Weaponizing Movement: NATO’s Migration Narratives of Syrian and Ukrainian Refugees
Posted under: Inmaculada Cepeda De La Cruz, Webster University – Saint Louis
Weaponizing Movement: NATO’s Migration Narratives of Syrian and Ukrainian Refugees
This paper examines NATO’s contrasting framings of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 and the Ukrainian refugee crisis after Russia’s 2022 invasion. While both crises generated mass displacement, NATO portrayed Syrian refugees primarily through a securitized lens, emphasizing border protection, terrorism, and perceived threats to European stability. This discourse contributed to racialized humanitarianism that positioned Syrians (largely Muslim and non-European) as foreign and potentially dangerous. In contrast, Ukrainian refugees were framed as European, democratic, and aligned with Western values, prompting rapid humanitarian mobilization and political solidarity. The paper argues that these divergent responses reflect both racialized perceptions and shifting geopolitical interests following Russia’s increasing aggression after 2014. Through analysis of NATO statements, media narratives, and policy actions, the study highlights how migration can be weaponized in political discourse and calls for reforms that center refugee voices, expand legal protections, and challenge selective humanitarianism.
I was thirteen years old when one of the largest migration movements since World War II occurred: the massive wave of Syrian refugees in 2015. That year remains vivid in the collective memory of all Europeans, not only for the polarized debates it sparked, but also for the racialized legacies it left behind. The 2015 refugee crisis marked a turning point in European politics, influencing how migration has been framed and politicized ever since. In the following years, Europe witnessed a sharp rise in anti-migrant sentiment, Islamophobia, and the widespread use of far-right politics. The surge of parties like Spain’s Vox, Italy’s Lega, and France’s Rassemblement National, often driven by xenophobic and anti-Muslim rhetoric, reflected a deeper societal backlash against refugees. Behind these discourses, a great truth loomed: current conversations about migration revolve less around human lives and more around power.
Seven years later, another war shook the European continent. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a new refugee crisis, comparable in magnitude but profoundly different in its treatment. According to the latest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statistics (2025), the number of refugees from Ukraine registered worldwide has reached 6.5 million, making this situation one of the largest displacement crises of the century. Notably, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) framed this humanitarian crisis in a completely different way than it had approached the Syrian crisis. NATO framed the Syrian refugee crisis as a security threat, focusing on border control, terrorism, and instability. Syrian refugees were often portrayed as a burden, potential security risks, and were racially and religiously stereotyped. Yet discourse surrounding Ukraine’s refugees defined them as a humanitarian imperative. NATO viewed Ukrainians as victims of Russian aggression, highlighting their European identity and aligning their struggle with Western ideals of democracy and freedom. By exposing these discursive disparities, this paper seeks to answer a central question: Why were the Ukrainian and Syrian refugee crises framed differently by NATO and its member states?
I argue that NATO’s discourse around Syrian and Ukrainian refugees diverged sharply due to racialized perceptions and post-2014 geopolitical interests in countering Russia. I define racialized perceptions as how ethnicity, religion, and culture shape how refugees are viewed. While Syrian refugees were often portrayed through a lens of fear and foreignness (colored by their ethnicity, religion, and cultural difference), Ukrainian refugees were embraced as familiar, European, and politically aligned. In this way, migration is a political tool where NATO exposes a biopolitical logic that racializes humanitarianism, delineating who is protected and who is securitized based on Eurocentric and ideological constructs of identity and threat.
