Leaders of Youth

"On 15 April the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (Ours)
held its inaugural congress and elected Vasilii Grigorevich Yakemenko
and four others as leaders of the movement. The same day, retired
chess master Garri Kasparov blamed Nashi for an incident earlier that
day in which a young man attacked him with a chessboard. Many
political analysts -- and Kasparov, apparently -- see the group's
agenda as trying to tap into Russia's growing nationalism and
xenophobia.

"In an interview with kreml.org on 1 March, National Strategy
Institute Vice President Viktor Militarev argued that with Nashi,
Yakemenko has developed a more effective doctrine than he did with
the pro-Putin youth group Walking Together. Instead of 'Putin is our
president and he is always right,' Militarev noted, Yakemenko gives
lectures to youth activists in which he describes 'the American
authorities as our geopolitical opponent and says Russia needs to
defend itself.'"


Julie A. Corwin, writing about the leader of Russia's latest youth movement, Nashi, in Endnote (RFE/RL).