NATO Diplomats Give Russians Geography Lessons on Twitter

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Pro-Russian separatists walk at a destroyed war memorial on Savur-Mohyla, a hill east of the city of Donetsk, Ukraine on August 28, 2014. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Once upon a time, wars were fought solely on battlefields, with soldiers fighting face to face. Nowadays war is waged through social media, too, and the latest battleground is Twitter, where western powers have been trading carefully calibrated insults with Russia over who is winning the war in Ukraine.

After satellite imagery released by NATO showed Russian military hardware inside Ukraine, backing up repeated claims by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko that Russia had invaded his country, a war of words in no more than 140 characters was set loose.

First up was the Canadian Joint Delegation to NATO — the mutual defense treaty that binds the U.S. with European countries — which tweeted out a rather waspish — and amateur-looking — map, making fun of the Russian explanation that their troops got lost and ended up "accidentally" invading Ukraine, by pointing out the difference between Russia (colored in red) and countries that are not Russia (like Ukraine, colored in blue). Note below that the blue zone includes the annexed region of Crimea.

Geography can be tough. Here’s a guide for Russian soldiers who keep getting lost & ‘accidentally’ entering #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/RF3H4IXGSp

— Canada at NATO 🇨🇦 (@CanadaNATO) August 27, 2014

The Canadian tweet was in response to the fact that ten Russian soldiers were captured by Ukrainian troops deep inside Ukraine earlier this week. Despite repeated assertions by the Kiev government that Russian troops and equipment have been on Ukrainian territory for some time, Tuesday saw the first admission by Russia that their troops had indeed crossed the border.

The Canadian tweet, complete with map, was an immediate social media success and has so far been retweeted more than 23,000 times since yesterday.

To press the Canadian point home, Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, no less, retweeted the Canadian delegation's map, adding "cc:@mfa_russia" and, in case the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not see her tweet, she directed it at them, for good measure.

Today, however, it was Russia's turn to respond. Its permanent mission to NATO waded in and responded to the Canadian tweet with a tweet and a map of their own, drawing attention to the uncomfortable suggestion that Russia has annexed Crimea -- for good. While Ukraine is kept separate from Russia in the Russian map -- at least for now -- Crimea is shaded in the same light pink color as Russia

Helping our Canadian colleagues to catch up with contemporary geography of #Europe @CanadaNATO pic.twitter.com/MjzRxpFFfN

— Russian Mission to NATO 🇷🇺 (@natomission_ru) August 28, 2014

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry joined in the battle of the tweets on Wednesday when they tweeted an image showing the hashtag "#RussiaInvadedUkraine" adding "RT PLZ." Their call was answered and at the time of writing it had been retweeted 4,146 times.

However lightly the tweets and counter-tweets may appear to be treating the fighting in Ukraine, the facts on the ground -- and the more than 2,000 deaths so far -- are no laughing matter. Russia annexed Crimea in March, the first step in what became months of fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists operating in eastern Ukraine, backed and supplied by Russia.

President Barack Obama addressed the fighting in Ukraine during his press briefing Thursday afternoon. After speaking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the president used more than 140 characters when he said, "We agree, if there was ever any doubt, that Russia is responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine. The violence is encouraged by Russia. The separatists are trained by Russia. They are armed by Russia. They are funded by Russia."

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About the writer


Before joining Newsweek, Lucy Westcott was an editorial fellow at The Wire. Previously a United Nations correspondent for the Inter ... Read more

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