Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

(Please send me links to any examples I've missed, I'll add them to this post. Also feel free to send this post elsewhere and use it as agitprop. )


CNN

It’s one thing for sarin gas to be used on people in far away Syria who are Muslim and of a different culture. What is Europe going to do when it is on European soil, done to Europeans?

-- Julia Ioffe

Source

CBS News

This isn't a place ... like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European ... city where you wouldn't expect that, or hope that it's going to happen.

Source

BBC News

'It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair...being killed every day by Putin's missiles'

Source

Al Jazeera

What's compelling is just looking at them, the way they're dressed, these are prosperous...middle class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the middle east that are still in a big state of war, these are not people trying to get away from areas in north Africa, they look like any European family that you would live next door to.

Source

NBC News

These are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from neighbouring Ukraine....These are Christians, so, white, they're very similar to people who live in Poland

Source

ITV News

Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, third world nation, this is Europe.

Source

BFM TV

We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin, we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.

Source

The Telegraph

They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone

Source

Other examples

French media doing the same

Example 1

Bulgarian PM

These are not the refugees we are used to. They are Europeans, intelligent, educated people, some are IT programmers...this is not the usual refugee wave of people with an unknown past. No European country is afraid on them.

Translation source

Other source

Black people blocked from escaping Ukraine/entering nearby countries

A Nigerian medical student at Poland/Ukraine border (Medyka-Shehyni) told me she has been waiting 7hrs to cross, she says border guards are stopping black people and sending them to the back of the queue, saying they have to let 'Ukrainians' through first.

Source

Official Ukrainian National Guard Twitter account

Azov fighters of the National Guard greased the bullets with lard against the Kadyrov orcs

Source

Denmark likely to exempt Ukrainians from controversial refugee jewllery law

A controversial law allowing Danish authorities to confiscate valuable items from refugees is unlikely to be applied to Ukrainians who seek protection in the Nordic country.

Source

Others (unconfirmed/unverified)

We are currently at the Ukraine-Poland border. Their Police and Army refused to let Africans cross they only allow Ukrainian.

Source/video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Ukrainian forces brutally beating Indian Students in Ukraine after India abstained on UN vote against Russia.

Source 1

Source 2


Links in order, all archived

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227200905/https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1497608440134340610

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201110/https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1497718700547346433

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201116/https://twitter.com/DocRobotnivik/status/1497895651887271938

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201122/https://twitter.com/ruchirsharma_1/status/1497655099979714563

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201127/https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1497878168216252416

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201131/https://twitter.com/RioMoussallem/status/1497535170450231301

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201135/https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1497652701890555914

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201145/https://twitter.com/PierreABISAAB/status/1497592136329531394

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201146/https://twitter.com/VictorPPetrov/status/1497600362626359296

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201149/https://twitter.com/TihomirSabchev/status/1497264454236610563

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201151/https://twitter.com/stephhegarty/status/1497603013799784449

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227200242/https://twitter.com/ng_ukraine/status/1497924614865002497

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201157/https://twitter.com/nzekiev/status/1497805019311218689

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201159/https://twitter.com/Damilare_arah/status/1497654141350522880

https://web.archive.org/web/20220227201208/https://twitter.com/Damilare_arah/status/1497650917088374790

  • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I have had european friends who most of the time have good takes on refugees, social justice, capitalism, and so on, confide to me that when it feels geographically close, it just feels different. I think it's hard to fully decolonize your rational mind, and your emotions/automatic reactions are even harder. They acknowledge that it's a shitty thing to feel, and that they should not act like they care more, but they are scared for themselves and their families, and that's a very human thing to do.