As a Ukrainian working a lot with topics of people with refugee experience, I would like to reflect on misleading ideas talking about certain privileges people fleeing from full-scale invasion in Ukraine potentially have in comparison to other ethnicities. I often notice how public narratives can get stuck in oversimplified frames that do more harm than good.
It is not only diminishes ethnical variety in Ukraine. Unfortunately, there are no official statistics available on how many Ukrainian refugees are non‑White. Most major data sources — including UNHCR, the EU, and national governments — report refugee numbers by nationality or country of origin, not by race or ethnicity. However, Ethnic minorities from Ukraine — such as Crimean Tatars, Roma, Koreans (Koryo‑saram), or others — are included in overall Ukrainian refugee figures, but the data isn’t disaggregated in racial or ethnic detail.
While working on a paper about In Our Shoes — a project that uses immersive roleplay to explore refugee experiences and my intervention case study — I had a thought-provoking exchange with my colleagues about the complexity of labelling, especially when it comes to Ukrainians displaced by the war.
We were discussing whether it’s appropriate to compare the Ukrainian experience to that of refugees from other regions, especially when cultural and racial contexts are so different. There was general agreement that while cultural proximity played a role in how some European countries responded to Ukrainian arrivals, it doesn’t mean Ukrainians were given special privileges. In fact, those perceived similarities often came with assumptions—assumptions that led to harmful stereotypes and a very conditional kind of support.
Our colleague wrote in the paper draft:
“This ‘refugee’ label in public discourse is also associated in Ukrainian communities with growing stigma and a reduced support that occurred shortly after the invasion. Initially, Ukrainians escaping the war were more welcome in many European countries and the US due to ethnicity and cultural proximity (De Coninck 2022, Kentmen-Cin 2025). As Mickelsson (2025) notes, “the Ukrainian refugee may be the most ‘deserving’ refugee in contemporary times, being predominantly White, female (and/or youth), perceived to be in need of protection and not as a security threat, all the while sharing cultural features with fellow Europeans”, a sentiment that was also shared by the US, as visible from De Coninck’s (2022) piece. These cultural overlaps did not give any privileges but rather created additional background for stereotypes regarding Ukrainians seeking protection. Moreover, after more diverse people outside of a stereotypical ‘perfect victim’ image fled from Ukraine, this support started to decrease after five months from the start of the full-scale invasion (Moise et al., 2024).”
I mentioned how, in many Ukrainian communities, the label “refugee” started to carry stigma. In the first months after the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians were widely welcomed in Europe and North America. But that welcoming attitude faded surprisingly fast — often just five or six months in. Some studies suggest that this initial reception was strongly tied to race and gender. As Mickelsson (2025) puts it, the Ukrainian refugee was seen as the “most deserving”: mostly white, female, young, culturally similar, and unlikely to be viewed as a security threat. De Coninck (2022) and Kentmen-Çin (2025) make similar points.
But using this quote from Mickelsson sparked a bit of disagreement. With my other colleagues, we raised a point: that framing is risky. When taken out of context, it can easily play into Russian propaganda or reinforce divisive tropes. A colleague specialised in migration suggested we focus instead on concepts like “ideal migrants” or “promising victimhood” — ways to talk about expectations without creating false hierarchies. I appreciated that perspective. It reminded me that even well-meant academic language can reinforce the wrong ideas if we’re not careful.
Another colleague shared a Swedish study showing how expectations of Ukrainian refugees were shaped by existing racial biases, especially in Nordic countries like Finland. Refugees from Ukraine were at first treated with more empathy, but that empathy came with conditions. Once Ukrainians arriving didn’t fit the expected “ideal” image, public support started to wane. Again, these weren’t privileges — they were projections, often tied to race and culture, that quickly turned into disappointments or even backlash.
In the end, we decided to revise the paragraph in question — or maybe remove it altogether. The draft is still in progress. Not because the topic isn’t important, but because it’s too easy to misinterpret. It’s one thing to talk about how race affects refugee perception; it’s another to accidentally reinforce the very systems we’re trying to unpack.
This whole exchange reminded me how crucial it is to remain reflexive, especially when we’re writing about something as politically charged and emotionally complex as displacement. No story about refugees exists outside of history, identity, and power. And as writers and researchers — especially those who share in that lived experience — we owe it to others to speak with care and clarity.
This case underscores how racialisation and the politics of perception shape refugee discourse. Even among communities facing active conflict and displacement, there is a risk of reproducing hierarchies that marginalise others. Scholars must therefore carefully contextualise claims, resist binary framings, and remain aware of how their work might be co-opted or misunderstood.
References:
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
De Coninck, D. (2022). Deserving and undeserving refugees: How European media constructed the Ukrainian refugee crisis.
Kentmen-Çin, C. (2025). Perceptions of Refugees in European Democracies: The Case of Ukrainian Displacement.
Mickelsson, R. (2025). The “Ideal Victim” and Whiteness in the Context of Ukrainian Refugees.
Moise, M. et al. (2024). Shifting Solidarities: Decline of Host Country Support Toward Ukrainian Refugees.
Social Work in Europe (2023). Attitudes Toward Ukrainian Refugees in Sweden. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691457.2023.2196375
