About one third of the new government's ministers have entered the age of social media with Twitter accounts, while several others have been impersonated by swearing virtual fraudsters.
The actively tweeting officials include not only Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who opened his account at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, but also another eight of the 28 total Cabinet ministers.
The most popular user — after the prime minister, who has more than 1 million followers — is Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, a former presidential aide to Medvedev and close ally in the government's modernization push. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin comes in third by number of followers, with more than 79,000, far outstripping last place tweeter Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, who only opened her account after taking her new job in late May and has attracted a little over 150 followers.
Not all the ministers follow each other on the microblogging service, RBC Daily noted. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, for example, follows only two accounts — those of the prime minister and the Kremlin.
Some accounts for ministers are fake, having been opened by unknown users. Fake accounts for both Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov publish comments using invectives laden with swear words criticizing both the “regime" and the alleged authors themselves. The fake account for Surkov has close to 1,000 followers, while the imposter Serdyukov account has less than one hundred followers.
Below is a chart showing which ministers use Twitter.
| Name | Position | Twitter Handle | Statistics |
| Dmitry Medvedev | Prime Minister | @MedvedevRussia | 551 Tweets
54 Users Followed 1,236,006 Followers |
| Arkady Dvorkovich | Deputy Prime Minister | @advorkovich | 21,878 Tweets
269 Users Followed 129,619 Followers |
| Dmitry Rogozin | Deputy Prime Minister | @Rogozin | 10,377 Tweets
3,621 Users Followed 79,012 Followers |
| Olga Golodets | Deputy Prime Minister | @OGolodets | 12 Tweets
14 Users Followed 166 Followers |
| Vladimir Medinsky | Culture Minister | @medinskiy_vr | 3,214 Tweets
57 Users Followed 17,216 Followers |
| Nikolai Nikiforov | Communications and Press Minister | @nnikiforov | 5,760 Tweets
604 Users Followed 15,054 Followers |
| Dmitry Livanov | Education and Science Minister | @DmitryLivanov | 262 Tweets
19 Users Followed 5,061 Followers |
|
Vitaly Mutko |
Sports Minister |
@Vitaliy_Mutko |
89 Tweets 2 Users Followed 4,943 Followers |
|
Mickail Abyzov |
Cabinet's liaison with the Open Government initiative with the rank of minister | @mikhail_abyzov | 5 Tweets
4 Users Followed 484 Followers |
Ministers with fake or frozen Twitter accounts:
| Name | Position | Twitter Handle | Statistics |
| Igor Shuvalov | First Deputy Prime Minister | @igor_shuvalov | 4 Tweets
2 Users Followed 32 Followers |
| Vladislav Surkov | Deputy Prime Minister
| @ucnleslava | 15 Tweets
269 Users Followed 969 Followers |
| Sergei Lavrov | Foreign Affairs Minister | @sergeylavrov | 5,045 Tweets
12 Users Followed 221 Followers |
| Anatoly Serdyukov | Defense Minister | @DefenceMinistr | 102 Tweets
21 Users Followed 75 Followers |
| Alexander Khloponin | Deputy Prime Minister | @hloponin | Unknown
(account frozen) |
