Prigozhin's right-hand man in Wagner buried quietly near Moscow

FILE PHOTO: Portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, and Dmitry Utkin, group commander, are seen at a makeshift memorial in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia August 27, 2023. REUTERS/Anastasia Makarycheva/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The co-founder and military commander of the Russian mercenary group Wagner was buried near Moscow on Thursday, after dying in an unexplained plane crash that also killed his boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Dmitry Utkin, 53, whose call-sign "Wagner" gave the private army its name, was buried in Mytishchi, on the outskirts of the capital, in a ceremony cordoned off by Russian military police, according to the popular online news channel Shot.