This article is a collaboration project between The Boston University Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking and the International Relations Review.

Last Thursday marked one month since Russia launched its violent attack on Ukraine, triggering one of the largest humanitarian crises Europe has seen since World War II. As the European Union openly embraces Ukrainian asylum seekers today, we urge readers to consider the role racism continues to play in the differential treatment of migrants of color at these same borders.

The words of David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor, sat heavy in the air in late February as he described his emotional response to witnessing “people with blue eyes and blond hair being killed” during the ongoing Russian invasion.

Racist remarks reign over Western media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. Comments of a CBS reporter referring to Ukraine as “civilized” as opposed to Middle Eastern nations, like Iraq and Afghanistan, sparked outrage online, prompting social media users to post and share viral Twitter-threads revealing the persistence of racism in today’s news cycles.

For Syrians watching the news today, this differential media treatment appears particularly callous. As we approach the seventh year anniversary of the Russian military’s ongoing bloody intervention in the Syrian civil war, media coverage and public opinion of Syrian asylum seekers in Europe has remained cold at best and blatantly racist at worst.

In early 2020, Bulgaria’s then-Prime Minister Boyko Borissov defended the country's deployment of “army units, national guard and border police staff” to “beat off” a surge of Syrian migrants that he proclaimed posed a threat to the country’s security. This is the same Bulgaria whose current Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, declared last month: “These [Ukrainians] are not the refugees we are used to. These are people who are Europeans, so we and all other EU countries are ready to welcome them. These are…intelligent people, educated people.”

Since 2015, Amnesty International has condemned Russia's campaign in Syria for what it considers “some the most egregious war crimes [it] has seen in decades” including, but not limited to, Russian forces deliberately bombing civilians and rescue workers, and launching attacks on schools, hospitals and civilian neighborhoods.

Yet, Russia’s belligerent involvement in Syria has not provoked nearly as much global outcry as its present invasion of Ukraine. While Russia remains a perpetrator in both conflicts, why does Western media display more or less empathy toward different victims?

Unsurprisingly, the current media coverage of the war in Ukraine is indicative of deeper underlying issues of racism and neo-colonialism at Europe’s borders.

Devastating humanitarian crises pervade the earth today, from Syria undergoing a civil war, Myanmar seized by a military coup and ethnic cleansing, to Venezuela facing economic and political instability, alongside critical food and medicinal shortages. Forced migration has become a ubiquitous and salient issue, as indicated in a UNHCR mid-year report, with approximately 84 million people now forcibly displaced due to these global conflicts.

In the build up of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, tracing back to 2014 with major protests against the Russian annexation of Crimea, Ukrainians today are rushing to seek refuge from the war. Despite the absence of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union (EU), which would grant its citizens privileged access to EU member states, borders within the European Union have now become open and accessible to displaced Ukrainians.

In offering Ukrainian refugees three-year residency permits and the right to work in the EU country of their choice, the newly-activated Temporary Protection Directive presents a “jarring and surprising” contrast to the EU’s treatment of migrants fleeing crisis across the Middle East. The same nations opening their borders to Ukrainians, such as Hungary and Poland, have taken strict measures to keep out refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.

Moreover, the European Union has faced widespread, albeit insufficient, criticism for its covert and unethical attempts to reduce migration flows from Africa and the Middle East.

In a process known as “border externalization”, the EU has provided financial support (disguised as developmental aid) to various military bases in Niger tasked with detaining asylum seekers. Similarly, Tunisia’s role in policing Europe’s coastal borders dates back to 1998, when Italy first agreed to fund forced detention centers in Tunisia and received permission to send Tunisian migrants back to Africa upon reaching Europe. During the 2011 “Arab Spring” protests, France and other European states followed suit with similar deals.

In the wake of a 2016 surge of Syrian asylum seekers entering Europe via Turkey, a $3 billion agreement granted EU-member state Greece authorization to return “all new irregular migrants” to Turkey, thus transforming the Greek–Turkish border into a safeguard for the EU’s frontier in the region.

Furthermore, with EU backing, the Libyan Coast Guard now patrols the Mediterranean and has been reprimanded by international aid agencies for undermining humanitarian rescue missions, capturing asylum seekers, and confining migrants in for-profit detention centers. Numerous torture methods and extensive human rights violations have been reported in such locations, including electric shock, rape and sexual assault, extortion, and forced labor.

Even within Ukraine, a predominantly white nation, many international students and immigrants of color have experienced overt racism since the Russian attack.

As Ukrainian citizens continue to flee the violence, many Africans, Asians and other people of color living in Ukraine have faced racial discrimination while also trying to cross into neighboring countries. Victims have reported being blocked from boarding trains, stopped at the border for undefined reasons, and, in some cases, abused physically and verbally.

On March 1, CNN reporter Bijan Hosseini uploaded a Twitter thread describing his sister’s journey fleeing from Kyiv. As an adoptee from Sierra Leone, according to Hosseini, “her birthplace played a significant role in prolonging her exit.” After 30 hours of driving, 10 hours of walking, and over $2,000 spent on transportation fees, Hosseini’s sister was barred from crossing the border for four and a half days. The reporter described: “Two lines were formed. One for white people, the other for everyone else. Only Ukrainians were being let over the border. Thousands of people were forced to sleep outside in the cold.”

Also in early March, TIME magazine interviewed Grace Kass, a 24-year-old engineering student and make-up artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We entered the train last,” Kass recounted, describing how she and other African women were forced to wait outside in the snowfall, while white women and children were permitted to board first.

Ultimately, racism plays a significant role in the experiences of those forcibly displaced, in addition to the common threats of violence, famine, and economic hardship facing refugees today. Regardless of skin color, everyone has the right to seek and attain asylum (an internationally protected right) and a future free from violence. In the face of ongoing conflicts, widespread political instability, and climate-induced migration projections, we collectively cannot afford to turn away asylum seekers from our borders based on such differences.

“What is clear is that long after conflicts slip from global attention, the displaced continue to pay the price – that of longing for people and places that no longer stand, of lifetimes of sleepless nights reliving trauma, of the alienation of never truly belonging.” 

- Heba Gowayed, Professor of Sociology at Boston University

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