He’s been in Kyiv less than one month, but already the new U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, is making friends and spreading diplomacy – 140 characters at a time.
Pyatt joined the social networking
site Twitter (@GeoffPyatt) on Aug. 7, borrowing a page from the playbook of U.S. Ambassador
to Russia Michael McFaul (@McFaul), who has amassed some 53,000 followers in a little
more than a year.
The move makes the Yale graduate the
latest in a growing trend of diplomats who are turning to e-diplomacy for
communicating with the masses.
Experts say diplomats are choosing
social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread their messages due
to their ability to communicate information cheaply, easily, practically and
quickly, receive feedback from both the public and the international community,
and strengthen connections with foreign partners.
Twitterview between the Kyiv Post and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt to take place on Aug. 30 at 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Use the hashtag #UAUS to follow the conversation.
Of American diplomats, McFaul is by
far the most active, having published nearly 7,000 tweets since he joined the
social network in early 2012. But he was no pro in the beginning.
In an interview with South African
financial news site Fin24 in 2012, he confessed to not knowing exactly how best
to use the platform to his advantage.
“The thing I feel most nervous about
is blending the personal and the professional,” McFaul said. “That’s new to me.
I’m learning where the lines are.”
The opening of Pyatt’s account on
the site came just four days after the announcement of his arrival in Kyiv on
Aug. 3, with a YouTube message in which he introduces himself in Ukrainian
while standing beside the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Washington, D.C.
“The United States and Ukraine
recently celebrated 20 years of bilateral relations. I’m deeply committed to
sustaining this strategic partnership and continuing to support the Ukrainian
people’s aspirations to build an independent, prosperous, democratic and modern
European state,” Pyatt says in the video address.
He also says he looks forward to
visiting both Crimea and the Carpathian Mountains.
In the 21 days the video message has
been on the U.S. Embassy’s YouTube channel, it has been viewed more than 17,000
times and has amassed nearly 100 comments.
The brunt of his tweets thus far has
been messages of congratulations and notes on meeting with some of Ukraine’s
political leaders.
“Had a good meeting with the Major
Archbishop Sviatoslav. Excellent opportunity to talk about religious freedom in
Ukraine. Congratulations on the 1025th anniversary (of the baptism of Kyivan
Rus)!” he tweeted at 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 22.
At 8:30 p.m. that same day: “Met
with Rabbi Bleich. I learned a lot about the Jewish community of Ukraine. I
hope for further fruitful cooperation.”
Two hours after the Rabbi Bleich
tweet, he posted news of his meeting with a leading opposition member. “Just
talked with Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Interested to meet other opposition leaders and
representatives of the government.”
Thus far, public feedback of Pyatt’s
use of Twitter has been mostly positive.
Evgen Vorobyov (@Vorobyov),
an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw, tweeted
to the Kyiv Post that Pyatt “Succeeds in combining retweets, statements
&’general interest’ tweets, lacks @McFaul’s knack for interaction w/
followers yet.”
Taras Revunets (@Ukroblogger),
a Ukraine-based blogger who has written about the U.S. and Europe’s need to
reach out via alternative platforms to the public on his
tap-the-talent.blogspot.com blog, tweeted: “A step in the right direction!
Finally, all those grassroots diplomacy suggestions of mine are a go.”
Nikolai Holmov (@odessablogger), who describes himself on his Twitter profile as a
“Brit permanently in Ukraine blogging for those with nothing better to read”
and blogs at odessablog.wordpress.com, went further in an entry he published on
the latter.
“He
(Pyatt) has immediately reached out at grass roots society level to far more
Ukrainians within a few days of being here than the Delegation of the EU to
Ukraine has done since it arrived, or EU in its entirety has in the past 20
years of interaction with Ukraine,” he wrote.
Still, there are skeptics.
“I doubt he (Pyatt) does it himself.
I’d suggest he write a tweet in English every once in a while,” tweeted Eugene
Sherlaimov (@sherlaimov), a digital marketing strategist for
London-based SEO services provider Holbi Group.
Vorobyov also wrote that the
occasional inclusion of tweets in English would improve Pyatt’s twiplomacy.
Pyatt hopes to help Ukraine achieve
greater energy independence during his tenure, and support the country’s
European aspirations, he told Radio Svoboda.
He has also said he would like to
visit jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the Kharkiv hospital
where she is being held to hear her views on Ukraine’s integration with Europe
and the state of democracy here, Interfax Ukraine reported.
Social media-savvy Ukrainians are
waiting to see how Pyatt will utilize these internet tools to address those
issues. They may get a chance to ask as much on Aug. 30, when the ambassador will answer the Kyiv Post’s
questions in a “twitterview” with the newspaper at 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Questions for Ambassador Pyatt
should be tweeted to @ChristopherJM. Users can follow the conversation with the hashtag #UAUS.
Pyatt, a Senior Foreign Service
officer whose 24-year State Department career has focused mainly on Asia and
Latin America, is the eighth ambassador to Ukraine, replacing Ambassador John
Tefft, who was approved by the U.S. Senate on Nov. 20, 2009, after serving as
ambassador to Georgia from 2005 to 2009.
Pyatt was sworn in as U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine on July 30 at the State Department in Washington, D.C. He
arrived in Kyiv on Aug. 3.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
