According to a source close to Yakemenko, “Vasily announced that the structure of the Nashi movement is being disbanded and that he says ‘thank you to everyone, you’re all free to go,’ and that something will be formed later but for now nobody knows what it’s going to be.”

Yakemenko allegedly explained his decision as the result of the fact that “the movement was heavily compromised before the elections and there’s no point in continuing it in this form.”

One source said that in Nashi’s place there will be a different organization to be headed by Artur Omarov, former head of the Stal movement. Stal was the group responsible for a controversial display of Russian opposition figures juxtaposed with Nazi symbolism at a Nashi summer camp in 2010.

Sources close to Yakemenko in Russia’s youth affairs agency, Rosmolodezh, told Gazeta.ru that there was talk of either a total freeze on the Nashi project and a cessation of funding or possible restructuring of the movement. The sources agreed that Nashi’s brand image will be cast aside and did not rule out the possibility that a political group based on the movement might be formed.

A public announcement of this decision is expected to be made in about two weeks.

Another source added that Nashi employees are concerned that they may not be paid for pre-electoral projects that have already been completed: “The organization’s equipment might be inherited by Vasily Grigorievich’s [Yakemenko’s – ed.] new organizations, but the organization’s debt won’t be taken up by anyone.”

Gazeta.ru had previously reported that Yakemenko might step down as the head of Rosmolodezh since his influence has drastically fallen with the recent reassignment of Kremlin ideologue Vladislav Surkov.

“Many participants of the forum, including myself, were confronted with the fact that mobile phone service entirely disappeared at the entrance to the camp in the Khimki Forest,” Belyakov said on the website of A Just Russia on Tuesday. “Certain police officers told me under condition of anonymity that ‘jammers’ are definitely being used. They even told me where one of them was.”

Belyakov added that he took photographs and video footage of the devices used to jam cell phone service.

“I’ve already sent Ministry of Internal Affairs Chief Rashid Gumarovich Nurgaliyev a deputy inquiry demanding an explanation of the goal of the operation to suppress the mobile phone signal in the Khimki Forest,” he said.

ITAR-TASS reported late on Tuesday that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is denying that any jamming devices were used at Anti-Seliger and accused Belyakov of speaking “rubbish.”

The forum, dubbed “Anti-Seliger,” was held in the Khimki Forest outside Moscow from June 17-20. According to organizers, the goal of the event was to give oppositionist, environmental, and other activists an opportunity to share their experiences and learn from one another. Approximately 3000 people took part.

Over the course of the forum, lectures were given by prominent journalists, political analysts, and human rights activists, including Leonid Parfyonov, Artemy Troitsky, Stanislav Belkovsky, Oleg Kashin, Aleksei Navalny, Yelena Panfilova, Valery Panyushkin, and Igor Chestin.

Anti-Seliger was organized as an alternative to Seliger, an annual forum held by Russia’s Federal Agency for Youth Issues (Rosmolodezh) and the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi. Seliger is notorious for its grotesque displays of anti-oppositionist propaganda; past targets of harassment have included United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov, leading human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Nashi leaders have admitted that the group – and, by extension, the forum – were created “to prevent an Orange Revolution” ahead of Russia’s 2008 presidential election. According to public records, Rosmolodezh head Vasily Yakemenko plans to spend no less than 178 million rubles ($6.37 million USD) on Seliger 2011.

Kashin became famous after he was beaten nearly to death outside his home in Moscow last November by two men who still remain unknown. On March 23, the journalist said on his blog that Yakemenko, head of the Russian Federal Youth Affairs Agency (Rosmolodezh) and the radical youth group Nashi, was probably involved in the attack.

“As a matter of fact, I myself don’t doubt the ‘Yakemenko’ version, and I don’t have any different ones (even the story about the stolen wife clinks with all of this – actually, I heard that Yakemenko’s wife left him in November), and I don’t believe that my case is that hard to solve, and the silence of the Central Investigative Committee, in my opinion, is set on just that conclusion,” wrote the journalist.

On March 24, Rosmolodezh Press Secretary Kristina Potupchik called the remarks “filthy accusations against Rosmolodezh and Mr. Yakemenko.” The next day, Yakemenko announced he was suing Kashin for slander.

