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The wife of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s main ‘body double’ has reportedly been spotted visiting his grave one day after his funeral.
A solemn woman seen at his tomb at a graveyard in St Petersburg had previously been identified as the warlord’s reclusive wife, Lyubov Prigozhina, 52.
But now Russian media outlets have suggested it was, in fact, Irina Krasavina, who is the partner of Prigozhin’s key doppelgänger Leonid Krasavin.
Russian investigators officially confirmed the mercenary chief was one of 10 people killed in a plane crash in Russia last Wednesday after carrying out genetic tests of the victims.
On Tuesday, a ‘private funeral’ was held for the 62-year-old. However, it’s unclear who attended the actual burial because Russian authorities blocked coverage of the ceremony.
The sighting of the wife of Prigozhin’s lookalike at the Porokhovskoye graveyard brings new doubts to the surface over whether or not Prigozhin himself was actually on board the aircraft when it spiralled out of control and plunged to the ground.
Several claims have been made that security-conscious Prigozhin was not on board the aircraft and had deployed an understudy instead.
Irina Krasavina (circled), who is the wife of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s main ‘body double’ Leonid Krasavin, reportedly visited the warlord’s tomb in St Petersburg one day after his private funeral – and not his widow Lyubov Prigozhina (Picture: SHOT /East2west news)
Billionaire Prigozhin was known to use body doubles and, famously, to have multiple disguises himself.
Putin is also alleged to use body doubles.
‘The wife of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s double visited his grave the day after the funeral,’ reported Baza news outlet.
‘Journalists [initially] confused the wife of Prigozhin’s double [Irina Krasavina) with the real widow of the owner of Wagner PMC [Lyubov].’
An elaborate shrine lies at Yevgeny Prigozhin’s grave where he was buried on August 29 near his father’s grave during a quiet ceremony at the Porokhov cemetery (Picture: EPA)
A portrait of the Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin sits on his grave (Picture: EPA)
She was evidently accompanied at the grave by Polina Prigozhina, 31, the eldest child of a man once nicknamed ‘Putin’s chef’.
The surprise appearance of the double’s wife comes as Russia is acting to cover up the circumstances of the crash by refusing to probe it under international rules, it was reported.
There will be no involvement from non-Russian experts, and the Brazilian makers of his doomed Embraer Legacy 600 will not play a role.
A new picture shows that all soil has been mysteriously removed by bulldozers at the plane’s main crash site – the reason is not clear.
People gather at Yevgeny Prigozhin’s grave (Picture: AP)
The West has suggested that the plane crash was likely an assassination on Putin’s orders to get rid of Prigozhin.
Others say it was an operation by Russia’s GRU military intelligence.
The Kremlin dismissed such claims as ‘absolute lies’.
At the same time, extraordinary speculation continues that Prigozhin had not boarded the plane and cheated death in the crash.
A Telegram channel even claimed that Putin spoke to the billionaire by video call soon after Prigozhin was reported to have been laid in the ground.
A private jet burst into a ball of flames after falling from the sky – and Prigozhin was said to be on board (Picture: AP)
Dr Valery Solovey – a former professor at Moscow’s prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO] – insisted on Tuesday that Prigozhin put his body double on the plane.
He claims that the Russian authorities lied about finding Prigozhin’s DNA on a corpse at the air crash site.
Instead, Prigozhin is now ‘alive, well and free’ in an unnamed country, he said.
More: Russia-Ukraine war
‘First, the plane in which Yevgeny Prigozhin was supposed to fly was downed by a Russian air defence system,’ he said.
‘There was no explosion on board. It was downed from the outside.’
The secret operation to carry out this strike ‘was developed in [Russia’s] Security Council, and was sanctioned personally by the Russian president [Vladimir Putin]’.
‘Prigozhin himself was not on board,’ Dr Solovey claims. ‘His double was flying instead of him.
‘By the way, Vladimir Putin is perfectly aware of that. If you….believe official statements of the Russian authorities, then what can I say…?’
Dr Solovey said he would reveal Prigozhin’s supposed country of exile early next month but denied it was in Africa where the Wagner private army has multiple interests.
MORE : Prigozhin gives message to troops from beyond the grave in eerie video
MORE : Wagner Group is ‘essentially over’ after Prigozhin’s death, claims the Pentagon
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