American actor Sean Penn, who won his third Oscar on Sunday during a ceremony from which he was absent, is in kyiv to “support Ukraine” and should be received on Monday by President Volodymyr Zelensky, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.
“He is in Ukraine, but it is a private visit,” the official told AFP. “He just wants to support Ukraine,” he added. The 65-year-old actor then plans to go “to the front” in Ukraine, another Ukrainian source told AFP.
Crowned in the category of best supporting actor in the film “One Battle After Another” Sean Penn, one of kyiv’s supporters in Hollywood, has already visited Ukraine several times since the start of the Russian invasion of this country in 2022.
He also co-directed a documentary in 2023 on Volodymyr Zelensky, himself a former actor and humorist. The film, an admiring portrait of Zelensky tracing his spectacular journey from comedian to warlord, premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival.
In interviews looking back at the early months of the Ukraine invasion, Penn and Zelensky struck up what they both described as a deep friendship.
In 2025, Sean Penn and rock star Bono made a strong appeal to the West to support Ukraine at the Cannes Film Festival, posing for photos on the red carpet with Ukrainian soldiers.
