(source)18 Teens Eagerly Join Pro-Putin Club

BALASHIKHA, Moscow Region -- To the strains of the national anthem, a group of students at Balashikha's School No. 1 joined the ranks of United Russia's youth group Thursday with promises of new friends, better careers and summer work. The 18 smartly dressed students swore their allegiance to Young Unity -- whose sole ideology, like United Russia, is to support President Vladimir Putin -- in a school assembly hall decorated with national flags and United Russia banners. "I swear to respect the rules of Young Unity," the 10th and 11th grade students solemnly repeated after the local Youth Unity leader. "I swear to respect the discipline of Young Unity. I swear to take part in the activities of Young Unity." Young Unity is one of three pro-Putin youth groups trying to fill a gap left by the collapse of Soviet youth organizations like the Pioneers and Komsomol. Challenging them are organizations such as the liberal Young Yabloko and Moving Without Putin.

E' arrivata l'arietta fresca:

Putin sets up youth brigade to tighten grip

With President Putin's popularity in sharp decline, the Kremlin has set up a new Russian youth movement to ensure its control of the streets in the event of mass anti-government protests.

Hundreds of youths, many belonging to the president's cultural society "Walking Together", held a meeting in a house owned by the Kremlin Property Department to launch the group at the weekend. The organisation, which leaders hope will attract 300,000 members, was christened "Nashi" [Ours], a word which in Russian has chilling nationalist overtones.

When two outsiders – one from an opposition party, the other a journalist – sneaked into its founding conference, they were humiliated and one was beaten. The latest move by the Kremlin to shore up its rule comes after claims that it has been using infiltrators to stir trouble at anti-government rallies, giving the police an excuse to disperse them.

In the eyes of many, the tactics are more reminiscent of the Hitler Youth of pre-war Germany than of the supposed democracy in Russia whose health Mr Putin indignantly defended when he met President George W Bush last week. Andrei Pointkowsky, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, said: "Putin is behind this. Scared by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Kremlin is trying to form a Putin Jugend to suppress future opposition. "Putin has had a catastrophic loss of authority. People are finally beginning to realise that the emperor has no clothes."

Ilya Yashin, youth leader of the opposition party Yabloko and one of the two liberals who gatecrashed the conference, said: "Our apprehensions about the Kremlin's intentions to form assault units to fight the opposition have been confirmed. Under the Nashi slogan the Kremlin is forming brigades of storm-troopers so that they can use force against the opposition.'' Mr Yashin gave two examples where opposition activists were beaten by unknown assailants with shaved heads after attending anti-government rallies.

Prossimamente: becero nazionalismo rampante vs. democrazia globale (pagata da Soros.)