{"id":175032,"date":"2025-08-25T18:58:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T18:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175032\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T18:58:20","slug":"climber-dies-trying-to-rescue-injured-russian-woman-from-kyrgystans-highest-mountain-search-halted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175032\/","title":{"rendered":"Climber dies trying to rescue injured Russian woman from Kyrgystan&#8217;s highest mountain; search halted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A search for a Russian climber stranded on Kyrgystan&#8217;s highest mountain has been suspended indefinitely due to severe weather conditions after another climber died trying to rescue her, the Central Asian country&#8217;s authorities said on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Natalia Nagovitsyna \u2014 whose husband died on a different mountain four years ago \u2014 broke her leg while climbing the 24,406-foot Victory Peak while she was at an altitude of around 23,000 feet, and has been stranded in the mountains for nearly two weeks. By comparison, Mount Everest, the world&#8217;s tallest peak, is 29,032 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An Italian climber, Luca Sinigaglia, died on Aug. 15 trying to save her.<\/p>\n<p>Italian rescuers went to the scene to try to recover his body using a helicopter, according to the Italian foreign ministry.<\/p>\n<p>The operation launched to rescue Nagovitsyna, who turned 48 on Aug. 20 according to Russian media, has so far been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>A rescue helicopter crashed in the mountains and a group of climbers had to stop their ascent when their leader becoming seriously ill, according to Kyrgyz authorities.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, &#8220;weather conditions deteriorated sharply, so all rescue operations have been suspended,&#8221; the spokesman for the Kyrgyz emergency situations ministry, Adil Chargynov, told Russian news agency Ria Novosti.<\/p>\n<p>A drone that flew over Nagovitsyna&#8217;s location confirmed she was alive as of Tuesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/world\/europe\/article\/italian-climber-dies-trying-to-rescue-friend-stuck-on-kyrgyzstan-peak-zwwrjgkqg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The London Times reported<\/a>, but there was no sign of life when the drone flew over the same area on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Temperatures are currently hovering around -22 Fahrenheit at night at the summit of Victory Peak, accompanied by gusts of wind and snowstorms, according to a source at the ministry quoted by Russian news agency TASS.<\/p>\n<p>According to Chargynov, &#8220;all climbers, all experts share the view that she is unfortunately no longer alive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know where she is. But it&#8217;s impossible to get there,&#8221; Dmitry Grekov, head of the Victory Peak base camp, told TASS.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, &#8220;no one has ever been evacuated&#8221; from such an altitude of the mountain. &#8220;It&#8217;s impossible to do it manually, only by helicopter, and we don&#8217;t have such helicopters in Kyrgyzstan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Victory Peak, also called Jengish Chokusu, is the highest mountain in the Tian Shan mountain range and is located on the China\u2013Kyrgyzstan border.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-1232606526.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"Central Asia's Switzerland: Kyrgyzstan \" height=\"411\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  An aerial view taken from a commercial plane shows Tian Shan Range in Kyrgyzstan on April 29, 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                Emin Sansar\/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Natalia Nagovitsyna&#8217;s husband Sergei died of a stroke in 2021 while climbing Khan Tengri (23,028 feet), the highest peak in Kazakhstan, also in Central Asia, Russian media reported. The Daily Mail <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/24\/world-news\/kyrgyzstan-halts-rescue-for-climber-natasha-nagovitsina-on-victory-peak-after-luca-sinigaglia-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reported<\/a> Nagovitsyna made headlines at the time for refusing to leave her husband on the mountain after his stroke.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/climber-killed-falling-rocks-k2-second-highest-peak-world\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chinese climber died<\/a> after she was hit by falling rocks on K2, the world&#8217;s second-highest peak. In July, German mountaineer and Olympic gold medalist,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/laura-dahlmeier-olympic-biathlon-champion-dies-climbing-accident-pakistan\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Laura Dahlmeier<\/a>, died while attempting to climb another peak in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A search for a Russian climber stranded on Kyrgystan&#8217;s highest mountain has been suspended indefinitely due to severe&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3774,50,257,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-175032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115090941978146812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}