Russia’s Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev has died during drills, TASS quotes the Ministry’s press service as saying.
The Ministry said Yevgeny Zinichev tragically died saving a person’s life at the interdepartmental exercises in Norilsk. He was 55.
Large-scale exercises of the Russian Emergencies Ministry started in Krasnoyarsk Krai on Tuesday.
Zinichev died trying to save the life of Russia Today’s cameraman, who who slipped and fell into the water, RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said in a Twitter post.
“There were plenty of witnesses, but no one even had time to figure out what happened as Zinichev jumped into the water after the fallen man and landed on a protruding stone,” Simonyan tweeted.
Zinichev had headed the Emergency Situations Ministry since 2018.