In the early days following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Aum Shinrikyo actually bought airtime on Radio Moscow World Service, I remember hearing those broadcasts, and it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard in my life.
While the cult was Japanese, they had almost twice as many Russian believers as Japanese. It’s likely they first made that recruitment effort out of a desire to make sensitive contacts in the ex-Soviet ARMS INDUSTRY.
I do know that that effort bore considerable fruit, to include one person who had access to a secretive Russian weapons lab.
Aum was also in the early stages of purchase of a ex-Soviet nuclear submarine —an Oscar...? I can’t remember that part.
That story is detailed and almost NO part of it does not sound totally nuts.
The cult was finally busted and the residual bits reformed into a smaller cult named, “Aref” or something.