British authorities are worried that the current threat of a Russian invasion of
Ukraine may attract far-right extremists from the UK, who could travel to the country seeking weapons training and military experience.
Counter-terrorism police were positioned at the departure gates of at least one main British airport this week, where they quizzed travellers flying to Ukraine about their identity and reasons for travel.
The checks came after at least half a dozen known neo-Nazis travelled to Ukraine from the US and a European country this week, security sources said.
Last autumn, Kyiv deported two American men with links to neo-Nazi groups in their homeland,
BuzzFeed reported. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said at the time that the men “tried to join one of the Ukrainian military units in order to gain combat experience, which the representatives of the group planned to use in illegal activities”.