Dmytro Utkin, a military leader and founder together with Yevgeny Prigozhin of the mercenary company “Wagner Group”, who along with his boss and eight other people died on August 23 as a result of a plane crash, which has not yet been officially investigated, was buried on Thursday at the Mytishchi military cemetery. from the north of Moscow, AFP and EFE report.

A former commando of the Russian military intelligence (GRU), in which he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, Utkin, who was 53 at the time of his death, was number two in a company of mercenaries.

Actually, the company of mercenaries took Utkin’s fighting name – Wagner.

It was Dmytro “Wagner” Utkin who founded and organized together with Prigozhin (with the latter’s money) a company of mercenaries and was its de facto military leader, while Prigozhin was Wagner’s boss and public mediator.

From one o’clock in the morning, the authorities deployed powerful security around the “Pantheon of the Defenders of the Fatherland”, as the military necropolis founded in 2001 is called, where the memory of those who died in defense of Russia and activists are commemorated. he is honored in the state for his great merits, EFE notes.

The funeral, which was private at the request of the family and took place at 10:00 local time (07:00 GMT) at St. Sergius Church, was attended by about 50 people, and the administration of the cemetery – located about 20 kilometers from the center of the Russian capital – he later allowed access to more than a dozen members of Wagner’s group so they could say goodbye to their commander.

Utkin fought in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine and received the title of Hero of Russia.

In one of the few known photographs, Utkin appears with a shaved head and several Nazi tattoos.

According to the Telegram channel of the Moscow mass media MSK1.RU, Utkin was buried with reduced military honors, since his coffin was carried in a van, not on a cannon, and no artillery volleys were fired.

Prigozhin was discreetly laid to rest on Tuesday at the Porohovsky Cemetery in his hometown of St. Petersburg. A recently released video recording of Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claims that he was speaking in Africa days before his death about possible threats to his security.