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.
This is of course disturbing. A bunch of brownshirts loyal to Putin could cause a lot of trouble. Still, it is also reassuring that Putin apparently can't count on the military and security forces to back him with force. Why create these para-militaries if the actual military would protect him with force?
And what does this say about Russia itself? After two waves of revolution that stripped Moscow first of its east European empire and then the non-Russian regions of the USSR itself, is a third wave rumbling north from The Ukraine?
We can't invest so heavily in one man--Putin--that we alienate Russians if they decide the sham democracy that Putin is intent on creating isn't enough. And it isn't like Putin is being so bloody helpful that he's earned our looking away a bit while he cuts corners. Selling advanced arms to China, flirting with being Peking's lap dog, selling nuclear technology to Iran, courting Syria, mucking up the Caucusus region, and their little abortive effort to force an anschluss with The Ukraine are all unfriendly actions.
I want a free Russia as our friend and ally. We're 0-3 on that score. Let's see if we can do better.
