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Russia’s Twitter Diplomacy in the COVID-19 Era

Madeline M. Diorio 0 Comment

By Erica Johnston, MALD 2021 Candidate, The Fletcher School

Working as a research assistant with the Russia and Eurasia Program this summer, I investigated how digital diplomacy can be evaluated. Some of the academic and practical literature I reviewed points to effective digital diplomacy being characterized by robust engagement between diplomats and foreign audiences. This research indicates that although social media platforms such as Twitter provide opportunities for dialogue with the public, most diplomats continue to use the Internet mainly as a broadcasting tool. Russian embassies generally appear to be following this tendency.

Since March 2020, many Russian diplomats have frequently tweeted about developments surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Although these tweets have not always taken center stage regarding bilateral relations, they generally relate to other issues in international relations, such as multilateral cooperation and humanitarian assistance. The Twitter accounts of the Russian embassy in the United States (@RusEmbUSA) and the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom (@RussianEmbassy) have a significant number of followers who tend to produce considerable activity in response to the tweets, including retweets, likes, and comments, which are left largely unaddressed by the account managers.

As the coronavirus began to expand in April, the content produced by Russian embassies around the pandemic became focused primarily on the Russian government response. Even as late as May 24, the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. tweeted that Russia had “managed to avoid pessimistic scenarios of #COVID19 Situation,” citing an article from the TASS Russian news agency, which claims that Russia’s efforts to mitigate the spread of infection has been overwhelmingly successful. Russian government officials have worked to portray themselves as competent in suppressing the coronavirus and in promoting vaccine research domestically.

At the same time, Russia has attempted to depict itself as a team player within the international community, while criticizing the West for not reciprocating cooperative behavior. The Russian embassies in the United States and the United Kingdom have both tweeted about Russian humanitarian assistance to Italy, the United States, and other countries. These accounts frequently tweet about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s phone calls with other world leaders, such as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Xi Jinping of China, regarding collaborative initiatives to quell the spread of COVID-19. These accounts have also tweeted more than once about Russia’s support for the World Health Organization while condemning the United States’ decision to pull out of the international organization and forgo its multilateral responsibility. On August 27, the Twitter account of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (@mfa_Russia) tweeted about working collaboratively with the international community on vaccine development.

The coordination among Russian diplomats in communicating through Twitter is apparent. The Russian embassies in Washington, D.C. and London frequently retweet each other and other official Russian government accounts, especially the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These accounts also regularly post similar or identical content. As COVID-19 began to spread, these accounts denied accusations of the Russian government spreading disinformation about the coronavirus. This trend has continued throughout the duration of the pandemic. In July, when Russia was accused of hacking into a number of Western pharmaceutical companies’ COVID-19 research by Western media and government officials, the embassy accounts based in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada retweeted a Russian Foreign Ministry post reading, “#Zakharova: We firmly refute the latest #FakeNews planted by our Anglo-Saxon pseudo-friends from the #US, #Canada and #Britain regarding the alleged hacking attack to steal Western #COVID19 #vaccine data.” This tweet was accompanied by a picture of a bear sitting at a laptop – a supposed reference to a Russian hacker group called Cozy Bear, which allegedly carried out the cyber espionage via spear phishing. It seems that these accounts are not above trolling their followers.

It appears that engagement on the part of the account managers is practically non-existent. Many commenters have criticized Russian diplomats for their unresponsiveness on many issues, including the recent announcement of Russia’s approved COVID-19 vaccine with plans to begin mass vaccinations this fall. The news about the Sputnik V vaccine was tweeted out by numerous official Russian government accounts, including @RussianEmbassy and @RusEmbUSA. Despite a mixed public reaction of both praise and skepticism, the account managers did not respond to any comments. These unanswered comments demonstrate that although Twitter has the potential for dialogic (two-way) communication, the platform is used by Russian diplomats primarily for monologic (one-way) information dissemination.

Although Russia’s Twitter diplomacy seems to be relatively coordinated, there are some diverging trends. For example, the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom tweets more of its own content written by the account managers, whereas the Russian embassy in the United States more often retweets other official Russian government accounts. Moreover, there are occasionally tweets that apply more specifically to one country than the other, and hence they do not get retweeted elsewhere. For instance, the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. has tweeted about the spread of the coronavirus inside American prisons in which Russian citizens are being held, arguing that it is possible their rights are being violated. The Russian embassy in London stayed silent on this matter.

The tone of these accounts also seems to vary significantly. The Russian embassy in the United Kingdom tends to display a more sensible and conciliatory tone in its tweets, whereas the Russian embassy in the United States favors a more defensive inflection in its tweets, particularly when denying wrongdoing or criticizing the Western response to COVID-19. For example, on August 28, the Russian embassies in the United Kingdom and the United States both tweeted about the developments on the Sputnik V vaccine. The tweet from the London-based account focused on testing, clinical trials, and the vaccine’s harmlessness. However, the tweet from the Washington, D.C.-based account focused on how the United States is actively attempting to hinder Russia’s vaccine development efforts via sanctions on Russian institutes.

Twitter recently made the decision to label official government and state-affiliated media accounts. The Russian embassies in Washington, D.C. and London quickly retweeted a post from @mfa_russia regarding their opposition to this policy due to the fact that many Western accounts were not labeled at the time. They claimed that this practice is undemocratic and biased against Russian and Chinese accounts. It will be interesting to see how Russian embassies’ Twitter diplomacy efforts adapt to this change.

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