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Melissa Harris-Perry: This is the takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. On Monday, delegates from Ukraine and Russia held talks in Belarus, amid Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Those talks are expected to continue in the coming days, but also expected to yield very little. Meanwhile, Russian forces face continued resistance from both the Ukrainian military and civilian population. The Pentagon told reporters, they believe Russia is "A few days behind where they expect it to be at this point."

As the invasion and resistance continue, hundreds of thousands are attempting to flee Ukraine. United Nations is predicting that as many as 4 million people could ultimately seek refuge outside of Ukraine if Russia continues this war. Amid this alarming displacement, the UN has urged neighboring countries to allow entry to those fleeing Ukraine. Here's UN High Commissioner for Refugees speaking late last week.

High Commissioner for Refugees: UNHR is also working with governments in neighboring countries, calling on them to keep borders open to those seeking safety and protection. We stand ready to support efforts by all, to respond to any situation of forced displacement.

Melissa Harris-Perry: For the most part, leaders in neighboring countries have been welcoming, but they've also drawn a sharp contrast between the predominantly white Ukrainian refugees and other refugees from African nations and the Middle East who sought entry into their nation in recent years. Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán whose stake much of his political career on xenophobic rhetoric and actions is now open to "letting everyone in from Ukraine."

According to the associated press, the president of Bulgaria recently said, "This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear past, who could have been even terrorists." In other words, there's not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees.

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A number of accounts have emerged on social media and in various news outlets, detailing discrimination experienced by people of African descent, as well as other people of color, trying to leave Ukraine. Some have accused white Ukrainian citizens and border agents of racism, forcing groups of Black and brown people to wait while white people board trains to the border. Others have said that border guards in neighboring nations have prevented them from entering.

Prior to the Russian invasion, thousands of students from Africa attended school in Ukraine, and while the exact numbers are not available, it's estimated that a few thousand Black Ukrainians live in major cities. How does race operate in Ukraine? How is it now affecting this growing refugee crisis? Joining me now is Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, PhD student, the University of Pennsylvania Department of History, studying race in Ukraine and Russia, and book review editor for H Net Ukraine. Kimberly, it is great to have you here.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: Thank you, and thank you for paying attention to this incredibly important issue right now.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about it. As we were chatting prior to coming on air, I was saying, I didn't know there was an Afro-Ukrainian population really until this moment. Tell me a bit about where this population comes from.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: It's a good point. I think this is a good way to counter fight this narrative that Ukraine is white. When we say things like that, we do ignore that Ukraine has a Afro-Ukrainian population and many of these students, and they're not students, they're citizens of Ukraine. Many of these people are descendants of African students who studied in Ukraine during the Soviet period from the '60s through the early '90s.

The Soviet union often welcomed students from decolonizing African countries. Some of the most popular places for them to study were in Ukraine, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa. The places that are currently under bombardment are actually still home to these Afro-Ukrainians. Moreover, Ukraine has continued to welcome African students and residents since the fall of the Soviet union. That's what we're seeing on this crisis at the border right now, hundreds to thousands of African students, we don't have a clear number, are trying to evacuate the country.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You were living and working in Ukraine as you were doing your research as US doctoral student. Talk to me about what you learned and experienced there.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: My research, my Master's thesis was on the famine in Ukraine in 1932-'33. In 2013, I was working in Kyiv and Odessa in the archives studying this. I literally was walking across the street and I saw another Black woman, and I just went up to her in rush, and I was like, "What are you doing here?" She asked me, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I study. I'm a student." She says, "Oh, I'm Ukrainian." That's how I learned in 2013 that there was this thing called Afro-Ukrainians.

It's a developing situation for them. It's been really interesting how a couple of Afro-Ukrainians have become national celebrities in Ukraine and international stars. Gaitana, who is a singer, she's Afro-Ukrainian. She represented Ukraine and Eurovision a few years ago. There were some uproar about her. People were saying that she couldn't represent Ukraine, although she is Afro-Ukrainian, she speaks Ukrainian as a first language, she lives in Ukraine.

Zhan Beleniuk, who is the Greco-Roman wrestler who won the gold medal in the summer Olympics for Ukraine. He's also a member of the Ukrainian parliament and he's Afro-Ukrainian. Ukrainian is his first language. He was famous in Ukraine when he won his gold medal because he did the Ukrainian national dance, but a week after that, he wrote on his Facebook page that he had been accosted, and they said something to the fact that, "I guess they'll let monkeys win medals." Racism towards Afro-Ukrainians still is a big issue in Ukraine because so often their Blackness means their slavicness is denied.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, in this moment, there are so many intersecting social, political, and historical questions emerging. Just to try to focus in on just this one piece at this moment, if one is both Black and Slavic, Afro and Ukrainian, or even if one is a more recent brown or Black immigrant into Ukraine, or possibly even a student who is simply studying there, do we know how that visible identifiable characteristic of Blackness is affecting that capacity to either resist, and this is crucial for those families and individuals trying to flee. What difference does race make in this moment?

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: That's a good point. Actually, I did an interview the day before the war started, and someone asked me about how this could affect Africans and Afro-Ukrainians. I said I was concerned because at the borders, they can be turned away, and unfortunately, that's exactly what is happening. When you are a visible minority, and I have experienced this, I have been in Bulgaria, I've been in Serbia, I've lived in Ukraine, you can't hide. The first thing people see when they see your Black or brown skin is immediately, you cannot be Ukrainian. You cannot be Bulgarian. You cannot be Polish.

