Russian mercenaries bid farewell to Prigozhin’s logistics chief

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Russian mercenaries gathered on Tuesday for the burial of one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s deputies who was killed with his boss in a plane crash, while the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend the Wagner chief’s funeral.

Russia’s most powerful mercenary and his inner circle of Wagner chiefs were killed in a plane crash on Aug. 23, two months to the day since staging a mutiny in the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since he rose to power in 1999.

The Embraer Legacy 600 private jet on which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg from Moscow crashed north of Moscow with the loss of all 10 people on board, including top Wagner bosses Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov, and a crew of three.

The family of Chekalov, the head of Wagner logistics, was joined by dozens of people, some of whom Reuters identified as Wagner mercenaries and employees from Prigozhin’s business empire, at the Severnoye cemetery in St Petersburg, Russia’s former imperial capital.

A Russian Orthodox priest said prayers and swung a censer before Chekalov’s coffin as family, friends and former colleagues, some holding bunches of flowers, bade farewell, Reuters video showed.

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

It is still unclear what caused the plane to crash but villagers near the crash scene told Reuters they heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground.

When asked if Putin would attend the funeral of Prigozhin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The presence of the president is not envisaged.”

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

A view shows a portrait of Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin at a makeshift memorial in Moscow, Russia August 24, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

MUTINOUS MERCENARY

After months of insulting Putin’s top brass with a variety of crude expletives and prison slang over their perceived failure to fight the Ukraine war properly, Prigozhin took control of the southern city of Rostov in late June.

He then marched towards Moscow before turning back 200 km (125 miles) from the capital. Putin initially cast Prigozhin as a traitor whose mutiny could have tipped Russia into civil war, though he later did a deal with him to defuse the crisis.

The day after the crash, 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, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said, while describing him as a talented businessman.

Before the mutiny, Prigozhin had quipped that his nickname should have been “Putin’s butcher” rather than “Putin’s chef” – a moniker acquired after his catering company won Kremlin contracts – and he always professed loyalty to Putin, though he said his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, was so incompetent he should executed for his treachery.

The Kremlin has rejected as an “absolute lie” the suggestion by some Western politicians and commentators – for which they have not provided evidence – that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed in revenge.

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

After Prigozhin’s death, Putin ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state – a step that Prigozhin had opposed due to his anger at the defence ministry that he said risked losing the Ukraine war.

Investigators said on Sunday that genetic tests had confirmed the identities of all 10 people killed in the crash, who also included two pilots and a flight attendant.