"The mass exodus of Russian Nazis to Ukraine would be impossible without the existing international Nazi network which formed in post-Soviet countries along the axis of Ukraine—Belarus—Russia long before the 2014 events. It was built on two subculture elements which still play a major role in the organization of far-right infrastructure: football and concerts.

“I would not make a clear distinction between Russian and Ukrainian Nazis, because it is a shared milieu which, before the Maidan, migrated across the border with absolute freedom and exchanged ideas. For instance, Olena Semeniaka from the Azov movement hung out with Duginists and attended Dugin’s seminars in Moscow suburbs. As for the Nazis themselves, there was a lot of mutual movement before the Maidan, mainly associated with concerts by far-right bands or with football games. In football fan circles, there was a very important partnership between the fans of Ukrainian and Russian teams which were always in pairs. These were CSKA Kyiv and CSKA Moscow, as well as Metallist Kharkiv and Spartak Moscow. That is, the neo-Nazi fan groups which existed in Russia usually had a partner in Ukraine and opposed similar Russian-Ukrainian fan pairs,” noted Leonid Ragozin.

Participation in fan groups is a traditional recruiting tool for the far right. One of the leaders of this subculture in Ukraine was the Russian Nazi Denis Kapustin, who moved to Ukraine in 2017."

https://antifascist-europe.org/uncategorized/nazi-exodus-how-russian-nazis-ended-up-in-ukraine/