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The official HSK Zrinjski Supporters Club declined to comment for this story or help BIRN approach any Zrinjski Ultras.

The only Ultra who agreed to speak was Vlado Savic, one of the original founders of the Supporters Club. Zrinjski means everything to me, he said.

Savic blamed the far-right graffiti that has scarred Mostar on outsiders.

The guys in charge of graffiti have nothing to do with that, he said. People come from elsewhere and intentionally do that to defame us, make us look bad.

But in his home, where he was under house arrest after being convicted of armed robbery, BIRN saw a photo of Savic and another man making what appears to be a Nazi salute. Similar photos on Facebook show Savic making the same salute. He denied it was a Nazi salute, saying it was simply a gesture Zrinjski supporters make when they sing the club song.

In the neighbourhood around Savics home, not far from the supporters club, far-right hate symbols are hard to miss, from the Celtic cross, a signature of the Zrinjski fans, to 14/88, swastikas and phrases declaring that the fascist WWII-era Independent State of Croatia, NDH, will come again.

The hate graffiti also adorns Mostars Partisan Cemetery, where Communist partisans who fought the Nazis during WWII are buried.

Every February 14, visitors to the cemetery mark the anniversary of the towns liberation from fascism in 1945. In 2015, on the 70th anniversary, they were met with projectiles and insults hurled by a group of what one participant in the commemoration, Stefica Galic, described as neo-Nazis.

Authorities at the time said three people had been arrested, but that has not stopped such incidents from repeating every year, said Galic.

They stand over the road, waiting, she told BIRN. Zrinjski supporters have some premises across the road from the Partisan Cemetery and they were already waiting there.

The local interior ministry said those involved in the intimidation had been identified and prosecuted, but did not identify them when asked to do so by BIRN.

Michael Colborne contributed to this article from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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In Bosnian River Town, Far-Right Symbols and a Link to Ukraine - Balkan Insight