‘You’re my hero!’
Meet the President … envoy Stiller star-struck in Kyiv
KYIV: Hollywood star Ben Stiller met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday local time, hailing the comedianturned-president as “my hero” for rallying the world’s support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion.
“It’s a great honour for me … you’re my hero!” said Stiller, a UN goodwill ambassador who met the Ukrainian leader on World Refugee Day.
“What you’ve done, the way that you’ve rallied the country, the world, it’s really inspiring,” said the 56-yearold comedian referring to Mr Zelensky’s countless speeches to audiences around the world to rally support for his embattled country.
Earlier in the day, Stiller
visited the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, the scene of fierce battles early on in the invasion and the closest Moscow’s army got to the capital since it sent troops into Ukraine in February.
“I feel it’s hard to understand what’s actually going on here if you haven’t been here,” he told Mr Zelensky.
“I was in Irpin this morning … and the actual level of destruction, you see it on TV, you see it on social media, but it’s something else to actually see it, feel it and then to talk to the people,” he said.
Speaking in English, Mr Zelensky thanked Stiller for coming and told him it was “very important” for him to keep reminding people what
was going on in Ukraine. “It’s very important for us that people don’t forget. It’s not interesting to speak about the war every day … but for us it’s very important,” he said.
The pair also acknowledged their shared interest as comedy actors. “You quit a great acting career,” said Stiller, who is best known for his comedy roles in Meet the Parents and the Night at the Museum films, in a nod to Zelensky’s former career as a comedy actor.
“Not as great as yours,” Mr Zelensky retorted, both laughing.
Before being elected in 2019, Mr Zelensky was best known for his role in Servant of the People, a television
comedy satire in which he played a high school teacher who unexpectedly becomes Ukraine’s president.
While Stiller and Mr Zelensky were meeting, Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editorin-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, on Monday auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize gold medal for a whopping $US103.5M ($149m) to benefit children displaced by the Ukraine war.
All of the proceeds from the sale of the medal – which was snapped up by an as yet unidentified phone bidder – will go to UNICEF’S Humanitarian Response for Ukrainian Children Displaced by War, according to Heritage Auctions, which handled the
sale. Muratov won the prize in 2021 alongside journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines, with the Nobel committee honouring them “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.”
Meanwhile, invading Russian soldiers have been accused of forcing Ukrainian farmers to sell their crops to Crimean buyers at a 90 per cent discount.
The claim, by a Ukrainian think tank, The Centre for Defence Strategies, adds to reports that the invaders are destroying or stealing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grain or preventing it being transported to areas still controlled by Kyiv; in effect using hunger as a weapon of war.