Vyacheslav Oseledko / AFP - Getty Images

Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia

The Obama administration has complained to Russia about harassment of the American ambassador to Moscow and will raise concerns about his security, a U.S. official said Friday.

The official said recent instances of anti-Americanism directed at Ambassador Michael McFaul had prompted the complaints to the Russian foreign ministry. The official added that McFaul has reported that his every move seems to be followed by crews from a government-controlled television station, prompting security concerns.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the administration is taking the security concerns seriously and plans to raise them with the foreign ministry.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the outspoken McFaul said he encounters crews from NTV, a government-controlled TV channel, wherever he goes and suggested that his email and phone calls may be being intercepted.

"Wonder who gives them my calendar? They wouldn't tell me. Wonder what the laws are here for such things?" he wrote.

In another, he asked, "Do they have a right to read my email and listen to my phone?"

A spokesman for NTV, which is owned by an arm of the state natural gas monopoly, said the presence of camera crews "is explained by a wide network of informers," according to the Interfax news agency.

NTV claims a lot of the footage it records is for no specific purpose, Maria Lipman, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center, told msnbc.com. It's possible that the footage of McFaul could end up in one of NTV's notorious documentaries, she said. A recent NTV documentary called "Anatomy of Protest" caused a stir after it showed footage of people allegedly receiving money to attend street protests against the rule of President-elect Vladimir Putin.

Lipman characterized the documentary as "sloppy journalism" and "very crass work."

Anti-American propaganda was rampant before the recent presidential elections, Lipman said, and it doesn't appear to have stopped after Putin was re-elected.

On Thursday, the station showed video of McFaul and its reporters verbally sparring as he arrived for a meeting with Lev Ponomarev, one of Russia's most prominent human rights activists. In the five-minute clip, the reporter peppers him with questions about his meeting, and after answering, McFaul complains about their following him.

US Ambassador Mike McFaul vents on Twitter about Russian media

"Your ambassador in our country goes around all the time without this sort of thing, not interfering in his work. You're with me everywhere, at home — it's interesting. Aren't you ashamed to be doing this? It's an insult to your country when you do this," McFaul said in Russian, smiling but clearly irritated.

At another point, McFaul says: "Every time I come here, it seems like a wild country. It's not normal."

When one journalist objected to that characterization, McFaul replied: "No, it's not normal. It doesn't happen with us, not in England, not in Germany, not in China -- only here and only with you."

On Friday, McFaul, a prolific Twitter user since he arrived in Moscow in January, tweeted that he had misspoken in bad Russian and did not mean to say Russia was "wild." Rather, he said he meant to say that the actions of NTV were "wild."

Then he engaged in a back and forth about the situation with a person whose Twitter handle is "prostitutkamila."

State Department officials on Thursday described McFaul's tweets as rhetorical and said they did not necessarily reflect formal concerns over surveillance by the Russian government or media.  

 "A rhetorical question, in and of itself, is not directed at anyone," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

This is a challenge for the ambassador, but he is equipped to handle it, Lipman, who has known McFaul for about 20 years, told msnbc.com. "He's so familiar with Russia," she said, adding that McFaul is known to be open and friendly. 

Lipman recalled the case of former British ambassador to Russia Tony Brenton, who served in this position from 2004 to 2008 and publicly spoke about the harassment he endured in Moscow.

"Occasionally the surveillance and harassment were merely funny, such as when a female colleague spotted a handsome man three times in the course of the same day before realizing this was the FSB (the KGB's successor) trailing her," Brenton wrote in 2011. "More often it ranged from the depressing to the actively nasty."

Brenton went on to describe being followed around by thugs in the Kremlin-backed youth movement Nashi and having his phone tapped.

"Should you get home to find the door to your flat unlocked from the inside, that's just the FSB letting you know they called," he wrote.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Vyacheslav Oseledko / AFP - Getty Images

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul

The U.S. ambassador to Russia was back at it again Thursday on Twitter with questions about how Russian media gets hold of his schedule, raising broader concerns about surveillance during a time of tension between Washington and Moscow.

Michael McFaul, no stranger to Twitter controversy since taking up his post in Moscow in January, told his more than 21,300 followers he was frequently dogged by representatives of NTV, a Kremlin-friendly television station.

"Everywhere I go NTV is there. Wonder who gives them my calendar? They wouldn't tell me. Wonder what the laws are here for such things?" McFaul said in one tweet posted to his account, @McFaul.

"I respect press right to go anywhere & ask any question. But do they have a right to read my email and listen to my phone?" McFaul also tweeted. "When I asked these 'reporters' how they knew my schedule, I got no answer."

McFaul was apparently describing an encounter with a self-described NTV television crew before a meeting with a Russian human rights activist.

Footage of the encounter posted on the NTV website shows a clearly irritated but mostly smiling McFaul, coatless under a wet snow, sparring for several minutes in Russian with a woman holding a microphone who says she is from NTV.

"Your ambassador to our country walks around all the time without this. They do not interfere with his work. And you are always with me -- at home," McFaul said in the clip.

