Nashi, the radical nationalistic youth group founded and supported by the Russian government, is often compared by critics to the Soviet Komsomol or Hitler Youth – “Putinjugend,” as it’s put.

As the Telegraph points out, the group has recently became much more officially deserving of that nefarious title: Nashi activists in Yaroslavl were found to have plagiarized the writings of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to “inspire young Russians to greater patriotic heights.”

The full report:

Activists from the ‘Nashi’ youth group drew up a list of eight commandments meant to inspire young Russians to greater patriotic heights, a Kremlin priority.

Anti-Kremlin activists however spotted that the text was a lightly edited version of an infamous list of commandments that Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, composed to steer National Socialists in the right ideological direction.

The Nashi activists, who were based at a branch of the youth group in the town of Yaroslavl 150 miles east of Moscow, had removed Goebbels’ advice to beware Jews and punch anyone who insulted the motherland. But they otherwise seem to have substituted the word Russia for Germany.

“The enemies of Russia are your enemies,” they wrote mimicking Goebbels’ phrase “Germany’s enemies are your enemies; hate them with all your heart.”

Critics said they were not particularly shocked by the content of the new commandments but disturbed by what the act of plagiarism said about the activists.

“It is strange that they did not find any other way of expressing themselves other than copying fascists,” wrote Anton Orekh of the Ejednevny Jurnal news portal. “In order to copy it they had to find it. To find it, read it, and really get into it. And understand that to say it better than Goebbels is just not possible.”

Ruslan Maslov, the activist who penned the commandments, said he could not understand what was so bad about their content. Another activist, Artyom Kozlov, said the scandal was an attempt to blacken the group’s name. He said that not everything about Nazi Germany was bad.

“The roads in Nazi Germany were well built,” he told gazeta.ru. “But that does not mean they should be destroyed. The good things should be preserved.”

Nashi, which means ‘One of Us,’ enjoys support from the Kremlin. It has courted controversy in the past, however, by mounting an aggressive campaign of harassment against the former British ambassador to Russia and, more recently, by displaying the heads of its ‘enemies’ hewn from papier-mache on spikes donning Nazi caps.

“The Commandments of Honour”

1. Your fatherland is Russia. Love it above all others and in deed more than word.

2. The enemies of Russia are your enemies.

3. Every compatriot, even the lowliest, is part of Russia. Love him like you love yourself!

4. Demand only duties of yourself. Then Russia will regain justice.

5. Be proud of Russia! You must honour the fatherland for which millions gave their lives.

6. Remember, if someone takes away your rights, you have the right to say “NO!”

7. Uphold what you must without shame where Great Russia is concerned!

8. Believe in the future. Then you will become the victor!