Russian president has over 77,000 Twitter followers

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev> File photo: AP.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has over 77,000 followers on the Internet micro—blogging site Twitter.

Mr. Medvedev opened his Twitter account and sent his first tweets during a visit to the Twitter headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley on June 23.

The Russian president is registered under KremlinRussia for Russian—language tweets and KremlinRussia_e for English speakers.

Within 12 hours of opening his Twitter account, Mr. Medvedev had more than 15,000 followers. The Russian—language version now has more than 45,000 followers, and another 32,000 are following the president’s English tweets.

KremlinRussia is the first Russian microblog to receive a “verified” status from Twitter Inc., which confirms that the account is owned by the Russian president.

Mr. Medvedev, who portrays himself as a young and technologically savvy leader, also has a blog on LiveJournal and an account on YouTube.