How the right wing in US, Europe is weaponizing murders of Ukrainian refugees
Iryna Zarutska and her family fled Ukraine in 2022 to escape the threat of Russia’s full-scale war against her homeland, seeking safety and the promise of a new life in the United States. But that hope was shattered when she was brutally murdered in August on public transit in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Decarlos Brown Jr., a homeless man with a history of violent crime and mental health issues, was taken into custody shortly after the unprovoked attack and charged with first-degree murder. Leading up to Zarutska’s killing, he had been arrested at least 14 times over the past decade.
The video of Zarutska’s murder has since gone viral, fueling an ongoing debate about crackdown on violent crime in the U.S.
Right-wing figures across the U.S. and Europe are now exploiting Zarutska and other Ukrainian refugees’ tragic stories not to promote wartime aid for Ukraine but to stoke fear and push racist, xenophobic policies at home.
"In the U.S. media, the murder of young, attractive, white women often generates mass coverage,” Michael Socolow, a professor specializing in the study of media at the University of Maine, told the Kyiv Independent.
“In this case, though, the right-wing media is seizing on the story, and amplifying it, because it exacerbates racial tensions while seemingly offering a justification for (U.S.) President Donald Trump's plan to deploy the National Guard in American cities."
Trump declared on Sept. 8 in relation to Zarutska’s murder that “we won’t have a country” if authorities “don’t deal with (crime).”
Since beginning his second term, Trump has orchestrated a military takeover of the police in Washington, D.C. in the name of “public safety” and also suggested that similar measures could be deployed in other cities, including Chicago, raising serious questions about the use of federal power and the boundaries of executive authority.
Under the Trump administration, immigration law enforcement has also escalated, occasionally resulting in the detention of legal immigrants. Ukrainian refugees have been among those impacted — in early March, a Ukrainian man who was legally residing in the U.S. died while in custody at a Florida detention center.
In a public statement, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles underscored the systemic failures of the U.S. social safety net that led to a mentally ill, repeat criminal offender being able to roam the streets freely, ultimately enabling this tragedy to occur.
“We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illness and are allowed to be on the streets,” Lyles wrote.
Yet, the fact that Zarutska’s murderer is Black has also been repeatedly seized upon by right-wing influencers, who appear intent on using it to exploit existing racial tensions in the U.S.
These influencers are often the very same who “support (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and believe the U.S. shouldn't help protect Ukraine from an unprovoked invasion,” Socolow noted.
U.S. right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, who has called for the recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and blamed U.S. leadership for “turning Putin into an enemy,” is among those pushing the notion that Zarutska's murder is somehow receiving less media attention because her killer is Black.
Right-wing influencer Lilly Gaddis, who has previously declared “f**k Ukraine” and said that Russia’s full-scale war was among the issues meant to distract the U.S. public from “Jewish supremacy and the occupation of our country” also paradoxically called for people to “remember Zarutska,” adding that her death was “another senseless murder of a white woman by a Black man who should have been behind bars.”
Trump’s supporters have repeatedly called him a “president of peace” and even gone as far to declare that he deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize. During the presidential campaign, he promised to deliver an end to the war in Ukraine within “24 hours” of becoming president — a promise that remains unfulfilled more than half a year into his second term.
Instead, in mid-August, Trump rolled out a red carpet welcome for Putin during his first visit to the U.S. in more than a decade. Since then, Russia has only intensified attacks against Ukraine, making it likely that more families like Zarutska’s will be forced to flee abroad in the coming weeks and months.
Among the roughly seven million Ukrainians who have left the country since the full-scale invasion, Zarutska is not the only one whose search for safety ended in tragedy. In late August, Liana K., a 16-year-old girl from Mariupol — a Ukrainian city now under Russian occupation — was fatally pushed onto train tracks in Germany by a drunk 31-year-old Iraqi man who had a pending deportation order.
Liana’s family turned to the far-right German political party AfD — the very same one that has called for cutting benefits for Ukrainian refugees — for help after her murder.
“I didn’t care which party listened to my concerns. The AfD opened the door for me, listened to me, took my concerns seriously, and continues to support us to this day,” Liana’s mother told conservative German media outlet Junge Freiheit.
“At first I thought the perpetrator would now receive his punishment. But I’m afraid he’ll avoid it by claiming mental illness.”
As partisan bickering diverts focus from bolstering Ukraine’s war effort, Socolow warns there’s another clear beneficiary beyond right-wing agendas in the U.S. and Europe — and that’s Russia.
“That doesn't make these news stories any less tragic or horrific, but it does mean it's likely that on X, bots are being used to amplify and sensationalize stories that seemingly justify harsher policies,” Socolow explained.
“These stories make (the U.S. and Europe) look dangerous and violent, especially for white people, and that's a message that Putin would like to see widely distributed.”
Note from the author:
Kate Tsurkan here—thank you for reading my latest article. As an American living in Ukraine, I find it deeply troubling to see the far right exploiting the murder of a refugee from the very country they oppose supporting with military aid. Conversations about tragedies like this must be approached with respect for the victims, not used as political leverage. If you like reading about this sort of thing, please consider supporting The Kyiv Independent.
