Yevgeny Prigozhin’s press service has announced that the Wagner Group chief was buried at the Porokhovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
“The ceremony was held privately. All those willing to pay their respects may visit the Porokhovsky cemetery,” the statement said.
The MSK1.RU Telegram news channel wrote citing sources at the cemetery that the funeral ended at around 4 PM Moscow time, adding that Prigozhin’s family had requested that the ceremony be held in secret.
The SHOT Telegram channel was among the first to publish photos and videos of Prigozhin’s grave.
There were no official announcements concerning Prigozhin’s funeral beforehand. St. Petersburg-based news outlet Fontanka reported that the funeral details had been classified. Increased security measures at the city’s Serafimovsky cemetery drove speculation that the Wagner Group founder would be buried there.
VChK-OGPU, a Telegram channel associated with Russia’s security forces, claimed that Prigozhin’s family deliberately misinformed the authorities about the place of the funeral. There were also reports that another cemetery had been preparing for a burial.
Prigozhin’s associate and head of Wagner’s security service, Valery Chekalov, was also buried in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.