Tearful mourners gathered in Moscow over the weekend to pay muted respect to the founding father of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, and 9 different folks whom the Russian authorities mentioned had been killed in a aircraft crash final week.
Hundreds of individuals have positioned flowers, pictures, candles and flags — together with some bearing the non-public navy group’s cranium design — at a small sidewalk memorial close to Red Square in Moscow.
Many wept brazenly, expressing shock over the loss of life of a person they mentioned they revered, and unhappiness on the lack of life. Almost all expressed their assist for the invasion of Ukraine.
“No matter what happens, we always remember them as heroes; we will forever remember their exploits and pray for them,” mentioned Alyona, 25. Like many who agreed to be interviewed, Alyona didn’t wish to give her final title due to the political sensitivity surrounding Mr. Prigozhin, who incessantly criticized how the battle was carried out and launched a short insurrection in opposition to the navy’s management two months in the past.
Alyona gestured to a Wagner flag, depicting a cranium surrounded by the phrases “Blood, Honor, Motherland, Courage,” and mentioned, “These are words that are not an empty phrase for these people.”
Volunteers handed out water, candies and snacks, a funeral custom within the Russian Orthodox religion. On a low wall alongside the sidewalk, tea lights crowded amongst memorial candles and funeral wreaths. An extended banner learn “Being a soldier is to live forever!”
Some Wagner fighters who got here to pay their respects described their loyalty to the mercenary group’s chief.
“I was mobilized,” mentioned one soldier, who would give solely his name signal, Prapor, and his age, 32. He confirmed Times journalists a Wagner canine tag emblazoned with the day the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut was captured in May.
“No one ever abandoned me; they helped me, they did everything that was necessary and provided me with everything that was needed,” mentioned Prapor, who added that he had personally met Mr. Prigozhin.
Many couldn’t imagine that Mr. Prigozhin and his group’s prime navy commander, Dmitri Utkin — whose name signal was mentioned to be the inspiration for the group’s title — had died.
“We didn’t believe it to the last moment,” mentioned Kirill, 31, who wore a Wagner hat and mentioned he had a relationship with the mercenary group however was not a soldier. He praised Mr. Prigozhin’s open, colloquial and sometimes profanity-laced communication model.
“Wagner leaders were honest — they told us everything,” he unhappy. “They spoke to people informally, just as they communicated with the wider public.” He known as Wagner’s seize of Bakhmut, which razed most of a metropolis that was residence to 70,000 folks earlier than the battle, “a great success.”
Other mourners mentioned they appreciated Mr. Prigozhin’s populist messages, which included criticism of the navy institution — notably the protection minister, Sergei Okay. Shoigu — and at occasions stretched to President Vladimir V. Putin himself.
“Evgeny Prigozhin won my respect for the simple fact that he went against this system, against Putin, Shoigu and began an active fight against our government,” mentioned Sergei, a 23-year-old pupil. “But the fact that his mercenaries are fighting in Ukraine, I am against that.”
Sergei confirmed footage on his cellphone of himself getting arrested throughout rallies for one more populist who dared to problem Mr. Putin: Aleksei A. Navalny, who survived a poisoning try and has been sentenced to greater than 30 years in jail on costs that human rights teams say are political.
The Kremlin has denied involvement within the crash, which U.S. officers have mentioned they believed was the results of an explosion on board, probably in retaliation for the insurrection.
Sergei mentioned he believed that the ten folks had been ordered killed as revenge for the mutiny. And despite the fact that Russia’s Investigative Committee mentioned genetic testing confirmed the stays from the crash website matched the names on the jet’s flight log, Sergei mentioned he believed there was an opportunity that Mr. Prigozhin might nonetheless be alive.
Billboards throughout Moscow encourage folks to signal navy contracts, or proclaim the heroic deeds of fallen troopers. But in a rustic the place little is alleged in regards to the casualties, the sidewalk memorial turned a uncommon place for folks to mourn publicly.
Elena, a 47-year-old lawyer initially from the Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol, cried for about 5 minutes as she took within the pictures and mementos.
“Russia is protecting these people,” she mentioned of Ukrainians dwelling in Russian-occupied territory, calling the deaths of the Wagner management a “tragedy.”
“I feel so sorry about these people,” she mentioned. “I’ve been following the activities of Wagner Group leaders. I thought they were Russian patriots.”
Like most individuals on the website, she expressed respect for Mr. Prigozhin with out making an attempt to straight distinction him to Mr. Putin or his Ministry of Defense, and didn’t take any stance on the Wagner mutiny or the way it was resolved. Nor was she prepared to invest about the reason for the aircraft crash.
The improvised memorial predates Mr. Prigozhin’s loss of life however has grown quickly in current days. It was initially erected for the navy blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed in a bombing in St. Petersburg in April, and options images of different outstanding pro-war Russians, together with Daria Dugina, the daughter of a outstanding Russian nationalist, who was killed in a automobile bombing in August 2022.
But nearly everybody appeared centered on the Wagner chief.
“In our history, there was only one Lenin, one Stalin and one Prigozhin,” Alyona mentioned. “If someone else like Lenin, Stalin, or Prigozhin appears, we will consider ourselves lucky.”
Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting from Washington.
Source: www.nytimes.com