President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will not attend the funeral for Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the mercenary chief who launched a failed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership and died in a plane crash last week, the Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday, according to Russian state media.
The spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, added that the Kremlin had no further information on the funeral, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. Details about the event, including the date and whether the public would be allowed to attend, were unclear.
A private plane carrying Mr. Prigozhin and nine other people crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday, killing everyone aboard, but his death was not officially confirmed until Sunday, when Russian investigators said that genetic testing showed that the victims of the crash matched the names on the jet’s manifest. The confirmation came after days of speculation about whether Mr. Prigozhin was really on the plane.
The cause of the crash remains unclear, but U.S. and Western officials believe it was prompted by an explosion on board. Many Western officials have said they think it is likely that Mr. Putin may have played a role 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 death, saying: “He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results.”
Valeriya Safronova contributed reporting.
