Putin Will Not Attend Wagner Leader's Funeral

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov revealed on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to attend the funeral of the head of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Peskov stated to reporters, "The Kremlin is not aware of the funeral arrangements, and this is a matter for the family." Prigozhin died when a private plane crashed last week, two months after an armed rebellion organized by his group against the leadership of the Russian army, during which they seized the city of Rostov in the south of the country and advanced toward Moscow, before retreating to within two hundred kilometers of the capital. The Kremlin dismissed insinuations from some Western politicians and commentators that Putin ordered Prigozhin's killing out of revenge, describing these claims as "mere lies."