Gorbachev Denies That He Is Dead Following Hacker Attack

After two state-run news agency Twitter accounts were hacked, ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is letting everyone know that he is not dead despite what some people were tricked into thinking.

The two Twitter accounts were owned by the state-run RIA Novosti and had tweeted out that Gorbachev fell ill and died. Hackers were behind the tweets and Gorbachev stated:

I’m alive and well. I understand that some people are trying to use their sites to catch people’s attention or are fulfilling the orders of some authority or another.

Gorbachev is one of the most disliked ex-leaders in Russia, as many people view him as being the reason that the Soviet Union fell.

The state-run Twitter accounts quickly fixed the issue and removed all of the incorrect tweets just five minutes after they had gone up. Rumors regarding Gorbachev’s death have been going around for quite some time, in June it was reported that he had died just moments after he was taken to a hospital.

Despite not having any power within the country, Gorbachev still remains vocal about his opinions regarding Putin and has mainly criticized him since he returned to the Kremlin and took back power.

RIA Novosti is not taking this hack lightly and they ordered the FSS to investigate the attack with hopes that they can find out who hacked both Twitter accounts. Although the tweets did say that Gorbachev had passed away, they were not convincing from the get-go.

One tweet stated that he had died while talking to another member of politics in a cafe which seemed suspicious to most of the people reading the report.

Along with following up the hack with investigations, RIA Novosti also sent a message to Gorbachev apologizing:

Dear Mikhail Sergeyevich. We are endlessly sorry that hackers used your name in another campaign to discredit the media and we ask you to accept our deepest apologies.