Monument to Wagner Group founders unveiled in Krasnodar Region

A monument to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, has been erected in the city of Goryachy Klyuch in the Krasnodar Region. Based on photos, we determined that the monument was placed in front of a chapel dedicated to Wagner mercenaries killed in Syria.

The monument to the "Wagner Group" founder was installed in Goryachy Klyuch in the Krasnodar Region. The Telegram channel published photos of the monument positioned in front of the temple "Wagner PMC. Summary", described as currently the official channel of the Wagner Group.

On the monument, in addition to the founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, there is also the commander of the units, Dmitry Utkin. From his call sign "Wagner", this private military company takes its name.

The channel does not indicate where exactly the monument is located. However, based on the shared photos, it is easy to deduce that the monument was erected in front of the chapel established in 2018 in memory of Russian Wagner Group volunteers who fell in Syria. In 2020, the BBC reported that the chapel was erected near the Molokino training ground in the Krasnodar Region.

At the beginning of 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin himself visited the chapel. One of the Telegram channels reported at that time that the leader of the Wagner Group also visited the cemetery in the nearby village of Bakinskaya, where Russian mercenaries are buried. The channel even published a video of the visit.

Both leaders of the Wagner Group died in an air crash on August 23 last year. The private jet Embraer, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, exploded and crashed near Tver. The plane was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg with 10 people on board, including the top management of the mercenary group.

The crash occurred two months after Prigozhin’s attempted coup. The Wagner mercenaries took over the headquarters of the Russian troops in Rostov-on-Don and then began moving towards Moscow. However, the next day, Prigozhin announced a retreat and the withdrawal of mercenaries to field camps to "avoid bloodshed". This happened thanks to an agreement with Alexander Lukashenko.

At the end of 2023, "The Wall Street Journal" published the results of its investigation, which suggests that the attack on Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin was ordered by Nikolai Patrushev, one of Vladimir Putin's closest associates.

Source: Telegram, BBC, The Moscow Times