Prince Harry makes a surprise visit to Ukraine to support soldiers wounded in Russia’s war

Britain’s Prince Harry was in Ukraine on Friday for a surprise visit in support of troops wounded in Russia’s ongoing war against its neighbor. Harry’s representatives confirmed that he was in the capital, Kyiv, on Friday, though they declined to discuss the prince’s schedule for security reasons.

This is the second time Harry has visited Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. He made a trip to the western city of Lviv in April.

“We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process,” Harry told The Guardian newspaper while on an overnight train to Kyiv.

Harry, a British Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, is the founder of the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style event designed to inspire military veterans around the world as they work to overcome battlefield injuries. Ukraine is bidding to host the games in 2029.

The Archewell foundation set up by Harry and his wife Meghan announced this week that it had donated $500,000 to projects supporting injured children from Gaza and Ukraine. The money will be used to help the World Health Organization with medical evacuations and to fund work developing prosthetics for seriously injured young people.

The Guardian said Harry would visit the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, spend time with 200 veterans and meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

His visit coincided with a trip to Ukraine by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who has announced a new set of U.K. sanctions targeting Russia’s oil revenues and military supplies. Cooper called the visit a show of solidarity with Ukrainians facing intensified assault from Russia – including 6,500 drones and missiles in July, 10 times the level of a year ago.

The British visits also come just days after numerous Russian drones entered the airspace of NATO member Poland — which Harry traveled through to reach Ukraine. Polish and allied NATO warplanes were scrambled to intercept some of the drones, and Poland’s leaders have dismissed President Trump’s suggestion that the incursion could have “been a mistake,” saying they have no doubt it was a deliberate test by Russia’s Vladimir Putin of the NATO alliance’s resolve.   

Harry’s appearance in Ukraine follows a four-day trip to the U.K., where he met with his father, King Charles III, for the first time in 19 months. 

Harry has said previously that he wants to rebuild his relationship with his family, which has been strained since he and his wife Meghan formally stepped down from their roles as working royals and moved to California in 2020. The meeting was seen as a first step in repairing frigid relations.

Speaking to reporters at an event later, Prince Harry said only that his father was “doing great” amid his ongoing treatment for an unspecified form of cancer.

Prince Harry’s last trip to Ukraine included a visit to the Superhumans Center, an orthopedic clinic in Lviv that treats wounded military personnel and civilians. The center provides prosthetic limbs, reconstructive surgery and psychological help free of charge.