Meanwhile, I define geopolitical interests as NATO’s strategic interest in countering Russia influenced its response to the crises differently. Before 2014, NATO’s approach to crises was more focused on broad peacekeeping and regional stability, with a certain degree of cooperation with Russia. However, after the 2014 Crimea event and subsequent tensions, NATO’s strategic interest in countering Russia became central in its policies and discourse. In the case of Syria, Russia’s 2015 military intervention in support of the Assad regime made it a central geopolitical actor driving the conflict. Russia’s strategic objective to preserve its influence in the region, particularly through military presence, directly contributed to the conditions fueling mass migration. Although NATO did not directly frame Russia as the cause of the Syrian refugee crisis, its strategic silence reflects a geopolitical logic: Russia was already a geopolitical rival, but NATO avoided open confrontation in Syria to prevent escalation – unlike in Ukraine, where it leveraged the refugee crisis to frame Russia as a clear threat. In the Ukraine refugee wave, NATO shifted its discourse to emphasize Russian aggression, sovereignty, and the defense of democratic values. It positioned Ukraine not just as a humanitarian concern, but as a frontline in the confrontation with Russia.
The paper is structured around two main case studies: the Syrian and Ukrainian refugee crises. The analysis draws from key primary sources, including official NATO discourse, to demonstrate how these framings reflect deeper rationalization perceptions and geopolitical strategies. This paper offers a critical lens through which to view current debates on migration, as well as necessary policy changes. While it is valid, and even necessary, for societies to debate the limits of refugee and migrant absorption, these conversations have too often been distorted by the political instrumentalization of migration. Examining how this discourse has become polarized and biased is essential for understanding security at its core. All human beings deserve a home where they feel safe and can flourish. In short, I urge the reader to reclaim this migration debate – one rooted not in power, but in people.
2015: Syrian’s Refugee Wave
The Syrian Civil War began in 2011 as a domestic uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime and quickly escalated into a complex proxy war involving multiple state and non-state actors. Russia’s direct military intervention in 2015 served to secure its strategic military interests in the region, particularly the naval facility in Tartus and the airbase in Latakia, while simultaneously challenging NATO’s influence in the Eastern Mediterranean (Bryjka, 2025). For that reason, this intervention in support of Assad marked a turning point – not only in the conflict itself, but in the global geopolitical landscape (Trenin, 2018). Crucially, this escalation occurred just one year after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, an event that profoundly reshaped NATO’s threat perception. The annexation signaled a more assertive Russian foreign policy and intensified NATO’s efforts to reinforce its eastern flank and counter Russian expansionism (Sarotte, 2014; Rynning & Olsen, 2024). In this tense geopolitical context, Russia’s growing presence in Syria was viewed not simply as regional involvement, but as part of a broader challenge to the Western-led international order (Trenin, 2018). The massive wave of Syrian refugees that followed was thus not only seen as a humanitarian crisis but increasingly interpreted through a security lens. NATO officials began framing the migration flows as potential instruments of Russian hybrid warfare: deliberate tools to destabilize Europe (European Parliament, 2018). This framing served to align humanitarian concerns with NATO’s renewed geopolitical focus on Russia, effectively racializing and securitizing the crisis in ways that justified stricter border policies and reinforced internal cohesion against a common external threat.
“Economic immigrant,” “migrant wave,” “invasion,” “crisis,” or even “flood” were some of the terms frequently used by European media and politicians to describe the forcibly displaced in 2015. That same year marked one of the deadliest phases of Syria’s ongoing civil war. By the end of 2015, the death toll had surpassed 250,000 – over 100,000 of them civilians (Human Rights Watch, 2016c). According to the Syrian Center for Policy Research (2015), 11.5% of the population inside Syria had been killed or injured due to the conflict. Airstrikes indiscriminately hit markets, schools, and hospitals. Extreme poverty engulfed 69.3% of the population, and nearly half of school-age children were unable to attend school. These were not economic opportunists – these were people running from war, destruction, and hunger. By the end of that year, 45% of Syrians had been forcibly displaced, seeking safer conditions within and beyond their borders. Over 440,000 Syrians attempted to reach Europe by sea in search of refuge (Syrian Center for Policy Research, 2016). According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2015), 3,771 immigrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 – though this number only reflects known cases, and countless others likely perished unnoticed.
