Wagner warlord, Yevgeny Prigozhin has been buried in a quiet ceremony that Vladimir Putin refused to attend.
He was buried on Tuesday, August 29, at cemetery on the outskirts of his hometown of St Petersburg six days after his death in a plane crash.
Red, white, and yellow flowers were laid on top of his wooden grave, which was heavily guarded by armed police and private security.
Members of the Russian National Guard were stationed along the fence at the cemetery.
Prigozhin’s press service said in a short post on Telegram that the service took place behind closed doors, and directed ‘those who wish to bid their farewell’ to the 62-year-old to visit the Porokhovskoye cemetery.
The funeral service of the violent warlord was reportedly attended just by close friends and family members.
Heavy security was involved across the whole ceremony, with several guards and metal detectors present.
Prigozhin is believed to have been buried next to his father.
A Russian news outlet, MSK1.RU, quoted cemetery staff as saying that the privacy of the ceremony was in accordance with his family’s wish.
Putin refused to attend the funeral, despite the pair sharing a close relationship in the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian leader had decried the armed rebellion in June as ‘treason’ and ‘a stab in the back.’
Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash last week, two months to the day after he staged a coup against Putin.
Two other top Wagner figures, four Prigozhin bodyguards and three crew members were also killed when the Embraer Legacy 600 private jet crashed north of Moscow.
The country’s top criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, didn’t say what might have caused Prigozhin’s business jet to plummet from the sky, minutes after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg.
Just before the crash, Prigozhin had reportedly returned from a trip to Africa, where he sought to expand Wagner Group’s activities.
Many across the world pointed fingers at Putin as the person who ordered his death.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane to crash, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin’s foes who have been assassinated.
The Kremlin has rejected as an ‘absolute lie’ the suggestion that Putin ordered his death in revenge for the revolt, which saw Wagner troops and tanks take over the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on their way up to Moscow.