The high-profile investigation of Kashin’s beating has been notably quiet since the initial shock of the incident in November, only briefly punctuated by rumors in February that the attack had been perpetuated by an angry husband whose wife Kashin had “stolen.” Kashin denied this account and continues to insist he was beaten because of his work as a journalist.

On March 24, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev was asked about the state of the investigation into Kashin’s attack by writer and publicist Sergei Shargunov.

“Today I spoke with the head of the Investigative Committee about this topic… There’s movement there, I don’t have the right to say particular things, but there’s movement,” Medvedev said in response.

In addition, the president said the results of the investigation “should be presented not only to the victim, but also to the public, due to the large resonance.”

Oleg Kashin was attacked on November 6, 2010. He suffered skull fractures, broken shins and his fingers were maimed; one had to be partially amputated. As Kommersant Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Mikhailin said at the time: “It is totally obvious that this was a planned action, naturally, connected with Oleg’s professional work. They broke his fingers, legs; they wanted to cripple him.”

Investigators reported earlier that the primary version of the motive for the attack was Kashin’s journalistic activity. Analysts say his controversial articles about the Khimki Forest and various government officials could have provoked any number of possible attackers. President Medvedev reacted to the beating the very morning of attack and vowed to punish whoever was responsible for it, regardless of their status.

Attacks on journalists are far from rare in Russia, and so is impunity. While suspects often abound, 94% of murder cases have never been resolved. Writing for Yezhednevny Zhurnal, noted journalist Yulia Latynina lays out the most likely perpetrators of Kashin’s brutal attack.

Kashin – Who Ordered the Attack?
By Yulia Latynina
November 8, 2010
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

The attack on Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin is notable for the fact that, like in an Agatha Christie novel, its circle of suspects is finite and small.

The first suspect is Khimki Mayor and Afghan war veteran Strelchenko. The same thing happens to all of Strelchenko’s opponents – their skulls get broken. Exactly two years ago, they broke the skull of Mikhail Beketov; on the anniversary of Beketov’s beating, they broke the skull of Khimki Right Cause leader Fetisov, and a day later – Oleg Kashin.

What do we have here in Khimki, Chechnya? Who is Mayor Strelchenko – Ramzan Kadyrov?

The second suspect is the manager of the Federal Agency for Youth Matters, a close associate of Surkov, the spiritual leader of the Putinjugend – Vasily Yakemenko.

In August 2010, Kashin uncovered and expanded upon an unappetizing story about Yakemenko.

A young girl attending Seliger, Anastasia Korchevskaya, decided to promote herself by bragging about her proximity to the top command, and posted a photo of herself with Yakemenko online with the caption: “Seliger 2008. Yakemenko still thinks I’m madly in love with him.” Yakemenko commented in response: “Korchevskaya, if you came to me two times at night in my tent, it doesn’t mean I think you’re in love with me.”

The page was then deleted, but Kashin managed to make a screenshot and generally did everything possible to expand upon the story. It turned out that Yakemenko not only uses his authority to sleep with schoolchildren, but he also brags on LiveJournal that he screws them in tents. Kashin is not a simple person; he has cooperated with the Kremlin on multiple occasions (it is only worth nothing how he insisted that Private Sychev’s legs fell off on their own accord), and his position could be seen not just as the position of an enemy, but worse – the position of a traitor.

To declare Kashin to be an enemy of the people as a result of this issue was awkward. In the pedofuhrer’s place, it was worth it to wait and latch onto some other one of Kashin’s writings. And, for sure, when Kashin did an interview for Kommersant with the head of the antifascists who were rampaging against the Khimki administration, the Young Guard website, which is under Yakemenko’s jurisdiction, came out with an article entitled “Journalist-traitors (my emphasis – Y.L.) must be punished!”

In the interview with Anonymous (an unprecedented step that Kommersant went ahead with the publication of an anonymous interview, but that’s just it – Anonymous’s name is well known), Khimki is called “absolute evil,” and Strelchenko – “a bandit from the 90s.” But the most important thing is that Anonymous marked the beginning of “a new level of social evolution in our country.” The very existence of these kinds of youth movements, capable of instantaneous organization, self-sacrifice, and going to prison, and the enthusiasm with which the anarchists were greeted by Khimki residents who happened along their path, was a threat to the status and the money that people who love to screwing schoolchildren in Seliger are accustomed to.

