Prince Harry arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced trip at the invitation of the Ukrainian government.
During his visit, he pledged to do “everything possible” to assist in the recovery of thousands of military personnel who have been seriously injured in Ukraine’s three-year war with Russia, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
During the trip to the Ukrainian capital, he and a team from his Invictus Games Foundation are set to detail new initiatives to support the rehabilitation of the wounded, with the eventual aim of providing help to all areas of the country.
Earlier this year it was estimated that the Ukraine war had already left 130,000 people with permanent disabilities – and the government has now put rehabilitation through sport at the heart of its policy for helping veterans.
Speaking to the Guardian on an overnight train to the capital, the Duke of Sussex said: “We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process.”
He added: “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.”
The prince said he was initially invited to Kyiv by Olga Rudnieva, the founder and CEO of the Superhumans Trauma Centre in Lviv, Ukraine which treats wounded amputees. He visited the centre in April, but met her by chance a couple of months ago in the US.
“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.”
