Russian Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichov died during an exercise in the Siberian city of Norilsk. This was reported in his office with reference to world agencies.
“We regret to announce that CIS leader Yevhen Zinichov died tragically while on duty in Norilsk during interdepartmental exercises to protect the Arctic zone from emergencies and save lives,” the statement said.
Zinichov was on the edge of a coastal cliff with a videographer who slipped and fell into the water. While others understood what was happening, the minister jumped into the water to save a man who fell, but he hit a rock and died on the spot, said the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin RT TV channel Margarita Simonyan.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been informed of the tragedy.
Zinichov has been a minister since 2018. Prior to that, he built a career mainly in various security services, including one responsible for protecting the heads of state. He was also part of the Soviet KGB in the last years of the Soviet Union. In 1991, he joined the Russian Celebrity Protection Service. Since 2006, he has been a bodyguard for Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. In 2014, he became the number two figure in Russian intelligence counterintelligence. From 2016 until his appointment as head of the Ministry of Emergencies, Zinich held the position of Deputy Director of the FSB.