Gorbachev Foundation denies reports about former president's hospitalization

The recent reports saying that former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has been hospitalized are not true, RIA Novosti cites the Gorbachev Foundation as saying on Tuesday.

"I know about such reports. They are not true," the news agency cites a representative of the Gorbachev Foundation as saying.

Editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper Dmitry Muratov told Ekho Moskvy in an interview that he had just talked to Gorbachev by telephone and that the former Soviet leader was at home, reading poetry.

"He is certainly not in a hospital," Muratov said.