{"id":131622,"date":"2025-09-12T06:26:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/131622\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:26:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:26:06","slug":"prince-harry-makes-surprise-visit-to-ukraine-pledging-support-for-thousands-injured-in-war-prince-harry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/131622\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry makes surprise visit to Ukraine pledging support for thousands injured in war | Prince Harry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry has made a surprise visit to Kyiv after an invitation from the Ukrainian government, saying he wanted to do \u201ceverything possible\u201d to help the recovery of the thousands of military personnel who have been seriously injured<\/a> in the three-year war against Russia.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year it was estimated that the Ukraine<\/a> war had already left 130,000 people with permanent disabilities \u2013 and the government has now put rehabilitation through sport at the heart of its policy for helping veterans.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Guardian on an overnight train to the capital, the Duke of Sussex said: \u201cWe cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe 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\u2019s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it\u2019s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prince Harry on the train from Poland to Kyiv. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, but met her by chance a couple of months ago in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bumped into Olga in New York. It was a chance meeting and I asked her what I could do to help. She said \u2018the biggest impact you have is coming to Kyiv\u2019. I had to check with my wife and the British government to make sure it was OK. Then the official invitation came.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Lviv, you don\u2019t see much of the war. It is so far west. This is the first time we will see the real destruction of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine first took part in the Invictus Games<\/a> in 2017, but enthusiasm and need for the competition, which was founded by the Prince in 2014 for wounded veterans to compete in sports events, has grown dramatically since the conflict with Russia began.<\/p>\n

The Duke remembered the reception Ukraine\u2019s team received at the games in The Hague two years ago.<\/p>\n

Prince Harry speaks on the train from Poland to Kyiv in Ukraine. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was remarkable. Every one of the participants had a journey to get to those games, but nobody from any of the other competing nations was going back to war. That is why the Ukrainians stood out. Everyone felt an immense connection to them. Some of the competitors were being pulled off the battlefield and were going back to the battlefield. It means so much to us, because it means so much to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the trip, the Prince is due to visit the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. He is expected to spend time with 200 veterans, who have also been invited. He is also due to meet the Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko.<\/p>\n

Travelling to Kyiv would give him a chance to talk to veterans, and also see some of the destruction first-hand, he said. While the biennial Invictus Games have been the focal point of much of the foundation\u2019s work, it has been increasing its sports recovery programmes to help provide opportunities for rehabilitation beyond the main games, including by providing sports equipment in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Natalia Kalmykova, Ukraine\u2019s minister for veterans affairs, said sport had become \u201ca key function in veterans\u2019 healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s thanks to our relationship with the Invictus Games Foundation that we established, and continue to develop, the role of sports in recovery in Ukraine and why it\u2019s included in the veteran policy strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

By March this year, more than 22,000 veterans across Ukraine had accessed benefits like gym memberships and pool passes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Harry has made a surprise visit to Kyiv after an invitation from the Ukrainian government, saying he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-131622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}