Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, 8.3 million refugees from Ukraine have been officially recorded across Europe (“Ukraine Data Explorer”). During only the first week of the war 1 million refugees were registered in neighbouring countries, while 3 million sought refuge outside Ukraine in the first three weeks of the invasion, which made this exodus one of the fastest since the Second World War (Garcés Mascareñas; “1 Million Refugees”). It is also the largest displacement of European citizens since the Second World War (ECB), and it prompted the EU to activate the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time since it was passed in 2001. The activation of this directive, which stems from the EU’s concerns about those displaced during the Balkan wars of the 1990s (EUR-Lex), was the official seal of the immediate welcoming response with which Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, had been received not only in bordering European countries, but across Europe. As has been observed, such a response is in line with how the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1967 Protocol that lifted the Convention’s temporal and spatial restrictions, should theoretically work for the international protection of refugees, with nation-states offering hospitality and refuge to those suffering persecution elsewhere. However, this ideal response to the Ukrainian crisis is in sharp contrast with the reality on the ground, where discriminatory and violently hostile border controls against Asian, African, and Caribbean residents in Ukraine who were also trying to flee the country were denounced during the first days of the crisis (Akinwotu and Strzyżyńska; Ferris-Rottman). The racism and hostility against refugees of colour from Ukraine echoed the “crisis of solidarity” unfolding on European soil since the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015/2016.