Nashi was a political youth movement in Russia, which declared itself to be a democratic, anti-fascist, anti-"oligarchic-capitalist" movement. Nashi was widely characterized as a pro-Putin outfit, with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism describing it as "Putin's private army". Western critics have detected a "deliberately cultivated resemblance to" the Soviet Komsomol or to the Hitler Youth and dubbed the group "Putinjugend".

Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov is a Russian politician and businessman. He was First Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration from 1999 to 2011, during which time he was often viewed as the main ideologist of the Kremlin who proposed and implemented the concept of sovereign democracy in Russia. From December 2011 until May 2013, Surkov served as the Russian Federation's Deputy Prime Minister. After his resignation, Surkov returned to the Presidential Executive Office and became a personal adviser of Vladimir Putin on relationships with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ukraine. He was removed from this duty by presidential order in February 2020.