'Farewell ceremony' for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has taken place, his spokespeople say

A memorial service for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has taken place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday.

In a terse statement on social media, "those who wish to bid their farewell” to the 62-year-old mercenary leader should go to the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St Petersburg, his hometown, the statement said.

Earlier media reports about the funeral mentioned other cemeteries in the city as likely sites for the burial, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

It wasn’t clear from the statement if Prigozhin has already been buried or if it were still to happen.

Russian state news agency TASS said President Vladimir Putin "is not supposed" to attend regardless of what arrangements are made, according to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Prigozhin, six top Wagner lieutenants, and three crew were on a business jet that crashed on Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow, according to authorities in the country.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement on Sunday that forensic testing of the bodies recovered at the site of the crash had been carried out and those identities correspond to the passenger list.

The statement did not offer any possible cause of the crash.

But many believed the threat to Prigozhin was not over after he was allowed to walk free in Belarus following his mutiny in June, and Western politicians and commentators have suggested the Russian president was the architect of an assassination - claims the Kremlin reject as a "complete lie."

US intelligence have concluded an explosion brought the plane down, which Moscow also denies.

The crash came exactly two months after the brutal and profane mercenary boss launched a rebellion against the Russian military leadership.

Prigozhin ordered his mercenaries to take over the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then began a march on Moscow.

In the process, they downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen pilots.

Putin denounced the revolt as "treason" and vowed to punish its perpetrators but hours later struck a deal that saw Prigozhin ending the mutiny in exchange for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to move to Belarus.

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