Russian mercenaries gather at the funeral of Prigozhin’s chief of logistics

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – Russian mercenaries gathered on Tuesday for the funeral of a deputy, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed along with his boss in a plane crash last week, though the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend. Prigozhin’s funeral.

The family of Valery Chekalov, the head of Wagner Logistics, was joined by dozens of people, some of whom Reuters identified as Wagner mercenaries, at Severnoye Cemetery in St Petersburg, the former Russian imperial capital.

A Reuters video showed a Russian Orthodox priest praying and waving a censer in front of Chekalov’s coffin as family, friends and former colleagues, some carrying bouquets of flowers, bid farewell.

Some, including women and children wearing sunglasses, came forward to kiss his coffin. Unidentified mourners at the funeral ordered a videographer and a Reuters cameraman to stop filming.

The private Embraer Legacy 600 plane Prigozhin was traveling from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed in the Tver region north of Moscow on August 23, killing all 10 people on board, including Chekalov and Dmitry Utkin – a leader Another prominent in Wagner -. Four men were reported to be Prigozhin’s bodyguards.

It is still not clear what caused the plane to crash, but villagers near the crash site told Reuters they heard a bang and then saw the plane descend to the ground.

Asked if Putin would attend Prigozhin’s funeral, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The president’s presence is inconceivable.”

Peskov said the Kremlin did not have any specific information about funeral plans, and that arrangements were left to relatives. It was not immediately clear when Prigozhin’s funeral would take place.

The day after the accident, Putin sent his condolences to the families of those killed, and said he had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the chaotic years of the early 1990s.

“He was a man with a difficult fate, who made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said, describing him as a talented businessman.

The incident came two months to the day when Prigozhin and his mercenaries staged a revolt against Putin’s top military commanders, taking control of the southern city of Rostov and advancing towards Moscow before returning 200 kilometers from the capital.

The insurrection has been the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since he came to power on the last day of 1999. The Kremlin has dismissed as “an absolute lie” the insinuations of some Western politicians and commentators – for which they have not presented any evidence – that Putin ordered the killing of Putin. “. Prigozhin will be killed in revenge.

US President Joe Biden said last week that he was not surprised by the death and that not much had happened in Russia that Putin was not behind.

On Sunday, investigators said genetic tests had confirmed the identities of all 10 people killed in the crash, including two pilots and a flight attendant.

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