MOSCOW – Russian Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev has died after jumping off a cliff trying to save a cameraman who fell during training exercises in the Arctic city of Norilsk, said officials and reports today.
“The head of the Emergencies Ministry, Yevgeny Zinichev, tragically died saving a person’s life” during inter-agency drills in the Arctic, said the ministry in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state-funded news outlet RT, tweeted that the 55-year-old Zinichev died when trying to save a cameraman who fell off a cliff.
“About Zinichev. He and the cameraman were standing at the edge of a cliff. The cameraman slipped and fell... Before anyone even figured out what happened, Zinichev jumped into the water after the fallen person and crashed against a protruding rock.”
It is not immediately clear when the death took place.
President Vladimir Putin has been notified of the incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Zinichev was a member of the KGB security service in the last years of the USSR, and his career took off after he served in Putin’s security detail between 2006 and 2015.
He held a number of high-profile jobs, briefly serving as acting governor of Russia’s exclave region of Kaliningrad, and then as deputy head of the Federal Security Service.
He was appointed head of the Emergencies Ministry in May 2018, and was also a member of Russia’s Security Council.
As head of the Emergencies Ministry, he held one of the highest-profile cabinet posts, dealing with natural and man-made disasters, and other rapid-response situations across the vast country.
The two-day drills he was participating in across several Arctic cities, including Norilsk, kicked off yesterday, involving over 6,000 people. – AFP, September 8, 2021
