Twitter unveiled a fun little feature this week that allows nostalgic users to go back and find their very first tweet. And — in file this under you can’t make this stuff up — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first ever tweet in 2012 seems to be a congratulatory note to his frenemy, President Obama:
Congratulations to US President-elect Barack Obama http://t.co/wi0upVQB
— Vladimir Putin (@PutinRF_Eng) November 8, 2012
Of course in 2012 Obama had just won reelection so he wasn’t the “president-elect,” but we cut Putin a little slack because the translation from Russian to English is rarely perfect.
To be sure, the account is not “verified” by Twitter, but it does describe itself as “the official twitter channel for President of the Russian Federation. Tweets from the President are signed #VP” and appears to tweet primarily press releases linking to the Kremlin’s English website.
Given the current strained (to put it mildly) relationship between the two leaders, perhaps even more amusing (?) is the statement that accompanies the original Putin account tweet:
“Mr Putin particularly stressed the results obtained in developing Russian-US relations over these last years, and expressed his hopes for continued constructive work together on the bilateral agenda and in resolving pressing international and regional issues, noting the key importance that cooperation between countries such as Russia and the USA has for ensuring the world’s stable and secure development.”
The way we were … .