And yet instead of solidarity, many European states and their allies responded with suspicion and hostility. Philip M. Breedlove (2016), NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), addressed the issue of Russian involvement in Syria during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on March 1, 2016. He claimed that Russia had done little to counter ISIL, an organization he described as “spreading like a cancer” and warned of its expanding influence across the United States European Command (EUCOM) area. At the time, he referred to Syrian refugees not as victims of war but as “economic migrants,” further claiming that their displacement was a deliberate strategy by Russia and its allies as a political weapon (Breedlove, 2016). He stated: “Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve” (Breedlove, 2016). Portraying refugees as threats rather than as people in need serves not only to shift public perception, but also to strategically advance NATO’s geopolitical agenda by casting Russia as a destabilizing actor on the global stage.
Many other leaders of NATO states contributed to incentivizing this objectification of migrants. For instance, British Prime Minister David Cameron told the UK Parliament in June 2015: “The vast majority of people setting off into the Mediterranean are not asylum seekers, but seeking a better life” (quoted in Mepham, 2015). By framing these individuals as primarily economic migrants rather than refugees fleeing war and persecution, Cameron provided no evidence to substantiate this claim (Mepham, 2015). Similarly, in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, British politician Nigel Farage unveiled a poster titled “Breaking Point,” featuring Syrian refugees at the Croatia-Slovenia border with the slogan: “The EU has failed us all” (BBC News, 2019). Far-right groups continuously embraced and weaponized dehumanizing narratives to foster enduring hostility toward migrants, particularly Muslims. Silvia Orriols (2023), president of the far-right ultranationalist political party Catalan Alliance (Aliança Catalana) in Spain, stated: “Allowing a massive influx of Muslim immigrants is a mistake that we could pay dearly for because essentially Muslims do not recognize European democracies or our civil laws.”
Although this study is primarily focused on discourse, we must also consider the significant policies implemented by NATO and its member states in response to migration. One of the most notable actions was the EU-Turkey Deal in 2016, which effectively externalized border control by the containment of refugees to a non-EU country in return for financial and political incentives (Council of the European Union, 2016). Although the deal was not directly initiated by NATO, it aligns with NATO’s broader strategic goals of minimizing instability within member states and strengthening border security to maintain regional order. Additionally, NATO launched maritime patrol operations in the Aegean Sea, formally aimed at combating human trafficking, but in practice acting as a deterrent to migration (Human Rights Watch, 2016b). Many human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have criticized these policies for undermining refugee protection, allowing Turkey to return refugees to unsafe conditions (Human Rights Watch, 2016a).
The discourse surrounding Syrian refugees not only dehumanized those seeking refuge, but also aligned with broader security concerns and illustrated how migration can be weaponized in geopolitical struggles. These factors developed a racialized humanitarianism, where Syrian refugees were treated according to their race. As we move forward to analyze NATO’s response to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, see how similar security-driven narratives and policy approaches play out differently – raising questions about consistency, priorities, and the protection of human rights within NATO’s strategic framework.
2022: Ukraine’s Refugee Wave
A few months after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO issued a declaration titled “Standing with Ukraine.” In this document, NATO stated 18 clear points that emphasizes NATO’s commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty, democracy, and territorial integrity. It condemns Russia’s aggression, war crimes, and violations of international law, while stressing the need for accountability for those responsible. NATO stipulates: “Recognizing that, with its aggression against Ukraine, Russia seeks to crush Ukraine’s democracy, intimidate other sovereign and democratic countries and, by extension, undermine the values that are fundamental to NATO and the entire democratic, civilized and peaceful world” (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2022). This democratic framing of the conflict was echoed by political leaders such as United States President Joe Biden, who declared that the war in Ukraine was a fight for democracy itself and called the conflict “a battle between democracy and autocracy” (White House, 2022). Across Europe, media narratives further reinforced this sentiment through headlines like “Our European neighbors” and “Refugees fleeing war,” or by spotlighting the plight of women and children.