"Aren't you ashamed to do this? It is an insult to your country when you do this, do you understand that?"

He said his meeting with activist Lev Ponomaryov, whom he said he has known for 25 years, was part of his job, just like a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev two days earlier.

Blogger Alexey Navalny, a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin, reacted to McFaul's tweet on his own account, saying "I don't understand McFaul. He's got diplomatic immunity. He can just lawfully beat up the NTV journalists. Come on, Mike! One for all!"

State Department officials described McFaul's tweets as rhetorical and said they did not necessarily reflect formal concerns over surveillance by the Russian government or media.  

"A rhetorical question, in and of itself, is not directed at anyone," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

"Many of our chiefs of mission have Twitter accounts and they are allowed to express themselves. We have full confidence in their ability to express themselves on matters of U.S. policy."

Tripping up on Twitter
McFaul is among a number of senior U.S. diplomats who have taken to Twitter as the State Department attempts to harness social media to get the U.S. government's message across.

But the personal style of the new communication has at times caused controversy.

The Russian government rebuked McFaul, a former White House adviser on Russia, earlier this month after he tweeted his concern over the detention of protesters who challenged Vladimir Putin's presidential election victory.

Russia and the United States say they are committed to improved ties, but have seen differences grow over issues including the Syrian crisis and U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Europe.

Putin accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December of stirring protests against his 12-year rule by encouraging "mercenary " Kremlin foes. Washington has dismissed the accusations.

McFaul, a Stanford University professor who specialized in analyzing the development of democracy in Russia and the former Soviet Union, was criticized by Russian state television when he arrived to take up his new post in January.

Following a meeting with opposition leaders shortly after his arrival, a commentator on state television said McFaul was not an expert on Russia but simply a specialist in the promotion of democracy.

Other commentators and media reports have suggested he is seeking to help opponents topple the government. A film aired on NTV earlier this month hinted that opposition demonstrations were funded by the White House with the aim of undermining Putin.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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At first glance, Michael McFaul seems an odd fit for the post of U.S. ambassador to Russia. Pushing 50, McFaul, a political scientist and tenured professor at Stanford University, has spent almost all his career in the halls of academia, not in diplomacy.

And he hardly looks like a threat; on the contrary, he’s engaging and jovial, combining a plain-speaking folksiness with a laid-back attitude he must get from his Montana and California background. Yet Professor, now Ambassador, McFaul has hit the Russian tarmac with all the force of a howitzer shell.

Just two days on the job (he arrived in mid-January) and he’d become headline news on Russia’s Kremlin-controlled Channel 1, which ran a story about a string of Russian opposition leaders lining up outside his new residence at Spaso House that day, suggesting they were coming to get their instructions from the man who once wrote "Russia’s Unfinished Revolution."

The Russian reporter’s suggestion was that McFaul, a fluent Russian speaker, had come back to finish business.

A red flag of anger suddenly waved defiantly across the national media. McFaul hadn’t yet found his work-out gear in his boxes and he was already being compared to those evil ambassadors of yore, conniving in the shadows to topple the host regime.

Siberia-style cold shoulder
But McFaul has taken the Siberia-style cold shoulder in stride. In fact, he says, he was only at that meeting for protocol.

Both Russian government and opposition leaders had come to see the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, not him.

And he points out the Russian media never mentioned the rest of his second day on the job.

Cars with ribbons, balloons circle Moscow to protest Putin

"I had some very warm, cordial and substantive meetings with people like the Foreign Minister, Prime Minister [Vladimir] Putin’s foreign policy adviser, President [Dmitry] Medvedev’s foreign policy adviser, so when I read that it was unwelcome – well, we didn’t have the camera crews out for those so I guess that’s the problem, right?" he says.

The real problem, of course, is that, with presidential elections in March, McFaul’s past advocacy for a more democratic Russia has become easy prey for the Kremlin propaganda machine.

Tens of thousands of Russians defy cold to demand fair elections

In the same vapor breath, thousands of pro-Putin protesters who braved sub-zero Moscow temperatures in early February could be heard chanting "No Orange" (referring to the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution in Ukraine) and "No U.S. Embassy!" 

But, typically, McFaul is brushing off his rude welcome. In a veiled apology, he says he’s learning from his mistakes (while not naming any).

Anti-Putin protesters: Coping with bitter cold and big questions

'Invigorating!'
And he’s raring to go. "If you stop learning, to me as an academic that’s the most insulting thing you can say about anybody.’’

How does he sum up his first month as Ambassador? "Invigorating!"

And McFaul is already making his presence felt in other ways. He’s checking official records, but believes he’s the first resident of Spaso House to set up a Nerf Basketball hoop in one of the giant reception rooms.

US finds democracy a tougher sell abroad

He thinks he’s also the first to play badminton in the salon. McFaul is confident the chilly "first impression" will change.

"We’ll find our way and I think also Russia and our Russian guests will find their way in dealing with a different kind of group at Spaso House," he says.

And if it doesn’t get any better, Ambassador McFaul can always resort to his two secret weapons: basketball and badminton diplomacy.

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