Radio Liberty released the film “Mariupol to Athens,” made by students of Boris Nemtsov’s Summer School of Journalism.

Since the end of February, following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, some 20,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Greece. Many Ukrainians have relatives in Athens – before the war there was a large Greek community in the Donetsk region, about 20,000 ethnic Greeks lived in Mariupol. 

Locals in Athens are sympathetic to the refugees. At the same time, pro-Russian sentiments are strong in Greece, both among Pontic Greeks who arrived in the 1990s from the former Soviet Union and among anti-Western communists and supporters of other leftist movements. 

A “rally against Russophobia” organized by Pontic Greeks in downtown Athens angered Ukrainians who had fled cities devastated by Russian troops.