Russian Digital Diplomacy: A Rising Cyber Soft Power?

Abstract

The chapter deals with Russian digital diplomacy and emphasizes its political goals, visible cases, and contribution of Russia to the development of public diplomacy. Most countries blame Russia for active and sometimes ethnics-edged exploitation of digital diplomacy and social media that might have had impact on political events in the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and others during the period 2015–2017. However, Russian approaches to Internet diplomacy have transformed the principles and methods of current public diplomacy in all countries. Propaganda, strategic communication, bots, artificial intelligence, cyborgs, and other elements of new public diplomacy have just been introduced and opened a new stage.