Canada and Russia In The Midst Of A Twitter War

Canada is typically known as a quiet nation full of polite inhabitants. However, the friendly nation took extreme measures on August 27 as it fired the first shots toward Russia in what may be the first international Twitter War.

Canada tweeted the above picture in a way to sarcastically show Russia where its borders lie, in reference to 1,000 Russian troops that entered the Ukraine for a “vacation” along with their tanks. The Twitter account @CanadaNato originated the tweet and was quickly noticed by residents of nations from around the world. According to i09:

“The tweet was in response to a video which appeared to show Russian soldiers inside Ukraine’s eastern border. Russia has denied any wrong-doing, claiming that the soldiers simply got lost — a claim that Canada and many other countries find difficult to believe.”

However, Russia fired back with nuclear force as they corrected Canada’s map, with properly drawn boundaries, including the following message in the tweet.

“Helping our Canadian colleagues to catch up with contemporary geography of #Europe @CanadaNATO”

Matthew Coutts, of Yahoo News, had the following to say:

“The Moscow Times also reported that Canada’s map was wrong, in an article titled ‘Canadian attempt to teach Russia geography botched by map fail.’ It’s drenched in as much derision and one-upmanship as the original tweet.

“‘Ironically, the Canadian mission’s lesson went askew as the exclave Kaliningrad —West of Lithuania — is also painted in white, despite belonging to Russia since 1945,’ it reads.

“‘Crimea and the town of Sevastopol are also colourless, though it is unclear whether the mission did so to make a political statement on the legitimacy of Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula in March.’

“We can’t say for sure what the message is in regards to Kaliningrad (though the newspaper itself recent shed doubt on Moscow’s claim to the region).”

Whether or not the friendly banter will continue is yet to be seen. However, there have been many times that a simple insult has turned into a full blown fist fight on the playground. Has Canada unintentionally set itself up as a target for Russia’s bully tactics, or are they safe above the United States’ peaceful borders? Or will the United States become the next victim of assault when and if Canada tweets a map of the U.S. with Texas marked as “Not the United States” due to its independent nature?

[Photo Courtesy: Kinja]