Context matters for understanding how the war in Ukraine was framed in a humanitarian context. The roots of the conflict in Ukraine can be traced back to a complex web of historical, political, and geopolitical tensions that intersect directly with NATO affairs. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent state. Over the following decades, Ukraine’s aspirations toward Euro-Atlantic integration, particularly its interest in joining NATO and the EU, created friction with Russia (which views NATO expansion near its borders as a direct threat to its sphere of influence) (Mearsheimer, 2014). NATO’s view of Ukraine was largely pragmatic: maintaining stability, nuclear disarmament, and reducing Russian influence (Rynning & Olsen, 2024). The Orange Revolution marked a major shift in Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy trajectory. This pro-democracy movement emerged in response to election fraud and signaled Ukraine’s shift toward Western values, sparking unease in Moscow. Nevertheless, the main turning point in Ukraine-Russia relations and NATO-Russia dynamics was the 2013/2014 Euromaidan protests, when Ukrainians protested corruption and abuses of power connected to Russia (Strycharz, 2022). After these events, the annexation of Crimea took place in 2014 – an event that would fundamentally reshape the post-Cold War security order and ignite the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War (Mearsheimer, 2014). In the years that followed, Eastern Ukraine descended into a conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region, keeping tensions high and fueling NATO’s concerns about further Russian aggression. Diplomatic efforts failed to resolve the crisis despite intermittent ceasefires, and military buildups along the border signaled a growing threat. This culminated in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, plunging Europe into its largest war in decades (Mankoff, 2022).
The invasion of Ukraine caused the fastest-growing displacement crisis since World War II. That year alone, the United Nations recorded over 12,600 civilian casualties (5,385 killed and 7,264 injured) because of Russia’s full-scale invasion (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025). The war tore through the country’s infrastructure: 252 medical facilities, 384 educational institutions, and 90 places of worship were either severely damaged or destroyed (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025). But beyond the numbers, the civilian population endured systemic violations of human rights. Reports documented arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and sexual violence tied to the conflict. By the end of 2022, nearly one-third of Ukraine’s population had been forced to flee their homes. While approximately 5.9 million people remained displaced within the country, another 5.7 million refugees and asylum-seekers were recorded across Europe, 87% of them women and children (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025).
NATO and other states were quick to highlight the urgent humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to one of the largest humanitarian aid responses in recent history. Ukraine received unprecedented levels of humanitarian, military, and financial support from NATO members and EU states. The response was rapid; neighboring countries opened their borders, and the EU activated the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time. Just five days after the war began in February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched a three-month Flash Appeal, seeking USD $1.7 billion. Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Ukraine amounted to USD 16.1 billion, with USD 1.8 billion specifically allocated for humanitarian aid (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2023).
With this aid to Ukraine, NATO members championed their commitment to humanitarianism, positioning themselves as defenders of democracy and human rights – in contrast to their response to the Syrian crisis, where the Western response was not nearly as committed or coordinated even though displacement numbers were comparable or even higher. In 2015, the United Nations and its partners launched a major humanitarian and development appeal, requesting over USD $8.4 billion to assist nearly 18 million people in Syria and neighboring countries (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2014). A central component of this plan was the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), which required USD $4.53 billion for programs led by UN agencies and non-governmental organizations. However, by the end of May 2015, only USD $1.06 billion – just 23% of the needed funds – had been received, leaving a significant shortfall of approximately USD $3.47 billion (Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, 2016).
This selective humanitarian engagement displayed by NATO and its member states reveals underlying racial and geopolitical biases. The contrast between the compassionate and urgent discourse surrounding Ukrainian refugees and the securitized framing of Syrian refugees exposes a racialized hierarchy of humanitarian worth. Had Syrians been white Europeans, it is likely that their displacement would have been framed as a humanitarian emergency, prompting immediate solidarity and intervention from the international community, including NATO, since they are framed as being “just like us” (Sigona, 2014). Moreover, I argue that this racialized framing was further intensified by the geopolitical opportunity to portray Russia as a clear antagonist. The humanitarian spotlight on Ukraine is inseparable from NATO’s strategic interest in countering Russian aggression. One must ask: Would Ukraine have received the same level of global attention and empathy if the perpetrator had not been Russia? This question reveals how humanitarian narratives are often shaped not only by racialized perceptions of victims, but also by the geopolitical value of the crisis itself. Therefore, any analysis of contemporary humanitarianism must confront this intersection of racial and geopolitical lenses, which determines who is deemed worthy of protection – and why.
