Wagner Cemetery 'Demolished' in Russia With Crosses Piled Up, Video Shows

The Russian government has been accused of attempting to eradicate the memory of Wagner Group mercenaries who have died while fighting in Ukraine after a cemetery established by the group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was spotted being "flattened."

Images and videos from locals in the village of Nikolaevka, in Samara, a region to the southeast of Moscow and north of Kazakhstan, show named crosses and floral displays piled up near construction machinery and a digger flattening tombstones.

Despite local outrage, Russian media reports said the construction work was part of a makeover of the site. It comes less than a week after Prigozhin was announced by Russian authorities to be among the 10 who died in a plane crash on Wednesday.

The incident has raised suspicions that the mercenary oligarch had either been targeted for his disloyalty to the regime or faked his own death. The Kremlin has denied involvement.

In June, Wagner Group mercenaries staged an armed revolt in response to what Prigozhin saw as the Kremlin's mismanagement of the invasion of Ukraine, marching halfway from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don to Moscow before stopping and agreeing to relocate to Belarus.

Since then, questions have been raised about the permanent fate of Prigozhin and his men, who have proven to be among the few successful elements of Russia's "special military operation," but whose leaders have publicly railed against the leadership of the Russian armed forces.

One unnamed Russian who videoed himself angrily ranting at the scene of the cemetery decried the destruction of the Wagner Group members' graves.

In a translation of his comments provided by Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs adviser, the man, wearing a Wagner Group-branded T-shirt, says: "Here, where there is a path, there were graves. They've all been demolished. What are you doing? It's sacrilege! People sacrificed their lives for Russia, and you've flattened their graves."

He then showed the wooden crosses that had been stacked together, appearing to bear the names of fallen mercenaries, including one with a date of death being in January this year. The man added: "Aren't you f****** afraid of God?"

Russian media outlet 63.RU quoted a local as saying: "Crosses and wreaths have been piled up, machinery is working, the grave mounds have been razed to the ground."

It reported that the cemetery had been established a few months ago and had approximately 20 rows of graves in March. In April, Prigozhin visited the site to dedicate a memorial commemorating the members of the militia who had died in the Russia-Ukraine war, remarking in a video taken at the site that the gravestones were "alleys of heroes."

In both the images and video, the memorial remains standing. The outlet also reported the existence of another Wagner Group cemetery in Zhigulevsk, also in Samara, near to the city of Tolyatti.

An image published by 63.RU seemingly shows plans of what the Wagner Group cemetery was going to be transformed into, with black pyramids marking graves.

On Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations was cited by Russian state media when reporting Prigozhin as among those who had perished onboard his private jet.

The following day Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his "most sincere condolences" to the families of those who had died in the crash in a televised address, adding that the mercenary leader had "made serious mistakes in life," but "achieved results both for himself and for the common good when I asked."

Newsweek approached the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Samara via email for comment on Saturday.