And this came through very clearly in the Young Guard article. The article ended like this: “We cannot be under the thumb of information extremists. They are enemies, and that means they will be punished.”

Punished – how? Here is just a shortened list of beatings whose authors have never been found. The epidemic of beatings of Polish diplomats, the beating of Marina Litvinovich (“You need to be more careful, Marina!” she was told by one of the men who was standing nearby when she woke up), the beating of Lev Ponomarev. The murder of antifascists; the investigation of their connections with the Kremlin needs to look at the organizations Russian Verdict and Russian Image, which were joined by Nikita Tikhomirov and Yevgeniya Khasis – the presumed murderers of Markelov and Baburova.

Finally, we mustn’t fail to mention the third candidate. Oleg Kashin is extremely well known as the creator of the expression “sh!tty Turchak,” referring to the governor of Pskovskaya Oblast, former coordinator of youth policy for United Russia, Seliger guest and son of Putin’s friend – Andrei Turchak.

The writing on Kashin’s blog, however, was not about Turchak, but about Kaliningrad Governor Boos: “Compare him with any governor, not even with Ramzan and not with Tuleyev, with any sh!tty Turchak – is this Boos uncompromising?” – wrote Kashin.

If you think about the tone used on the Internet, the remark can be seen almost as innocent: but the son of Putin’s friend suddenly personally demanded that Kashin “apologize within 24 hours,” and then even took the time to call a press conference, where he called Kashin’s retort “informational trash.” “Now I know what kind of person this is, he is not a journalist as I understand it.”

I mention Andrei Turchak, by the way, for the completeness of the list: since, although the epithet “sh!tty Turchak” is now stuck with the former coordinator of youth policy for United Russia, this whole story looks more like a routine dirty internet fight than anything else. As opposed to the stories of Strelchenko and Yakemenko.

And so, like in an Agatha Christie novel, the list of suspects has been defined, and there is no chance that the crime was committed by the yardkeeper on the side. Interrogations on this case need to be carried out on Khimki Mayor Strelchenko, youth movement leader Vasily Yakemenko, and Governor Andrei Turchak. In the best case scenario, there will be talk about a semi-independent initiative by some kind of fascist organizations who were upset about the interview with Anonymous. But it’s most likely that one of these two, and not three – either Strelchenko or Yakemenko – decided that he would get away with everything. And let’s note: all of this is connected to Khimki in one way or another.

And another thing. Yes, I understand that there is more than one suspect. But, in my view, it is stupid to walk around with signs saying “find the criminals” and “take measures,” refraining from naming the suspects. If you guys are going to ask them to “find the criminals,” then they’re going to respond “we’re looking.” Gelman deserves honor and praise for writing that he thinks Yakemenko is behind the attack.

Translation by theotherrussia.org

But, the function of Nashi is not to question policy proposals that make no sense. It is to provide unquestioning loyalty to the Kremlin and to harass–with brute force if necessary–the “evil” forces that threaten Russia. And what are those evils? Just ask Sergei Markov, a political analyst with friendly ties to the Kremlin.

“The threat of lawless revolutions such as those in Georgia and Ukraine hangs over Russia,” he said. “People have to be on the side of good, not evil.” Ukraine and Georgia are “evil” regimes, then–and a government that murders its critics, political opponents, and investigative journalists, while tolerating the worst possible brutalities within the lower ranks of its military service, is “good.”

Perhaps the people that call Nashi the “Putin Jugend” have a point.

The real highlight was the election. Prior to the camp Nashi had promoted an election for a new leader as Vasily Yakemenko, the leader of the group during some of its most notorious and brutal activities, said he was planning to go elsewhere in the Kremlin mafia hierarchy. There were campaigns and a ballot at the Nashi camp on Lake Seliger. But apparently the desired candidate was not the winner, an outcome entirely antithetical to the preferred Putin methods. Suddenly the entire election was declared to be only a role-playing exercise and its results null and void! We are sure the Kremlin is working hard to prevent such public embarrassment come March. After all, what’s the point of having control of the media and the election process if your candidates don’t always win?