Blue-eyed getting killed: Western pundits use racist tropes on Ukraine war

Medics gather by a high-rise apartment block which was hit by recent shelling in Kiev on February 26, 2022. (Photo by AFP)

As conflict rages on in Ukraine, some Western media pundits are employing racist tropes to express sorrow over “blue-eyed” and “blondes” getting killed in a European country that is so unlike “Iraq and Afghanistan.”

CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata, who was broadcasting live from Kiev on Friday, expressed shock that war was unfolding in Eastern Europe, suggesting that Ukraine was more “civilized” than Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies have left a trail of death and destruction.

Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” he said, adding, “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

An analyst appearing on BBC also said the Ukraine matter "is very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.”

“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed,” he said. 

The expression of shock and dismay comes as these pundits mostly kept silent as the US and its NATO allies invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretexts in the early 2000s.

The war and occupation in those countries resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of millions of others.