Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to attend the funeral of Wagner mercenary firm head Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in the plane crash last week, the Kremlin said today.
The crash came two months after Prigozhin and his mercenaries tried unsuccessfully to topple Putin by taking control of Rostov, in southern Russia, and advancing on Moscow before retreating 200km before the capital.
"The presence of the president is not foreseen," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked if Putin would attend the funeral.
According to Peskov, the Kremlin does not have specific information about the funeral, and the arrangements for its holding concern Prigozhin's family.
On Sunday, investigators concluded that tests of genetic material showed that Prigozhin is one of the ten victims of the plane crash.
The Kremlin has dismissed as a "blatant lie" the claim by some Western politicians and commentators that Putin ordered the assassination of Prigozhin as revenge.
Peskov, in the teleconference with journalists, also commented on the recent failure of the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft to land on the moon, saying that it was "nothing terrible" and that the main thing is to continue the Russian space exploration program.
"This is not a reason to despair, nor to pull our hair out. This is one more reason to analyze the causes (of failure) and rule them out next time. The main thing is not to stop. Our plans are quite ambitious and will be implemented further", he added.
The Russian Luna-25 spacecraft – Russia's first lunar mission since 1976 – crashed on the moon after spinning into an uncontrolled orbit on August 19, in what the rest of the world described as a major blow to the Russian space program. A few days later, Indian spacecraft successfully landed on the moon.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin described as "pleasant" the comments made by Pope Francis, who called on young Russians to remember their history, saying that the Russian state has a rich heritage and it is good that the pope knows history.
For its part, the Vatican said today that the head of the Roman Catholic Church had no intention of glorifying past Russian expansionism, referring to the pope's speech last week to young Russians, which has come under fire inside Ukraine.
"The pope aimed to encourage young people to preserve and promote all that is positive in the great Russian cultural and spiritual heritage and not of course to glorify the expansionist logic of the government and personalities mentioned to highlight some historical periods of reference," he said. the Vatican in a statement.
Source: RES-EAP