Secret department for work with youth under the presidential administration?

Under the auspices of the presidential administration, a secret department is being formed to monitor the activities of youth organizations, the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper reports on August 19, 2005. The new structure will deal with both organizations loyal to the authorities (“Ours”) and etc.).

Nikita Ivanov, Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, became responsible for this direction.

All youth associations interviewed by the newspaper claim that they have no information about the presence of such a department in the presidential administration. However, according to Nelli Monastyrskaya, author of an article in Moscow News, "the new department is already actively developing an ideology and preparing public actions for Nashi and VAL, vigilantly monitors the activities of the opposition" youth ", its employees, according to unofficial information, "work" directly in the youth movements themselves, including opposition ones .

N. Monastyrskaya compares the new structure with the department that existed in the KGB, which was engaged in work with dissidents. "True, it remains unclear why the presidential administration is now taking on the functions that belonged to the special services," the author asks rhetorically.

Sources

• Monastyrskaya N. The presidential administration creates a secret department // Moscow news. 2005. No. 32.