I think 'recognition' is a bit too abstract. I think two big 'philosophical' forces are at work here: 1. What is a 'liberal democracy' and who is entitled to it? 2. A term I created called "socio-spatial marginalization"; the displacement of a minority of people under the Modern concept of a 'state'.

The Democratic party in the U.S. is set on promoting 'liberal democracy' around the world while countries like Russia and China disagree and equate it with American Empire. America sees the Middle East and other parts of the world as incompatible with 'liberal democracy' and instead try to impose puppet regimes that are at least friendly to the U.S.. The U.S. wants many former soviet block countries to come over to the 'liberal democracy' side. This is the difference between Ukraine and Syria. Philosophically one could argue what 'liberal democracy' means, and who is entitled to it. There is a good series of YouTube videos showing Alexandr Dugin debating people like Antony Blinken against liberal democracy.

The second way to understand what is going on, from a philosophical point of view is 'socio-spatial marginalization'. I wrote a Medium story about how this works around race in the U.S. but it also applies to the displacement of Ukrainians today. See here: https://jaime-roberts.medium.com/the-lie-of-systemic-racism-the-technology-of-socio-spatial-marginalization-ce902251524