Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin following his death in a plane crash, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say where or when the chief of the Wagner Group military company would be buried, although some Russian media suggested it could take place as early as Tuesday in Prigozhin’s home city of St. Petersburg.
A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane to go down, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin’s foes who have been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations that the Russian president was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”
The crash came exactly two months after Prigozhin launched a rebellion against the Russian military leadership, leading his mercenaries to take over the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then launching a march on Moscow. They downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen pilots.
