Oscar-winner Sean Penn skips ceremony to visit Kyiv

Read more at straitstimes.com.

KYIV - Sean Penn, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor for One Battle After Another on March 15, was in Ukraine on March 16 where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support for the war-torn country.

An AFP reporter saw the Mystic River star getting out of a black car in central Kyiv earlier on March 16, wearing sunglasses and carrying a box of cigarettes.

Penn – a vocal advocate for Ukraine who has visited the country several times – on March 15 won his third acting Oscar but was not at the ceremony.

“We can say that he’s in Ukraine, but it’s his personal visit; that’s how he sees it, that he needs to be in Ukraine,” a senior Ukrainian official told AFP, adding: “He just wants to support Ukraine.”

Penn – who co-directed a 2023 documentary about Mr Zelensky – met the Ukrainian president on March 16.

“Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is,” Mr Zelensky said on social media, posting a picture of the pair sat down in the president’s office.