Wagner warlord, Yevgeny Prigozhin has been buried in a quiet ceremony even as President Vladimir Putin was absent at the burial.
He was buried on Tuesday, August 29, at a 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
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
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
