Russia and the United States entered into a virtual struggle for Ukraine
Moscow - Kyiv, May 21 (Navigator, Mikhail Stamm) - The confrontation between the Russian Federation and the United States in Ukraine has spread to social networks. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the State Department are increasingly using popular services to promote their positions and denounce each other - from Twitter and Facebook to YouTube and LiveJournal.
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Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the State Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry have sharply intensified their work in the field of “digital diplomacy,” the publication notes. Meanwhile, in the Russian Foreign Ministry, unlike the State Department, there is no special department that would deal exclusively with “digital diplomacy”, and there are no corresponding departments in embassies. Therefore, the United States is taking it systematically and on a large scale, while Russia is relying on ingenuity, Kommersant notes.
The other day, an unusual video appeared on YouTube entitled “Sanctions: what are their essence and how they affect Russia.” In the video, the announcer explains that the punitive measures introduced by Washington against Moscow had an effect. When the announcer says the words “It is not too late to change course, but we must act while there is an opportunity,” the territory of the Russian Federation is painted black, and then completely disappears from the screen. The video was filmed by order of the State Department and posted on one of its recently created UkrProgress accounts.
The account has more than 7 thousand explanatory posts on Ukrainian topics and 14 thousand subscribers in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The style of UkrProgress posts is much sharper than diplomatic. UkrProgress posts are actively retweeted by American diplomats and embassies. The account of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow is particularly active. Among US diplomats on Ukrainian issues, Secretary of State John Kerry, his press secretary Jennifer Psaki, permanent representatives to the UN and OSCE, as well as Ambassador in Kyiv Geoffrey Pyatt are the harshest on social networks.
The Russian foreign policy department mastered “digital diplomacy” later than the American one, but is trying not to yield to it. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the number of subscribers to the pages of the Russian Foreign Ministry on social networks has increased several times: on Facebook, 63 thousand people have subscribed to its account, on Twitter (in Russian and English) - 312 thousand. Among Russian diplomats, this topic is most actively commented on Twitter Commissioner for Human Rights Konstantin Dolgov and Ambassador to London Alexander Yakovenko. On Facebook, Deputy Head of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova regularly speaks out on Ukrainian topics.
According to PIR Center expert Oleg Demidov, judging by the “unprecedented activity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Russia as a whole in promoting their picture of events in Ukraine,” Moscow has learned lessons from the lost information war of 2008.
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