Policy to combat racialist humanitarianism
What can be done? The first step is to recognize how different framings of refugee crises significantly shape not only the policies implemented, but also the broader processes of refugee adaptation, acceptance, and integration. Racialized humanitarianism results in deaths along migration routes and fosters xenophobic rhetoric and violence within host countries. That is why it is essential to first acknowledge how these narratives are constructed and to critically examine the logic behind them to dismantle their influence. We must highlight and hold accountable the humanitarian implications of these discourses. For instance, summits and conferences should center specifically on unpacking these dynamics and must include multi-stakeholder participation to ensure legitimacy and strengthen impact – including state actors, international organizations, NGOs, academia, and most importantly, refugees themselves. These spaces should amplify the personal experiences of refugees, giving them agency to actively shape the narratives surrounding their lives. While such forums may not result in binding legal outcomes or immediate policy changes, they can elevate these issues on international agendas, and embrace diverse frameworks that challenge discriminatory humanitarian practices. At its core, this is where the system is failing: lack of space to promote a critical and diverse debate about immigration.
Beyond raising awareness and fostering dialogue, there is also a pressing need for more concrete, binding policies that challenge racialized humanitarian discourse and propose alternative mechanisms to dismantle it altogether. There are many organizations and scholars looking at this problem, yet this critical work is often overlooked by policymakers or made inaccessible outside of Western academic circles. Grants to facilitate translation and publication support, for instance, could make information more accessible and include more researchers from the Global South who are often underrepresented in debates. Solution-seeking that prioritizes bridging the gap between knowledge production and policy making is necessary for enriching public discourse and challenging dominant narratives. Governments and international organizations should regularly host parliamentary hearings, expert roundtables, and policy dialogues that give space for scholarly findings to be directly presented to decision-makers. Institutionalizing these channels of dialogue would help ensure that humanitarian policy is informed by reliable data and held accountable to the lived experiences of the displaced.
It is imperative to fund and support refugee-led initiatives. These organizations are uniquely positioned to identify the blind spots in aid systems and advocate for tangible solutions. Providing direct funding, platform visibility, and institutional access to refugee-led groups would not only amplify underrepresented voices, but also shift the power dynamics that often define humanitarian response. Supporting these actors is not just a gesture of inclusion; it is a necessary step toward dismantling the structural racism in current aid practices.
However, racialized narratives are not the only factor shaping humanitarian responses to refugee crises and it is therefore important to consider policy recommendations. When it is politically useful, as in Ukraine, refugees are humanized to serve strategic goals. When it is not, as in Syria, dehumanization becomes a convenient tool to justify inaction. For this reason, overlooking the influence of geopolitical interests on refugee policy discourse is a major policy mistake. One of the most crucial policy recommendations is the revision and expansion of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which remains the cornerstone of international refugee protection. While the Convention was a groundbreaking legal instrument in the aftermath of World War II, its definition of a refugee has become increasingly outdated in light of twenty-first century realities. According to Article 1(A)(2) of the Convention, a refugee is defined as someone who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,” is outside their country of origin and unable or unwilling to return (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1951). This definition, while protective in its time, is highly individualized and narrowly focused on persecution, failing to address broader causes of forced displacement that are now increasingly common. These include war-induced state collapse, climate change, generalized violence, gang threats, poverty-induced displacement, and statelessness – all situations in which individuals may not be able to claim “targeted persecution,” but still face life-threatening conditions and complete lack of state protection. As a result, millions of people in “refugee-like” situations are left outside the legal framework of protection. This legal void makes them especially vulnerable to instrumentalization; used as political bargaining chips, border control tools, or security threats in broader geopolitical strategies. Without legal recognition, these displaced individuals become easy targets for exclusionary policies and dehumanizing narratives, as seen in the differential treatment of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees. Filling the gaps in current binding humanitarian norms is therefore a step forward in preventing the use of migrants as geopolitical tools.
