Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group who recently died in a plane crash, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to a reporter’s question about whether Putin would attend Prigozhin’s funeral, Reuters reported: “The president’s arrival is not planned.”
“The organization of Prigozhin’s funeral is the business of his family, and the Kremlin has no information about him,” Peskov said.
Close to President Putin, Prigozhin led the mercenaries of the Wagner group and set a record in Ukraine, but after a conflict with the Russian military on June 23, he caused an armed uprising.
At this time, Prigozhin led his people and advanced to a point 200 km in front of Moscow, but accepted the mediation of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and returned a day later.
On the 23rd, two months after the uprising, Prigozhin died in a plane crash while boarding a plane en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
Wagner’s private plane with 10 people on board, including Prigozhin, crashed in Kuzenkino in the Tver region in western Russia, about 300 kilometers northwest of Moscow.
On the 27th, Russian authorities officially confirmed that Prigogin was one of 10 who died as a result of genetic testing.
Suspicions arose that the Kremlin was behind Prigogin’s death, but on the 25th Peskov’s press secretary called it “a complete lie.”
(Photo source: AP = Yonhap News)
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