Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a front-page piece on Nashi, a Russian youth movement that supports President Vladimir Putin.

It's not the first Western news organization to take a look at the group. Newsweek had a profile less than a month ago. The BBC had a story last summer, and both the text and an accompanying video are still available on its Web site. Blogs about Russian politics like "Johnson's Russia List" and the unabashedly anti-Putin "La Russophobe" have also taken a look.

What is it? Ostensibly, a group to get young people involved in Russia's economic, social and political growth, and to turn young people away from Nazism and fascism. The name is the Russian word for "Ours." It was formed about two years ago by a supporter of President Putin, and estimates of its size now vary wildly. I've seen everything from 10,000 to 150,000 members. Despite its goals, it has caught the attention of reporters and human rights groups because of what they see as its ham-handed criticism of liberal politicians and Putin opponents.

Why write about it here? Well, Nashi urges its members to become involved in volunteer activities, such as spending time in orphanages. That is laudable. But deep in the New York Times article the reporter notes that at one Nashi rally, he spotted a poster criticizing the adoption of Russian-born children by Americans.

Free speech is great, and there have definitely been times in Russian history when there hasn't been enough of it. But the poster raises a question: If Nashi supports President Putin, is this something that he believes too? Or is this just an activist who got carried away? I've never seen any remarks from Putin that suggest he is against inter-country adoption, and I doubt that the re-accreditations would have happened if he were.

There's a lot of reporting on Nashi beyond the pieces I've mentioned above. You can also learn about the group from its own, Russian-language Web site. Something to keep an eye on, I think.