President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia won’t attend the funeral for Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the mercenary chief who launched a failed mutiny in opposition to Russia’s army management and died in a aircraft crash final week, the Kremlin spokesman mentioned on Tuesday, in response to Russian state media.
The spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, added that the Kremlin had no additional info on the funeral, the RIA Novosti news company reported. Details concerning the occasion, together with the date and whether or not the general public can be allowed to attend, have been unclear.
A personal aircraft carrying Mr. Prigozhin and 9 different individuals crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday, killing everybody aboard, however his loss of life was not formally confirmed till Sunday, when Russian investigators mentioned that genetic testing confirmed that the victims of the crash matched the names on the jet’s manifest. The affirmation got here after days of hypothesis about whether or not Mr. Prigozhin was actually on the aircraft.
The reason behind the crash stays unclear, however U.S. and Western officers imagine it was prompted by an explosion on board. Many Western officers have mentioned they suppose it’s seemingly that Mr. Putin might have performed a job in having Mr. Prigozhin killed as retribution for the mercenary chief’s short-lived mutiny in June.
The day after the crash, Mr. Putin spoke obliquely of Mr. Prigozhin’s loss of life, saying: “He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results.”
Valeriya Safronova contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com