ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — A private burial was held for Yevgeny Prigozhin, ending a tumultuous journey from St. Petersburg street thug to Kremlin-financed mercenary leader, following a suspicious plane crash two months after his brief mutiny that challenged the authority of President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin’s spokespeople said Tuesday a service took place behind closed doors, and directed “those who wish to bid their farewell” to the 62-year-old head of the Wagner private military contractor to go to the Porokhovskoye cemetery in his hometown. Their statement ended media speculation on where and when Prigozhin would be laid to rest, with his funeral shrouded in secrecy.

A wooden cross towered over his flower-covered grave. Nearby stood a Russian tricolor and a black Wagner flag. Russian media cited unidentified sources as saying Prigozhin was laid to rest Tuesday without publicity, per his family’s wishes. Members of the Russian National Guard were stationed along the fence at the cemetery, steering visitors away after it closed for the day.

Russian state television barely covered the funeral.

Putin’s spokesman said the president would not attend the service. The Russian leader had decried the armed rebellion in June as “treason” and “a stab in the back.”

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, noted that Prigozhin has become a legendary figure for his supporters, who are increasingly critical of the authorities.

“Prigozhin’s funeral raises an issue of communication between the bureaucratic Russian government system that doesn’t have much political potential and politically active patriotic segment of the Russian public,” Markov said.

The secretive service “became the final stage of a special operation to eliminate him,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“Everything was as closed as possible, under full control of the security forces, with distracting maneuvers,” she said in a commentary on her Telegram channel.

The country’s top criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, officially confirmed Prigozhin’s death on Sunday.

The committee didn’t say what might have caused Prigozhin’s business jet to plummet from the sky on Aug. 23, minutes after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg.

Just before the crash, Prigozhin had reportedly returned from a trip to Africa, where he sought to expand the Wagner Group’s activities.

Also Tuesday, a funeral was held at St. Petersburg’s Northern Cemetery for Wagner’s logistics chief Valery Chekalov, who was among the 10 people killed in the crash. Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, a retired military intelligence officer who gave the mercenary group its name based on his nom de guerre, also was killed.

A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane to crash, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin’s foes who have been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations the president was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”