Prigozhin’s press service said in a brief statement that the last rites for Prigozhin were held in secret Tuesday without offering details of the time and location, or providing photographs of the event — perhaps a fitting final chapter to a secretive life of disguises, clandestine security arrangements, diversions to conceal travel plans, duplicate passports and body doubles.
The cloak-and-dagger machinations around the burial underscore the Kremlin’s fears of potential unrest among hard-line, pro-war Russian nationalists, many of whom lionized the Wagner leader for his tough, blunt criticism of a war that has raised doubts about President Vladimir Putin’s leadership and often made his defense chiefs appear incompetent and untruthful about casualties and battlefield setbacks.
Prigozhin, Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin, other mercenary leaders and their bodyguards were killed last week, along with three crew members, when an Embraer business jet crashed during a flight to St. Petersburg from Moscow — a suspicious incident that many in Russia’s elite presumed to be an assassination directly or indirectly ordered by the Kremlin.
Earlier Tuesday, the Kremlin had said Putin would not attend the funeral of Prigozhin, his former ally, as the first of the Wagner leaders killed in the crash were buried without fanfare.
Putin’s snub of the funeral risked further angering Prigozhin’s hawkish supporters, who saw him as a war hero and demanded that he be buried with military honors, despite the rebellion he led in June aimed at toppling the nation’s military leadership.
Prigozhin’s press service, which had dutifully promoted his profanity-laden battlefield videos during the months-long siege of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, provided no details of Tuesday’s clandestine ceremony. Instead, it issued a curt line to say those who wished to bid him farewell could visit the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.
Russia’s Interfax news service reported that Prigozhin’s press service confirmed to the agency that he was buried in a small ceremony with only family and close friends present, according to the family’s wishes.
Local media outlet MSK1 reported that the Wagner boss was buried at about 4 p.m., quoting a representative of the cemetery stating that the family wished the arrangements to be kept secret. Russian Telegram channels also reported that he had been buried in the afternoon at an event carefully concealed from local media.
On Friday, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to questions about the funeral by saying Putin’s schedule was busy. Peskov said that he had “no specific information” about the funeral and that decisions rested with the family.
The extraordinary secrecy surrounding the funerals of Prigozhin and the other top Wagner figures, highlighted the unease in Moscow as the Kremlin sought to minimize the risk of unrest and to draw a line under Wagner’s short-lived June rebellion. Still, divisions over the grinding 18-month-long invasion of Ukraine continue to roil Russia’s elite and its military leadership.
The Kremlin has strongly denied any role in the crash of Prigozhin’s plane while Russian state media have blamed Ukraine and Western intelligence agencies. Russian investigators say they are probing the crash, which Pentagon officials believe was caused by an explosion, potentially sabotage.
The rebellion was designed to oust Prigozhin’s nemeses, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, whom the Wagner chief accused of sabotaging his fighters by rationing ammunition as they struggled for months to seize Bakhmut. The fight for the city, which has limited strategic value, cost horrendous casualties, many of them ex-convicts recruited by Prigozhin from prison in exchange for pardons.
Putin called the rebellion a “stab in the back” to the motherland, and described Prigozhin as a traitor, before agreeing to drop insurgency charges and allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus, sign contracts with the Defense Ministry or return home to their families. Most of the convicts were let go after being…
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