Russia is using Twitter to crowdsource ways to respond to the US expulsion of its diplomats

Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Russia is responding to a mass expulsion of its diplomats with a Twitter poll.
• After learning that its Seattle consulate would be closed, the foreign ministry asked people which US location to close in response.
• The choices are St Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Yekaterinburg.
• Russia previously ran an online poll to name its next-generation nuclear weapons.

Russia is using Twitter to solicit ideas for how to respond to Donald Trump's decision to expel 60 of its diplomats from the United States.

The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) began a crowdsourcing effort after the White House announced the expulsion, which includes a complete closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle.

In a tweet, the official MFA account named three equivalent US diplomatic stations in Russia and asked fans to choose between them.

The choices are the US consulate-general in St Petersburg, the consulate in Vladivostok, or the consulate in Yekaterinburg.

As of 11 a.m. East Coast time, St Petersburg was in the lead with around 1,600 of 3,400 votes.

The unorthodox approach to international relations follows a similar template to the one used by Russia when it announced a new generation of nuclear and defense technology.

Early in March, the Russian Ministry of Defense asked people to choose between names for what it claims is a new breed of hypersonic ICBM that is immune to missile defense systems:

The results have since been announced, and decided that "Burevestnik" (a type of bird) should be the name for the new missile. It narrowly beat "Palmyra" (the site of clashes between Russia and ISIS), and "Surprise."

It also reflects a broader tendency for Russian diplomatic channels to joke about international relations.

In the wake of Russia being accused of being behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, which sparked the current diplomatic crisis, Russia's UK embassy tweeted that Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot should be sent to figure out the truth.