Ben Stiller is sharing his experience of visiting Ukraine, saying that the scenes he encountered in the war-torn country were both "distressing" and "shocking."
The actor, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, made a trip to Ukraine's capitol Kyiv and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he told was his hero. Stiller later opened up to BBC about what he encountered during his trip, explaining that it was his first time visiting an area that's been in conflict.
"It's really strange because when you drive into the country, really in the west of the country, you don't feel the conflict, except for the curfew at night where it gets very quiet and a little bit eerie," he said. "[In] Lviv, people seem to be going back to life as normal, trying to as much as possible. And then as you get closer and closer to Kyiv, into the east of the country, you start to see the roadblocks and see the destruction, which is really shocking when you haven't seen anything like that up close."
Stiller, who is known for his roles in films including "Dodgeball" and "Night at the Museum" and who has been an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees since 2016, recalled first thinking that the scenes he saw seemed as if they were from a movie.
"But the scale of it is even bigger and it's real, so that's really distressing," he said during an interview with the "BBC Breakfast: Tuesday"program. The people in Ukraine have been "caught in a circumstance totally beyond their control," he continued. "And nobody wants to flee from their home; nobody wants to have to go out into the world and have to start afresh, or even just trying to find a way to survive. These people are just living their lives: mothers, fathers, families, friends."
Stiller had been documenting his trip on social media, sharing videos, photos, and updates. In his most recent tweet, Stiller explained that his visit was to "stand in solidarity with people forced to flee in Ukraine and worldwide, and bring more attention to the humanitarian situation."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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