the chief of the Wagner Group navy firm can be buried, though some Russian media prompt it might happen as early as Tuesday in Prigozhin’s dwelling metropolis of St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and another media mentioned Prigozhin, 62, will possible be put to relaxation on the Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has beforehand been used for high-profile navy burials. On Tuesday, heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, the place Putin’s mother and father are additionally buried. Increased police presence was additionally reported at another metropolis cemeteries.
Prigozhin’s high lieutenants, who died in Wednesday’s crash alongside him, have been additionally anticipated to be buried in St. Petersburg.
The nation’s high prison investigation company, the Investigative Committee, formally confirmed Prigozhin’s demise on Sunday.
The committee didn’t say what may need triggered Prigozhin’s business jet to plummet from the sky minutes after taking off from Moscow en path to St. Petersburg. Just earlier than the crash, Prigozhin had returned from a visit to Africa, the place he sought to broaden Wagner Group’s actions.
A preliminary U.S. intelligence evaluation concluded that an intentional explosion triggered the aircraft to go 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 was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”
The crash got here precisely two months after Prigozhin launched a rise up towards the Russian navy management, main his mercenaries to take over the navy headquarters within the southern metropolis of Rostov-on-Don after which launching a march on Moscow. They downed a number of navy plane, killing greater than a dozen pilots.
Putin denounced the revolt as “treason” and vowed to punish its perpetrators however hours later struck a deal that noticed Prigozhin ending the mutiny in change for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to maneuver to Belarus.
Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, in addition to Wagner logistics chief Valery Chekalov, have been additionally killed within the crash. Utkin, a retired navy intelligence officer, baptized the group together with his nom de guerre and led the group’s navy operations.
The destiny of Wagner, which till just lately performed a distinguished function in Russia’s navy marketing campaign in Ukraine and was concerned in quite a lot of African and Middle Eastern international locations, is unsure.
Putin mentioned Wagner fighters might signal a contract with the Russian navy, transfer to Belarus or retire from service. Several thousand have deployed to Belarus, the place they’re in a camp southeast of the capital, Minsk.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
