Oborona is a non-partisan civic youth movement in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Its name means "Defense [from]" in Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

. The movement was established in 2005 and has no leader or centralized structure. Instead, it is based on the network principle and mostly horizontal relations.

The movement opposes what they call an authoritarian vector of Russian policy. They claim that president Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

 destroys democracy institutions and aims to establish an authoritarian police state

Police state

A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...

 in Russia. The movement espouses nonviolent resistance

Nonviolent resistance

Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...

 to the authorities.

The Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 branch of Oborona has several hundred activists. The movement also has branches in 25 Russian cities.

The movement has been widely inspired by the Orange Revolution

Orange Revolution

The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...

 in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 in 2004 and especially the Ukrainian youth organizations Pora!

Pora

PORA! , meaning IT'S TIME! in Ukrainian, is a civic youth organization and political party in Ukraine espousing nonviolent resistance and advocating increased national democracy...

 and Znayu! as well as by Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

 Zubr

Zubr (political organization)

Zubr was a civic youth organization in Belarus backed by the United States and western powers in opposition to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The organization drew inspiration from Otpor student movement which contributed to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in 2000, and from Gene Sharp's...

.

One of this organization leaders, Oleg Kozlovsky has been arrested, and, according to several oppositional sites illegally sent as a private conscript to Russian Army http://www.theotherrussia.org/2007/12/22/opposition-leader-conscripted-in-moscow-demonstrators-beaten/
http://publiuspundit.com/2007/12/those_bastards.php. Eight other members of the movement who tried to arrange demonstrations in support of Kozlovsky have been arrested as well, one of them daughter of writer and radio host Victor Shenderovich

Victor Shenderovich

Victor Anatolievich Shenderovich is a popular Russian satirist, writer and scriptwriter. In 1980, Shenderovich graduated from the Moscow State Art and Cultural University, specialising in "direction of volunteer theatrical groups"...

. One of arrested was severely beaten and taken to a hospital http://www.finrosforum.fi/?p=849&language=en http://www.svobodanews.ru/Article/2007/12/21/20071221202828723.html

Leadership of "Oborona" believed that Kozlovsky has been arrested for publishing in LiveJournal

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....

 photos of governmental special forces officers who recently killed activist of Other Russia Yuri Chervochkin http://www.svobodanews.ru/news/2007/12/24.html?id=427416 http://welgar.livejournal.com/418734.html#cutid1. However Oleg Kozlovsky himself said that he was conscripted in order to isolate him from his colleagues in Oborona for a period of presidential elections. Indeed, he was released from the Army on March 4, 2008, two days after the elections. The military officials confirmed that his draft had been illegal.

External links

• Oborona Web site
• Putin's Gulag Stability by Oleg Kozlovsky, Washington Post, May 19, 2008
• Romantics Learn to Use Their Fists
• Hooray! Here Comes Oborona!
• Interview with Oleg Kozlovsky by Grigory Pasko
  Grigory Pasko
  Grigory Mikhailovich Pasko is a Russian journalist and publisher of an environmental magazine.-Life:Pasko was born in the village Kreshchenovka of the Kherson Oblast, currently Ukraine, to a teacher's family...
  
  
• Oleg Kozlovsky's English language blog