In support of Ukraine’s tens of thousands of wounded veterans and as part of his efforts for the Invictus Games, Prince Harry paid an unexpected visit to Kyiv.
The Duke of Sussex flew to Poland and then caught a train to the Ukrainian capital, arriving on Friday morning.
He is making his maiden trip to Kyiv, which was struck by Russian cruise missiles two days ago. That same evening, a large number of Russian attack drones broke into Polish airspace and were shot down.
‘I had to check with my wife and the British government to make sure it was OK’, he said today.
Harry, who has enjoyed a triumphant trip to the UK to support his charities and meet his father, King Charles, has said he will do ‘everything possible’ to help Ukrainian soldiers and service personnel injured in the three-year war with Russia.
‘We cannot stop the war, but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process,’ he said.
‘We can continue to humanise the people involved in this war and what they are going through. We have to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it’s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on.’
He will meet hundreds of veterans, visit the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, and have a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko while in Kyiv.
Harry told The Guardian that he was invited by Olga Rudnieva, the boss of the Superhumans Trauma Centre in Lviv.
He said: ‘I bumped into Olga in New York. It was a chance meeting, and I asked her what I could do to help. She said, “The biggest impact you have is coming to Kyiv”.
‘I had to check with my wife and the British government to make sure it was OK. Then the official invitation came.
‘In Lviv, you don’t see much of the war. It is so far west. This is the first time we will see the real destruction of the war’.
Harry, who served 10 years in the British Army, has long made supporting wounded soldiers one of his most prominent causes – founding the Invictus Games in 2014 to offer wounded veterans the opportunity to compete in sports events similar to the Paralympics.
Ukraine has taken part since 2017 and talked about how moved he was when he met the team in The Hague two years ago.
He said: ‘It was remarkable. Every one of the participants had a journey to get to those games, but nobody from any of the other competing nations was going back to war. That is why the Ukrainians stood out. Everyone felt an immense connection to them. Some of the competitors were being pulled off the battlefield and were going back to the battlefield. It means so much to us, because it means so much to them’.
Harry visited Ukraine for the first time in April, this time to Lviv, where he met with war victims.
Images showed the royal with a smile ear-to-ear, posing with dozens of wounded soldiers.
One photograph showed the Duke with a solemn expression as he spoke to a visibly injured youngster.
Only after Harry had left the country was the visit to the region in western Ukraine that has been regularly struck by Russian missiles announced.
The prince was joined in Ukraine by a contingent from the Invictus Games Foundation, including four veterans who have been through similar rehabilitation experiences.
The centre offers prosthetics, reconstructive surgery and psychological help free of charge.
Prince Harry ‘loved’ being back in the UK and ‘catching up with old friends’ this week, his aide revealed.
Completing his four-day trip with an event to spotlight The Diana Award yesterday, a spokesman for the Duke of Sussex suggested he saw it as a success.
On Wednesday night, the prodigal prince managed to secure himself a 54-minute meeting with his father, King Charles, the first in 19 months. But his choice of final engagement – a charity both he and his estranged brother, Prince William, have been involved with over the years – only served to highlight the gulf that remains between them.
Tessy Ojo, chief executive of The Diana Award, indicated she didn’t expect a joint engagement from them any time soon, saying: ‘You know what, people are fascinated about seeing them together. I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside them for 25 years, and they’ve always done things separately.
‘The one time we brought them together was the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.’
Harry, she said, has been having monthly meetings via Zoom with Diana Award staff and has attended events in America. It was one of five events packed into what was dubbed a ‘pseudo royal tour’ for the Prince – and one clearly aimed at trying to reset his relationship with the British people.
The icing on the cake, however, was being driven into Clarence House for a nearly hour-long meeting with his father. While those in royal circles say it was not a reunion per se, it is being deemed a positive step forward.
Relations with his brother, who had taken the brunt of many of Harry’s most savage attacks on his family in recent years, do not appear to be thawing in any way.
It’s unclear if he intends to visit Britain anytime soon.
However, his spokesman strongly indicated he was buoyed by how well he felt this one had gone, saying: ‘He’s obviously loved being back in the UK, catching up with old friends and just generally being able to support the incredible causes that mean so much to him.’
Harry spent about an hour yesterday at what seemed to be a specially created event for him, talking to young people about mental health and social action. In an impromptu address, he spoke about how young people can feel isolated if ‘lost and separated from a group’.
Harry also gave a warm hug to his father’s former press secretary, Colleen Harris, who worked for Charles when he was the Prince of Wales, from 1998 until 2003.
She currently serves as one of the King’s Charitable Fund’s trustees.
The Duke then proceeded directly to the airport, and it has since come to light that he travelled to Ukraine rather than returning to Los Angeles.
Some would say that this was a publicity stunt with Harry – Look at me, I’ve visited my Grandmother’s resting place. Look at me, I have visited a hospital. Look at me, I’ve donated millions of pounds to charity, and now I’ve been to Ukraine.
I don’t think the British people will ever forgive him, but maybe he’s attempting to win them over, and why is he still pretending to be a Royal? He forfeited that right when he left the Royal Family and moved to the States.
Harry has said many times that he does not want to move back to the UK, and I don’t think he ever will. He said that he loves California and does not want to return to the UK to live, and that his children are happy and are able to live a normal life, which is something he never had, and who can condemn him for that?
No, he is no longer a diplomat or a working Royal, but when celebrities take part in humanitarian endeavours, the mainstream media covers it extensively. Regretfully, Harry is now a sinking ship in the United Kingdom. In addition to it being safer for Harry and his family, he will do far better in the United States.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 