Russia is set to host a real-life Hunger Games, after 30 contestants agreed to take part in a potentially deadly survivalist game show on a remote Siberian Island in the Ob River.

Producers say they will not stop fighting, rapes or even murders, as participants are urged to do whatever they can do survive in the bear-infested, sub-zero -50C temperatures of the Tomsk region.

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Armed with only knives at the beginning of the gruelling year-long contest, the group, selected from a public vote featuring hundreds of applicants, will be chasing a R100m (£1.39m, $1.7m) prize fund.

Among those brave enough who have applied to take part include a Korean ex-military officer from South Korea, a student from Sweden and a self-professed "professional blonde" from the Russian arctic.

All have signed death waivers and have agreed not to hold organisers accountable for criminal activity.

The show, titled Game2:Winter, is set to be broadcast 24 hours a day on an internet streaming channel in July 2017, in what aims to be the most honest recreation of the teenage novel and film franchise ever created.

However, the concept is already courting controversy. When organiser Yevgeny Pyatkovsky, 35, a Novosibirsk millionaire, was asked if he will intervene should there be "physical violence, rape, a murder", he told the Siberian Times: "No, we won't. I am pretty sure there will be fights and more. We are not scared of negative reaction if that happens, either… we might not be on time to solve an emergency."

However, promoters for the show have backtracked upon initial claims that "everything is allowed", with fact-checking organisation Snopes revealing that contestants will be held accountable for their actions "according to the Russian Criminal Code".

Code 8 of the game's rules also state that anyone caught breaking the law will have their right to the prize money terminated.

But Pyatkovsky went on to insist that despite this clarification, the show itself would "refuse any claim of participants even if they were to be killed or raped. We will have nothing to do with this. This will be spelled out in a document to be signed by the participant before the start of the show".

And while security teams will be on duty, the risks will be very real, with the mogul adding: "There will be a ground team on duty, and one or two helicopters for emergency situations," Pyatkovsky said. "Having said that, bears can run as fast as 60kph (37mph), and our 2,000 cameras on the island would not be able to cover every centimetre of the forests."

The same Darwinistic approach will also be taken toward sexual activity on the island.

"We will not intervene into relations between participants nor monitor their sexual life either," Pyatkovsky told the Times.

"They are free to form any couple or union, and there is no limits or rules regarding sex.

"If a woman falls pregnant — and manages to carry the baby — that's fine with us. We will show the baby after the project is over.

"'This is the raw Siberian taiga: anything can happen" he concluded.

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