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SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 (UPI) -- Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has more than 19,000 followers on Twitter, the social networking service, a day after opening a Twitter account. He got 15,000 of those subscribers within 12 hours of opening his account in San Francisco Wednesday, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported. United Press International counted more than 19,000 followers Thursday and noted the account was verified as legitimate.
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Medvedev's latest post: "Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said Belarus has repaid its gas debts and gas supplies have been resumed in full."
The note confirmed a Kremlin announcement Thursday that Russia had completely restored the flow of natural gas to Belarus after the country paid its nearly $200 million debt for gas it already consumed.
The chief executive officer of Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom OAO, Alexsey Miller, called Medvedev to tell him the news, the Kremlin said.
Medvedev opened his Twitter account from Twitter headquarters with, "Greetings to everyone, I'm at Twitter and this is my first message."
The Russian leader was in the San Francisco-Silicon Valley area for a technology tour.
The tour included stops at Cisco Systems Inc. for a company announcement of a $1 billion investment in Russian projects, at Apple Inc. where he got a new iPhone 4 from CEO Steve Jobs and at Stanford University where he addressed students.
"Silicon Valley's greatest asset is communication," Medvedev wrote in a later Twitter post. "People discuss their work not trifles. Russia would benefit from this kind of environment."
Medvedev's KremlinRussia_E account followed four other Twitter accounts as of Thursday morning -- the Kremlin, the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The Kremlin site "retweeted" many of Medvedev's messages. The White House, Obama and British government pages welcomed Medvedev to Twitter, with the White House and Obama pages retweeting Medvedev's first message.
