This is a very admirable nuanced take on a situation that is very difficult to think about in a nuanced way because of how the immense tragedy triggers one's emotions.

I would just add that I think that although there is some truth to the it's-bigger-news-because-it's-white, there are other reasons why it's also bigger news.

First, it could end human civilization as we know it. That's outrageously important. There's a hot war at the edge of NATO, with potential for two sides that still have many hundreds of nuclear weapons to start actually fighting. The West is being very restrained but...what if...just...what if it's not enough? As tragic as the conflicts in Yemen, Ethiopia, Myanmar, etc., are, they are local. They cannot "destroy the world".

Second, Ukraine is "civilized". Not because they're white, but because they're modern--full-stack developers working on cryptocurrency web portals sip lattes at cafes...and...now are fleeing a barbaric onslaught, without water, power, food; or are fighting a desperate battle against immense forces. What. The. Heck. We were supposed to be too civilized for this. We were supposed to be too wise, too busy trading with each other, too moral. That this could happen was, for many people (including Ukrainians!), unthinkable. Yemen, Ethopia, Myanmar, etc., had not yet reached the status of "civilized" (roughly speaking, where a sizable fraction of the population can afford to care about the distinction between a latte and a cappuccino).

So, I'm pretty sure some of it is whiteness. But a lot of it is not. A lot of it is existential threat, both to our literal lives, and to the idea shared not just among whites but among practically everyone living in the modern world that this time, at last, "modern" means that we really have left our barbaric ways behind. Except...we haven't.

I would expect that the coverage if China had invaded Taiwan to be no less all-encompassing, no less filled with horror about what the Taiwanese were suffering. Surely this couldn't happen. And what if this is the end of the world.

You do see almost 100% only-white-lives-matter news focus in things like "Landslide in Ireland kills 12!!!!" as a front-page headline, while "Landslide kills 160 in Indonesia or maybe it's Laos, who even cares about the difference" is tucked away in a few lines in the international section of websites. It always infuriates me (or embarrasses me if it's a tragedy near where I live, when I know things a hundred times worse are being ignored).

I just think here the stakes, and the shock, are very likely to be the dominant factors, and they would have been just as dominant had it not happened to involve an overwhelmingly white target country.