The Russian Emergency Minister dies from falling down a cliff during the recording of an Arctic manoeuvring.

Yevgeny Zinichev rushed to try to subject the film director, who slipped and died.

The Russian Emergency Minister, Yevgeny Zinichev, died this Wednesday in an accident during the recording of training exercises in the Arctic, reported by the country’s authorities. Zinichev, a 55-year-old, has fallen down a cliff by trying to subject Russian director and screenwriter Alexander Melnik, who slipped and died, as reported by the state agency TASS.

“The head of the Emergency Ministry, Yevgeny Zinichev, died tragically in service while in Norilsk, in the interdepartmental exercises to protect the Arctic area from emergencies, trying to save a person’s life,” says the Ministry in a statement. The Russian authorities have given no further details about the accident or the exact location of the event. Melnik was performing the first recording and location work for a documentary about the development of the Arctic and the North Sea route, as reported by the Ministry of Emergency (Emercom) in TASS. The filmmaker had been collaborating with the department for years.

Zinichev, who had visited the construction work of a new fire centre in the Norilsk area on Wednesday morning, was involved in filming a film for the Ministry of Emergency, according to the RBC newspaper. In these days, his department is conducting research exercises in the Arctic area involving 6,000 specialists who, according to a Emercom note, are testing 47 models of equipment and “rescue methodologies and emergency boarding”.

The ministry’s sub-chief, Andrei Gurovich, has assured this Wednesday that Zinichev acted as a hero and a “true rescuer”. “Undoubted not a second, he acted not as a minister but as a saviour. She made a heroic feat, lived her entire life, “Gurovich has said on state television channel Russia 24.

A member of the Security Council, Zinichev served in the Emergency Department prefecture for three years. From 2006 to 2015 he was a member of the personal guard of the Russian presidency and was deputy director of the Russian secret services (FSB, heir to the KGB) between 2016-2018.