Wagner chief Prigozhin buried in private ceremony in St. Petersburg

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried during a low-key ceremony in his home city of St. Petersburg, the departed warlord’s press service said Tuesday.

The funeral was held “in a closed format,” according to a post on Prigozhin’s company Concord’s Telegram channel. The mercenary-turned-mutineer was buried in the Porokhovskoye cemetery, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.

The location and time of the funeral were kept tightly under wraps until Tuesday, but local Russian media started speculating over the ceremony after they reported tight security measures at several other cemeteries in St. Petersburg.

On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin would not attend the funeral.

Prigozhin led Russia’s Wagner Group of fighters, including on the front line in Ukraine, before he launched an aborted uprising against the Kremlin in June. He died in a fiery jet crash last week two months to the day after the insurrection started.