Yevgeny Zinichev

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Yevgeny Nikolayevich Zinichev (18 August 1966 – 8 September 2021) was a Russian security officer and politician. He served as Russia’s Minister of Emergency Situations from May 2018 until his death in September 2021, and was a member of the Security Council. Before that, he briefly served as acting Governor of Kaliningrad Oblast in 2016 and later as deputy director of the Federal Security Service (FSB). He worked in the KGB/FSB and in the Presidential Security Service, often accompanying President Putin on trips, and led the Kaliningrad FSB branch in 2015–2016. In 2018 he became minister and joined the Security Council; he was promoted to Colonel-General in 2018 and reached the rank of General of the Army in 2020.

Born in Leningrad, Zinichev studied at the Military Academy of the General Staff. He died in Norilsk at age 55 during an Arctic safety exercise, after falling while trying to save a director and a cameraman. He was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation. His death was the first time an incumbent Russian federal minister died in office in the post-Soviet era. He was married and had a son, a grandson and two granddaughters. His funeral took place at the EMERCOM National Crisis Center in Moscow and he was buried in St. Petersburg.