What we're seeing at the border is a continuation of a lot of anti-Black and anti-brown policies that we've seen in Eastern Europe. We've seen these stories in Poland, we've seen these stories in Hungary. Just in December, there's a conflict on the Belarus and Polish border over Syrian refugees and not wanting to let them in. The Bulgarian PM's comments about these aren't our usual refugees. All of these are continuations of things we've seen in this part of the world for well over a decade.

I have seen some incredibly worrying reports, but I've also been in contact with African students and family members of African students. Although there have been some harrowing moments at the border, it seems a lot of them are able to get through. One of the most popular tweeters, he's an African student in Ukraine, he's been tweeting videos about what's been happening to them. He tweeted a video of them being accosted by the police near the border. He did say, once they got into Poland, everyone was really welcoming, gave them food, and he said, Ukrainians on the ground, on the Ukrainian side of the border were helping them.

I think you have this combination of the worst possible things. You have a diplomatic crisis at the border, you have chaos at the border, you have these 20-hour wait times, and all that is made worse by anti-Black and anti-brown racism. I'm hoping that the more attention we shed onto this means more attention at the border, and more bureaucracy is added to the border, and more accountability is happening at the border, so we aren't seeing these horrific videos anymore.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, of course, the moment of the border is only one moment in what is going to be a very long journey and undoubtedly painful separation from home nations for the Ukrainian people, undoubtedly for quite some time. One may be able to get into, for example, Poland or the other neighboring nations. I'm wondering what you know about the reception that Afro-Ukrainians may then experience.

Again, we heard this language of, "We're not afraid of this wave of refugees," but it certainly does shine a light on an indication that there is either a fear or loathing or fear and loathing of those other waves of refugees who clearly have been Black and brown people also fleeing this disruption and violence in their own countries.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: Absolutely. I think if we just look to the recent past few years, particularly in Poland and Hungary, with their treatment of Syrian refugees but also of African students in residents in those countries, it does not bode well. I will say that upfront. This is why when people turn to Eastern Europe, it's really hard to lump them all together because Ukraine has been much more welcoming of these Black and brown students than Poland and Hungary.

When you see them fleeing, they will have to live in these countries or use these countries to transit elsewhere. This is going to be a month-long process. The question is, who will accept them, because we also have the problem of African countries being seriously underrepresented in terms of consulate and embassy representation in Eastern Europe. For example, Kenya's nearest consulate is either in Austria or in Germany, which is thousands of miles away from Ukraine.

I think we're going to need some help from Western international organizations to help take care of these refugees because we can't necessarily entrust that Polish and Hungarian representatives at the border will change their behavior from what we've been seeing for the past few months with Syrian refugees.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Can you remind folks who are maybe not as globally traveled why it matters where the consulate is?

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: Yes, I've had the unfortunate reason to have to leave a country. The consulate's very important because if anything happens to you or something happens in the country and you need to leave the country, the consulate is usually your first contact to being able to get an emergency flight or emergency transportation or just being able to get information back to your family.

If you are an African student from Kenya and you are in Kyiv, if your nearest contact is in Austria or in Germany, it's nearly impossible to reach your consulate. You have to have a phone call. That means you have to find the numbers, but also this is extreme long-distance calling. Students may not have the money or the phones to do that. You don't have an immediate contact that can help you, but also you don't have contacts that can put diplomatic pressure on Ukrainian border controls or Polish border controls. Just having that diplomatic presence is beneficial for citizens of other countries.

Melissa Harris-Perry: In a moment like this, I think there's value in and maybe even a desire to do outrage journalism. There's plenty to be outraged about, about what is happening in Ukraine right now. I also want to be careful that even as we spotlight these realities of racial inequity, that we do more than be outraged. I guess part of what I'm wondering, this is just to root this question in your own experience and research, is there a possibility, is it maybe the case that we will emerge on some perhaps distant other side of this with a better appreciation for the ways that race intersects with our understanding of refugee crisis and of responsibility to our neighboring nations?

That in part seeing how Eastern Europe is responding to a Ukrainian crisis might help us do better with our own, for example, Southern neighbors or Caribbean neighbors, to understand that in fact where folks are coming across this long journey to find themselves at the Southern border of the US, that they like these Ukrainian refugees going west are fleeing and need refuge?

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: Absolutely. I think that's an excellent point. Also, we have to remember in Ukraine, you have Afghan refugees and Syrian refugees, political refugees from China who all are in Ukraine who now are having to be refugees again, whose lives are being torn apart again. We have to really see what's happening on these borders and also understand these are global migration crises that will continue.

Especially in the United States, for example, we can lead the way and set an example on how refugees from all countries should be treated despite color, or despite where they come from, or their political opportunities, or the embassies that they have, because these are crises that will continue. Particularly after this war is over or depending on how long this war lasts, we might also see a a migration crisis out of Russia. We need to be prepared and we need to set an example for how to treat these people.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania Department of History and book review editor for H Net Ukraine. Thank you so much, Kimberly.

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon: Thank you.

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