What Prigozhin’s clandestine funeral says about the Kremlin

For the past week, the arrangements for Yevgeny Prigozhin’s funeral have been shrouded in secrecy. Now it has been confirmed that the leader of the mercenary Wagner group was buried today in St Petersburg – just under a week after he was killed in a plane crash outside Moscow.  

According to a statement released by Prigozhin’s press service, his funeral took place in private at the Porokhovskoe cemetery this afternoon. According to one anonymous cemetery worker, between 20 and 30 people attended the ceremony, which lasted approximately 40 minutes. Now the ceremony is over, anyone who wants to pay their respects is welcome to do so, the press service’s statement said. 

Following a flurry of activity at several of St Petersburg’s graveyards yesterday, speculation had been mounting that Prigozhin and those killed with him would be buried today. Despite the lack of official information, the increased presence of security guards and metal detectors at the Northern, Beloostrovsky and Serafimovsky cemeteries this morning further fuelled suggestions that Prigozhin might be buried at one of those locations.