Hans Rustad Den Putin-trofaste ungdomsbevegelsen Nashi har noen urovekkende trekk, bla. at den spiller på antiamerikanisme og har vist voldelige tendenser.
Nashi’s platform is defined by its unwavering devotion to Mr. Putin and by the intensity of its hostility toward his critics, including his former prime minister, Mikhail M. Kasyanov, the former chess champion Garry Kasparov and a nationalist writer, Eduard Limonov. Nashi’s members denounce the opposition leaders as fascists with a fervor that can be disquieting.
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Like Mr. Putin himself, who recently seemed to compare the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich, Nashi also laces its campaigns and literature with an undercurrent of hostility to Europe and the United States. At the rally promoting ethnic harmony, a poster denounced American adoptions: «In 2005, 3,966 Russian children became citizens of America.»«Putin’s Generation» is growing up with a diet of anti-European and anti-American sentiment that could deepen the social and political divides between Russia and the West for decades to come.
«Today the United States on one hand and international terrorism on the other strive to control Eurasia and the whole world,» Nashi’s manifesto says. «Their gaze is directed at Russia. The task of our generation is to defend the sovereignty of our country as our grandfathers did 60 years ago.»
Nashi får støtte blant annet fra Putin-støttespillere som Gazprom og Norilsk, eid av oligarken Vladimir Potanin.
Although Nashi’s financing is opaque, the group receives grants from the state and big businesses like Gazprom, the state energy giant, and Norilsk Nickel, whose principal owner, Vladimir O. Potanin, is a Putin loyalist. Nashi repays Mr. Potanin’s support in its literature by distinguishing him from the «oligarchs» who are widely reviled in Russia.
