Russian emergency minister died during training exercise in arctic region

Russian Minister for Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Zinichev, who was in the past in charge of the protection of President Vladimir Putin, died trying to save a person while traininghis ministry reported on Wednesday.

The 55-year-old minister “He tragically died while carrying out his duties in Norilsk, during a protection exercise in the arctic zone, while saving a person’s life”, the ministry told the state news agency Tass. The exercises were designed to simulate firefighting tasks in the Arctic Circle.

According to local media, citing an anonymous source, Zinichev “fell from a cliff”. According to Russian TV channel RT Zinichev died trying to save the life of a TV cameraman who slipped while recording and fell into the water.

“No one had time to react and Zinichev jumped into the water to rescue the man, but he fell fatally on rocks”Margarita Simonian, editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin television network, said on Telegram RT.

The worker also died.

Zinichev, former bodyguard of the Russian president Vladimir Poutine, has headed the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations since May 2018. He was for a brief period Governor of Kaliningrad and has come to be seen as a possible successor to the current president.

Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry PeskovHe noted that Putin was informed of the minister’s death and sent a condolence telegram, lamenting Zinichev’s death as a “great loss”.

Zínichev was born in 1966 in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). From 1987 to 1991 he worked at the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, and since 1991 at the Russian Federal Protection Service. From 2006 to 2015, he worked in the personal guard of the security service of the President of Russia. During his career, He was for years number two in the Counterterrorism Department of the Federal Security Service. (FSB) and deputy director of the FSB.

Read on: