You're reading: Yanukovych to officially join Facebook, Twitter

In his three years as president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych has had little to no presence on social media. But it seems that’s about the change.

The president’s communications office is preparing official Facebook and Twitter accounts to represent the president, according to information obtained by Kyiv online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda via an access to public information request.

The president currently has no official social media accounts, the
communications office said.

It is unclear who will officially represent the administration and
manage the accounts, but Yanukovych’s office said it would make an announcement
as soon as the accounts are active.

When that happens, Ukraine’s president will join the ranks of world
leaders who use social media, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian Prime Minister
and former President Dmitry Medvedev and the late Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez.

One of the
most active Facebook users among the local authorities is Mykola Azarov.
According to him, he personally posts to his
Facebook page
and engages with commenters.

Viktor Chumak, an opposition member
of parliament and former director of the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy,
is also active on Facebook, engaging in debates and posting photos of
parliamentary sessions and commission roundtable discussions.

Kharkiv Mayor Gennady Kernes is another prolific user
of social media, often posting photographs of himself enjoying his lavish
lifestyle. Recently, though, he
got testy
with a commenter on the popular
photo-sharing mobile app Instagram, writing beneath a photo of a pasta dish he
posted on March 16, “Listen, you evil (expletive) commentators, if you have
what to say then just get together and (expletive) each other.”

Yanukovych has had an active Twitter account once
before, which was opened May 29, 2010. There were 1,224 tweets sent from the
account to his 154 followers, the last of which read, “I cannot and will not
interfere with (the) work of Ukrainian courts.” That tweet, sent Aug. 11, 2011,
was in response to a letter sent days earlier by former Czech President Vaclav
Klaus after the arrest of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

In Klaus’s letter, the ex-president expressed his
concern that the case against her was politically motivated.

Kyiv Post staff writer Christopher J.
Miller can be reached at
[email protected].