Angelina Jolie visits Ukraine amid invasion

Actress Angelina Jolie is visiting the Ukrainian city of Lviv amid the Russian invasion.

Lviv’s regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said in a Telegram post on Saturday that Jolie’s visit was a “surprise” and that she went to a medical center to see the children there. 

Kozytskyi said Jolie was “very moved” by the stories of those surviving the war as she talked to children who have been caught in Russian missile strikes. 

The Kyiv Independent shared a video of Jolie in a coffee shop in Lviv, a city close to the Polish border that has largely been spared from Russia’s brutal attacks. 

Jolie also went to a railway station in Lviv, where she greeted internally displaced Ukrainians entering the city from the country’s eastern Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian outlet.

Jolie is a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told The Washington Post she is not in Ukraine in that capacity.

“Angelina Jolie is traveling to the region in her personal capacity, and UNHCR has no involvement in this visit,” Ghedini-Williams said.

Jolie’s spokesperson said Saturday that the actress was making the visit so she could talk to victims of the war first-hand and determine how to help them, NBC News reported.

“The purpose of Angelina’s visit is to bear witness to the human impact of the conflict, and to support the civilian population.”

In a statement, Jolie said it is “devastating” to see how the war has affected Ukrainian children.

“No child anywhere should have to flee their homes, or witness the murder of their loved ones, or experience shelling and the destruction of their homes. Yet that is the reality of so many children in Ukraine and around the world.”