Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain are among the celebrities who have visited Ukraine during the Russian invasion.
The list also includes Spanish-American chef and restaurateur Jose Andres, who has been on the ground feeding Ukrainians along the borders as part of his World Central Kitchen humanitarian organisation.
Many of the A-listers headed to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's department of defense has thanked those "who, despite the danger, have visited us".
While Andres has a clear mission, others want to raise awareness of the nation's plight.
Other stars have helped from afar, such as Hollywood power couple Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, who also created a GoFundMe, which raised almost $37 million for refugees earlier this year. Kunis was born in Ukraine and moved to the US when she was 7.
British actor Benedict Cumberbatch hosted a refugee family in his home, while Leonardo DiCaprio donated $10 million, with many other celebrities donating money to various charities.
Here we take a look at the efforts some of these stars have made in Ukraine.
Sean Penn
Sean Penn has been among the most vocal Hollywood stars. The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, the 21 Grams actor travelled there to continue work on a documentary about the war.
The Office of the President in Ukraine confirmed Penn had attended press briefings, met with Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk and spoken to journalists and military personnel about the war.
Days later, he found himself among thousands of refugees fleeing to Poland, joining the exodus on foot.
Penn, 61, posted a photo of himself on Twitter wearing a backpack and wheeling luggage along a road beside a line of cars stretching into the distance.
In March, he also made headlines again when he said he would destroy his Oscars if Zelenskyy is not invited to speak at the Academy Awards (he wasn't, and he didn't as far as we know).
Jose Andres
Since early on in the crisis, Andres has been going to Ukrainian borders to help feed refugees as part of his non-profit World Central Kitchen, which won benefitted from a $100 million Jeff Bezos grant the chef won in 2021 for his humanitarian work. The organisation has served millions of meals so far.
On Thursday, he tweeted a photo of himself with Zelenskyy, writing: "Good meeting today about the Humanitarian work of @WCKitchen in @ukraine helping displaced+refugees since day one of this war.
"He [Zelenskyy] thanked the more than 5k Ukrainians bringing hope one plate of food at the time #ChefsForUkraine 130 million meals! Ukrainians feeding Ukrainians!"
Angelina Jolie
The actress and the UN's special envoy for refugees is a well-known humanitarian, so it's perhaps no surprise she was among the first to head to Ukraine.
In April, Angelina Jolie visited the city of Lviv, popping into a bakery and going to the railway station to meet some of the people displaced.
During the visit to the station, Jolie met volunteers, who told her how each of the psychiatrists on duty spoke to about 15 people a day.
"They must be in shock … I know how trauma affects children, I know just having somebody show how much they matter, how much their voices matter, I know how healing that is for them," she said.
She also posed for photos with the volunteers and some of the children.
Ben Stiller
In June, Ben Stiller, who's not only a comedy actor but also a humanitarian envoy, met with refugees and officials in Ukraine, including Zelenskyy, as part of his visit on World Refugee Day.
“It’s a great honour for me,” Stiller said to the Ukrainian president during a meeting in Kyiv. “It’s really wonderful. You’re my hero.”
The Zoolander star is a goodwill ambassador for the UN and had earlier visited Ukrainian refugees in Poland, saying he wanted to stand in solidarity with those in Warsaw and worldwide.
"Everyone has the right to seek safety. Whoever, wherever, whenever," he said.
Liev Schreiber
In May, Ray Donovan star Liev Schreiber, who has Ukrainian roots, met people in bomb shelters and co-founded BlueCheck Ukraine, a group looking to vet and fast-track financial support to non-governmental organisations.
He went to Lviv, but said he only told his immediate family he'd been after he returned, knowing "I was much safer than they would think I was", according to Screen Daily.
He discussed his new fundraising network at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Prague last month. “I went with the expectation that I’d have a gigantic garbage bag and would just fill it with money, because I was raising for Ukraine,” he said. “What actually happened is people approached me and asked how they could file for donations from BlueCheck.”
Jessica Chastain
Last week, actress Jessica Chastain met Zelenskyy in Kyiv and visited a children's hospital.
Her visit came as the White House and the UN called on Russia to halt military operations near nuclear power plants in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy thanked Chastain for her support in a Telegram post. “For us, such visits of famous people are extremely valuable,” he wrote.
“Thanks to this, the world will hear, know and understand the truth about what is happening in our country even more.”
Chastain's trip comes after the Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenska, pleaded with members of US Congress to send more military aid to her country. Zelenskyy's wife shared stories of women and children killed by Russian forces to make clear the brutality of the war.
Scroll through the gallery below to see some of the latest photos from Ukraine
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
Quick%20facts
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
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6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
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Southampton 2
Armstrong 13', Soares 20'
Manchester United 2
Lukaku 33', Herrera 39'
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Company%20Profile
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Range: 400km
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PROFILE OF INVYGO
Started: 2018
Founders: Eslam Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo
Based: Dubai
Sector: Transport
Size: 9 employees
Investment: $1,275,000
Investors: Class 5 Global, Equitrust, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kairos K50 and William Zeqiri
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
Draw:
Group A: Egypt, DR Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Group B: Nigeria, Guinea, Madagascar, Burundi
Group C: Senegal, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania
Group D: Morocco, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Namibia
Group E: Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, Angola
Group F: Cameroon, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
SHAITTAN
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Switzerland 0
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Man of the Match: Trent Alexander-Arnold (England)
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Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
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'Saand Ki Aankh'
Produced by: Reliance Entertainment with Chalk and Cheese Films
Director: Tushar Hiranandani
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Bhumi Pednekar, Prakash Jha, Vineet Singh
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
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