Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to attend the funeral of former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash last week after leading a short-lived rebellion…
Prigozhin was buried by friends in St. Petersburg, where Putin is not welcome perhaps… his grave is probably going to be a holy site for a lot of angry young Russians…
I was going to say… did anyone want him to go?
Yes, in Russia. Not everyone, but some. There are many in Russia who considered Prigozhin to be a national hero, whether they think Putin killed him or not. They believe this with cause: Putin and Prigozhin were friends for thirty years, Putin made him an oligarch, until this June Prigozhin funded Wagner as a private militia for Putin so that it could retain deniability as an arm of the Russian state, and last year Prigozhin was named a “Hero of the Russian Federation” by Putin for his services in Ukraine. Those two were very publicly tight for decades.
So yeah, there are an unknown number of Russians who are used to seeing Prigozhin as Putin’s right hand, don’t think Putin killed him and actually accept the Kremlin denials, and are now honestly confused as to why Putin is declining to attend the funeral of a national hero.
If that doesn’t make any sense, I can only say . . . you’re not alone, lol.
that confusion is going to get worse as the conflict continues to get closer to home for them
It’s going to come faster now that Prigozhin is dead, IMO. Слава Україні!
and to the Heroes
I mean, he’d be a sitting duck, so maybe