MOSCOW: A Russian government minister who once served in President Vladimir Putin's security detail died in the Arctic on Wednesday while trying to save the life of a film director who fell into a river, his ministry said.
He is one of a handful of prominent politicians who began their careers in the security services, a similar career path to the one taken by Putin, himself a former KGB spy. The Emergencies Ministry said in a statement Zinichev had died while trying to save filmmaker Alexander Melnik who had travelled to Norilsk to make a documentary about the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route."Yevgeny tried to grab Alexander and jumped after him, but unfortunately, they both died after falling from a high cliff into a mountain river," it said.Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia's state-run RT television channel, commented separately on Twitter.
A biography carried by state-run media said Zinichev was born in St Petersburg and served in the state security services from 1987 to 2015 and was also involved in security for Putin.