There are many other policy recommendations that could, and should, be proposed. However, all of these are just small steps toward addressing the core of the problem. Most of the policies outlined in this paper are prevention oriented. I have not delved deeply into how to respond to the ongoing harm caused by racialized humanitarianism, including the rise of right-wing populism that embraces racist narratives, the refugees who have been denied their rights, those who live in persistent exclusion, and those who continue to lose their lives while trying to find safety. Despite this paper’s limitations, I want to raise my voice to call for urgent short-term policies that directly address the suffering of refugees in NATO member states. The discourse that shaped the response to the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015 still casts a long shadow. Its legacies continue to justify neglect, exclusion, and violence. We need policy action now to offer protection, recognition, and dignity to those who have already been harmed by this racial logic. Because trying to find a better life is not a crime. Because migration is not a crime. Because criminality is defined by actions, not by origin or movement. Because no matter how much these discourses try to obscure it, debates about migration have always been and always will be about people.
Conclusion
I look back at thirteen-year-old Inma, watching the news filled with sensationalist headlines about “illegal immigrants” from Syria. For a time, I unknowingly absorbed and echoed the narratives of racial humanitarianism that were imposed on me. Until, at eighteen, I migrated alone to the United States and began to encounter stories that stretched far beyond my own borders – at the same time, I became an immigrant myself. I have been an immigrant for five years, facing multiple difficulties that thousands of Americans could not even consider. But I entered the United States by plane, with a passport, a university acceptance letter, and a language already familiar to the system. I was granted the benefit of the doubt. I was seen as deserving. This is the invisible line that separates how we treat those who flee war and hunger from those who arrive with privilege tucked in their documentation. Through this journey, I have come to understand that migration is not a crisis, it is a human experience shaped by systems that decide who is welcome and who is not. That decision is not based on need, but on power, race, and politics.
As I have argued throughout this paper, it is in our hands to reclaim that power – to steer the immigration debate back to what it should be: a conversation about people. Today, immigration is often treated as a taboo subject, yet migration has always been a part of human history. What has changed is the political weight it carries; it has become a matter of power. Raising different frameworks to understand the immigration crisis is not only valid, but necessary. However, it is equally important to question why certain narratives receive more media attention and political endorsement. The sophistication of policies is rooted in how to confront such narratives. Silencing uncomfortable conversations is not the path toward reconciliation. Instead, the international community must come together to fill the gaps in the current humanitarian framework, creating mechanisms that amplify the voices of refugees, support academic research, and uplift grassroots movements.
NATO and its allies must critically revise their approach. Beneath the surface, policies framed as humanitarian uphold a strategy that risks undermining the very values NATO claims to represent: democracy, freedom, and solidarity. If the alliance truly aspires to uphold these principles, it must stop instrumentalizing human suffering for geopolitical ends and begin building frameworks grounded in universal dignity, not selective interest. Anything less is not humanitarianism, it is control disguised as care. Reimagining our frameworks is not idealistic; it is urgent. It means revisiting outdated legal definitions that no longer reflect the complexity of today’s displacement. It means ensuring that refugees are not just passive recipients of protection but active participants in shaping the systems that affect their lives. It means confronting the geopolitical interests that decide which lives are worthy of safety and which are disposable. With collective action, critical inquiry, and moral courage, we can reshape this narrative. We can build a world where no one is deemed illegal simply for seeking dignity, and where no one is silenced by the systems meant to protect them. Because no one should have to prove their humanity to be protected.
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