Weapons of Hybrid Wars

AWP has partnered with documentary photographer Wil Sands to produce a new body of work documenting the forced displacement of residents of Ukraine due to the war imposed by Russia’s invasion of the country. AWP first collaborated with Sands in 2016 on Waiting for Mother Russia – In Two Acts which addressed rising tensions between pro-Russian and pro-Western residents of Eastern Ukraine. For this new body of work, “Weapons of Hybrid Wars,” Sands’ draws to our attention a Europe that is currently facing two simultaneous and interwoven refugee crises on its eastern front.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced millions of people from their homes in one of the largest forced displacements in recent history. The global response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis has been uniquely defined by its solidarity, with many European countries welcoming Ukrainians. At the same time and just two hundred kilometers north of Ukraine, tens of thousands of refugees from wars across Africa and the Middle East cross into Europe from Belarus. It is the continuance of what some would describe as a manufactured refugee crisis that began in the summer of 2021. In stark contrast to the opening of borders for Ukrainian refugees, Poland and Lithuania have declared their border regions with Belarus: Exclusion Zones. If discovered, brown and black refugees are summarily detained and illegally pushed back to a hostile Belarus. Both those fleeing the war in Ukraine and those crossing into Europe from Belarus are
refugees from war. However European refugee policy does not afford both groups the same human rights.

In Weapons of Hybrid Wars, photographer Wil Sands documents this convergence of refugee crises along Europe’s eastern front. Through contrasting images of the lived reality along the borders with Ukraine and the situation in the Exclusion Zones, in refugee welcome centers and underground safe houses, and portraits of refugees on the move and in their new homes, Wil’s photography gives us a glimpse of the simultaneous yet disparate response to refugees seeking safety in Europe. This ongoing project seeks to contextualize the current situation within the broader history of European refugee policy.