[4] Nashi was widely characterized as a pro-Putin outfit,[5][6] with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism describing it as "Putin's private army".

[23] Nashi's close ties with the Kremlin have been emphasised by Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff (1999-2011), who met with the movement's activists on numerous occasions, delivering speeches and holding private talks.

[24] At a political education event in summer 2006, the Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky told Nashi members that they "lacked brutality": "you must be prepared", he went on, "to break up fascist demonstrations and prevent with force any attempt to overthrow the constitution".

"[a] Several Moscow newspapers suggested the goal of the group was, in fact, to eventually replace the party of power, United Russia.

Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets quoted Yakemenko as saying that "organizations in Russia are growing, on the basis of which the U.S. will create groups analogous to Serbia's Otpor!, Georgia's Kmara, or Ukraine's PORA.

"[33] On June 26, 2005, with media present, Putin met with a group of Nashi members at his residence at Zavidovo, Tver Oblast.

[37] Unnamed British officials were reported to suspect that this campaign had been co-ordinated by elements within the Russian government as a punishment for the speech given by the ambassador.

At the meeting, he stated that the United Kingdom was acting like a colonial power with a mindset stuck in the 19th or 20th century, due to their belief that Russia could change its constitution, allowing Andrey Lugovoy to be extradited to the UK to face charges in relation to the Alexander Litvinenko affair.

The Ambassador of the Fascist State of eSStonia" (Russian: «Разыскивается посол фашистского государства эSSтония»), in reference to then-Ambassador of Estonia to Russia Marina Kaljurand.

[45] In March 2009, it was reported that a Nashi commissar and some associates claimed they had launched a DDOS attack on Estonia in May 2007, in reaction to the Bronze Soldier's removal.

[47][48] On January 18, 2010, Nashi activists held a rally near the Embassy of Ukraine in Moscow and "congratulated" Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko for his defeat in the first round of the presidential election the day before.

[50][51] In December 2011, Nashi members staged large pro-Kremlin demonstrations in response to anti-Putin protests that followed the 2011 legislative election.

[54] According to Edward Lucas, in The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West, Nashi is a contemporary iteration of the Soviet Komsomol.

[31] Such activities caused Gavin Knight, in New Statesman, to draw the conclusion that "Nashi’s true function was as a personality cult for Putin whose job was intimidate, bully and harass his opponents.

"[61] The Boston Globe said that "movement's Brownshirt tactics certain evoke shades of Hitler Youth, as does the emphasis on physical fitness, clean living, and procreation for the Motherland".

[62] Liberal youth leader Ilya Yashin also denounced Nashi as a cover for "storm brigades" use violence against democratic organizations and claimed that their formation is only part of Putin's fear of losing power in a manner similar to the Orange Revolution of Ukraine.

[65][66] British journalists Peter Oborne and James Jones examined the activity of Nashi in a 2011 documentary produced for Channel 4's foreign affairs series Unreported World.

[69] In early February 2009, Anna Bukovskaya, a St. Petersburg Nashi activist, publicly claimed[70] that from January 2008 until February 2009, she had coordinated a group of 30 young people (not Nashi members) who had been tasked to infiltrate branches of the banned National Bolshevik Party, Yabloko's youth wing and United Civil Front in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and six other cities.

On February 3, 2009, Bukovskaya told Youth Yabloko, which she had joined six weeks prior, that she was being paid to monitor their activities and to handle people in other opposition groups.