Copying openvpn client configs (or generating them from a script)?

[Adam Funk]

I've just done a clean Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 installation on a
laptop. Among other things, I made a complete backup copy of /etc from
before. I subscribe to a VPN service that has outlets in a lot of
countries and I had about 10 different outlet cities set up
before. The configurations differ only in the name I've assigned and
in the server used (all the account details are the same).

I don't want to have to type and click all of them by hand. I tried
copying all the /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*.nmconnection
files from the old /etc to the new one, logged out, rebooted, but they
don't show up in my network manager.

Is there another trick I can use to make the fresh installation
recognize those files?

Or is there a command-line way to add VPN connections, so I can script
the whole process (to C&P the duplicate information)?

Thanks