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Putin’s Favorite ‘Traitor’ Yevgeny Prigozhin Gets His Own Life-Size Statue

The statue went up at Yevgeny Prigozhin’s gravesite just in time for his birthday on June 1.

A life-sized statue of dead Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has been set up at his gravesite in St. Petersburg.

The bronze sculpture—featuring three stars on his chest as a reminder that he was officially recognized as a Hero of Russia and Russia’s two puppet republics in eastern Ukraine—is part of a monument to him due to be officially unveiled on June 1, when he would’ve turned 63. The monument will also feature a two-ton black granite slab with a plaque featuring his name, date of birth, and the date when he was killed in a fiery plane crash widely believed to have been a Kremlin-orchestrated hit in response to Prigozhin’s short-lived military uprising.

According to local outlet 47news, the monument was agreed upon with Prigozhin’s family and his Wagner mercenaries, though whoever placed the order for the granite sculpture opted not to have his portrait displayed there, perhaps because of the nearby sculpture in his likeness. The monument is said to have cost between 9 million and 10 million rubles, or roughly $100,000.

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The Kremlin has not yet commented on the new monument to Vladimir Putin’s-personal-warlord-turned-mutineer. While Prigozhin seized international headlines for emptying out Russian prisons to “win the damn war” against Ukraine for the Russian president, Putin has remained silent about his former ally’s legacy in the wake of his August 2023 death, having famously assailed those behind the Wagner revolt as traitors.

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