One criticism that you not likely to hear about the Russian government is its lack of enthusiastic applications of new media technologies.  The Prime Minister posts his topless photos at a much more timely rate that the White House page is updated, the President has impressive blogs and video podcasts, they’ve got a school of bloggers to push the official government line and drown out online dissent, and now, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, has got himself a pretty robust Twitter feed in English and Russian going on right here.

This is particularly fun stuff to read, and not just because Rogozin’s essential professional function is to be like a Russian version of John Bolton before NATO – a contrarian, prickly, anti-institutionalist sent to express an official view of rejection of that institution.  There are some advantages to posting undiplomatic diplomats – for one, they are much more likely to say things which actually shed light on what everybody is really thinking but afraid to say, and two, it is probably better to have Rogozin stuck in Brussels instead of running his political party Rodina – known for pushing xenophobic and racist messages inside Russia.

Here’s some examples from the Rogozin Twitter feed: