The Russian presidency said on Monday it did not know details about the date or location of former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s funeral following the plane crash that presumably killed him last week, according to a Kremlin spokesman.
“These decisions are always made with the family members and are based, first of all, on the wishes of the family members,” said the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in his daily press conference, adding that when there is a decision, “it will be made public.”
When questioned if the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, planned to appear at the funeral, the Kremlin spokesman said that at this moment it is not known “when and how” the funerals of the victims of the air disaster will take place, for which “there is no answer at the moment”.
According to Telegram channels close to the Wagner Group, Prigozhin’s farewell will take place on Tuesday in St. Petersburg, his hometown.
It is possible that only the inner circle of the leader of the Wagner group will attend the funeral, the VCHK-OGPU channel indicates.
“For now everything indicates that there will be no [uma cerimónia solene]”But it will be announced that this is due to the wish of the family,” a source told the Telegram channel.
The Russian Investigative Committee (CIR) confirmed on Sunday that the body of Prigozhin and those of the other nine passengers from the plane crash on Wednesday in the Tver region, north of Moscow, had been identified.
According to the CIR, the identity of the plane’s occupants was confirmed through comparative DNA analysis.
Prigozhin’s Embraer Legacy 600, which crashed for as yet unknown reasons some 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow while flying from the Russian capital to St. Petersburg, was also the lead commander and co-founder of the mercenary company, Dmitri Utkin.
At the moment, the investigations have not clarified the causes of the accident, which include an explosion on board, a technical failure or even a piloting error.
Some media pointed out the possibility that the aircraft had been shot down, intentionally or by mistake, by missiles from the anti-aircraft defense units that protect a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, located next to the route the plane was following. .
After leaving the city of Bahkmut, after months of the bloodiest battle in Ukraine, amid open criticism by its leader of the Russian Minister of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the Wagner group launched an armed rebellion two months ago against the imitation addresses. from Moscow.
A military column from the Wagner Group was detained on its way to the capital, after the mediation of Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, where part of the mercenaries later moved, despite accusations of treason by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The last images of Prigozhin emerged the week of the air disaster, in a video supposedly recorded somewhere in Africa, where the Wagner Group carries out military activities in unstable countries.
Source: TSF
