The former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, has announced that he is alive and healthy, while denying to the false reports of his death appearing on hacked Twitter accounts of RIA news agency.
Gorbachev clarified, in a statement on newspaper Novaya Gazeta's website, that some people were trying to use their sites to catch people's attention or fulfilling the orders of some authority by declaring him dead, Stuff.co.nz reports.
Gorbachev's death speculations made rounds on some hacked sites, including Twitter accounts of RIA's German-language service and its International Multimedia Press Center, the report added.
Gorbachev is disliked by many Russians as they perceive his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by political and economic chaos in 1990s.
Meanwhile, the state-run RIA news agency had removed the spurious posts from its Twitter blogs and said it had launched an internal investigation and requested an investigation by the Federal Security Service.
The rumours about Gorbachev's health arose online after his spokesman said in June that the 82-year-old had been taken to hospital for tests.
Gorbachev has shown interest in politics from a long time, while criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin last year.