Remembering Yevgeny Prigozhin: Mourners Honor Wagner Group Leader

Mourners in St. Petersburg honored Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group leader who died in a plane crash. Known for his role in the Ukraine conflict, Prigozhin was celebrated as a patriot and hero. His controversial actions, including a mutiny, have left a complex legacy.

Mourners gathered at a cemetery in Russia's former imperial capital under a light summer rain shower on Friday to celebrate a man they said had given his life to serve his country. The death in a fiery plane crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin on Aug. 23 last year at the age of 62 marked the bizarre final chapter of one of the most colourful figures in modern Russia. Prigozhin, a food caterer turned leader of the Wagner Group mercenary force, soared to prominence after Russia sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022.

His fighters - including thousands of convicts he recruited from prison - led the Russian assault on the city of Bakhmut in one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the "special military operation", the Kremlin's preferred term for the conflict. Beside Prigozhin's grave in St Petersburg's Porokhovskoye cemetery, an Orthodox priest in robes read a prayer and crossed himself as a group of women sang hymns.

Those who came to pay their respects said Prigozhin should be remembered as a hero of the motherland. "There are such people, as for instance (Soviet astronaut) Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, (and) Evgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, whom we should be proud of," said a man who gave his name as Dmitry, speaking by the mercenary's grave.

(With inputs from agencies.)