Actor Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her performance in the film Girl, Interrupted, has arrived at Ukraine on Saturday, to meet with survivors who had taken refuge in the city of Lviv.
Jolie, who is a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has spent two decades working with the UN off-shoot.
Her visit follows Russia’s three-pronged invasion on Ukraine in February. The countries have been engaged in a war, since.
The constant incendiary attacks on Ukrainian cities have led to multiple deaths and a subsequent refugee crisis.
Jolie visited the country to meet with displaced people, including children, who were undergoing treatment for injuries sustained during the missile strikes at the Kramatorsk railway station, in early April.
Accompanied by Maksym Kozytsky, Lviv’s regional governor, Jolie visited the central station and met with volunteers who were working with the displaced. They told her that each of the psychiatrists on duty spoke to close to 15 people a day. It was reported that many of those at the station were children aged from two to ten, according to the volunteers.
Further, Jolie reportedly visited a boarding school, where she had interacted with the students, took photos with them, and also promised that she would return.
“The visit was a surprise to us all. Plenty of people who saw Ms. Jolie in the Lviv region could not believe that it was really her. But since February 24, Ukraine has shown the entire world that there are plenty of incredible things here,” Kozytsky said.
However, Jolie’s visit was short-lived, as she was reportedly interrupted by air-raid sirens, and had to leave the station.
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This is not the first time that a Hollywood actor has visited the war-torn country.
Earlier in February, it was reported that Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had traveled to Ukraine to film a documentary on Russia’s invasion of the country. The documentary is produced by Vice Studios in association with Vice World News and Endeavor Content.
Penn had first visited the country in November 2021, to do some research for the film and at the time, he was documented being escorted around by the Ukrainian military.
On his last trip, Penn visited the President’s office and met with Iryna Vereshchuk, the Deputy Prime Minister, local journalists and members of the Ukrainian military.