Russia’s Lavrov blasts report he was hospitalized

NUSA DUA, INDONESIA—Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday dismissed an Associated Press report that he had been taken to hospital with a heart condition, scolding Western journalists for what he cast as false reporting. “This, of course, is the height of fakery,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. Zakharova posted a video of Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, sitting outdoors on a patio, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and reading documents. “Western journalists need to be more truthful—they need to write the truth,” said Lavrov, 72. Bali Gov. I Wayan Koster told Reuters that Lavrov briefly visited Sanglah Hospital for a “checkup” but that the minister was in good health.