A fighter of Wagner private mercenary group lights a candle at a makeshift memorial with portraits of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner group commander Dmitry Utkin outside the local office of the Wagner private mercenary group in Novosibirsk, Russia August 24, 2023.
REUTERS/Stringer Acquire Licensing RightsAug 24 (Reuters) - Funerals are expected to take place soon for Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and other members of his Wagner group who died in a plane crash last week.
* Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, soared to prominence after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine where his fighters including thousands of released convicts led the Russian capture of the city of Bakhmut.
* Dmitry Utkin, 53, Prigozhin's right-hand man, co-founder of Wagner and the group's top military commander, whose call-sign was "Wagner".
The St. Petersburg newspaper Fontanka, which has been investigating the Wagner group for years, wrote that Chekalov was Wagner's "logistician".
Persons:
Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, Stringer, Utkin, Vladimir Putin, Valery Chekalov, Chekalov, Sergei Propustin, Propustin, Alexander Totmin, Myrotvorets, Totmin, Yevgeny Makaryan, Nikolai Matuseyev, Filipp Lebedev, Andrew Osborn, Mark Heinrich, Andrew Heavens
Organizations:
REUTERS, Fontanka, Reuters, Thomson
Locations:
Novosibirsk, Russia, Russian, Ukraine, Bakhmut, Syria, St, Petersburg, Sudan