U.S. actor, director, screenwriter and producer Liev Schreiber has become an ambassador for UNITED24, a fundraising platform for Ukraine in the direction of Medical Aid, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“An American actor, director, screenwriter and producer with Ukrainian roots, co-founder of the BlueCheck Ukraine initiative, which has been implementing humanitarian projects in Ukraine since the first days of the war, Liev Schreiber has become UNITED24 Ambassador in the Medical Aid direction,” Zelensky said in his Telegram channel.
The head of state thanked Schreiber and his team for helping Ukraine. “Liev, I believe that you will also help strengthen peace support for Ukraine within U24,” the president said.
Earlier, U24 ambassadors were former football player and head coach of the Ukrainian national team Andriy Shevchenko, as well as Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has chosen Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina as the second ambassador of the UNITED 24 national brand, the President’s Office of Ukraine reported.
Svitolina’s presentation by the second ambassador of the UNITED24 fundraising platform took place during an online meeting with the head of state, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and platform coordinator Yaroslav Hres, the press service of the President’s Office said Tuesday evening.
In addition, the first UNITED 24 ambassador Andriy Shevchenko joined the videoconference, together with whom Svitolina will continue to unite the world sports community around helping Ukraine.
The President thanked Svitolina for the active position that the athlete has taken since the first days of the war, and noted that it is important to talk about Ukraine in the world.
The President’s Office also stressed that at the end of July, a charity game of the first racket of the world Iga Świątek is planned under the patronage of Svitolina.
During the first four weeks of the UNITED 24 fundraising platform, more than $52.5 million was raised for the needs of Ukraine.
As reported, on May 18, Zelensky signed a decree on the establishment of the UNITED 24 national brand and congratulated the first ambassador of this brand – the legendary Ukrainian football player and coach Andriy Shevchenko.
On June 7, the Ministry of Youth and Sports opened a special account in the National Bank of Ukraine for donations within the framework of the UNITED24 Restoration Fund initiative.
French Ambassador Etienne de Ponsin has returned to the Ukrainian capital, Tudor Alexis, Consul General of France in Toronto, reports.
“French Ambassador to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins raised the French flag to reopen our embassy in Kyiv and says: “Kyiv was not conquered, Ukraine withstood the aggression and we want to be as close as possible to the authorities to show support and express solidarity” , he tweeted Friday night.
As the French Foreign Ministry reported on April 14, the embassy will soon return to its permanent base in Kyiv.
The Lithuanian Ambassador to Ukraine will resume work in Kyiv, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said.
“Russian ambassador was asked to leave Lithuania. Lithuanian ambassador in Ukraine is coming back to Kyiv. That is the Lithuanian decision made today,” he said on Twitter on April 4.
“According to the Polish border guard service, about 2 million people have crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border since the beginning of the war, that is, in a month. Now it is difficult to estimate the exact number of those who left the territory of Poland, but this can be understood by the amount of transport. We can say that about 1.5 million people remained in Poland. Another 1.5 million Ukrainians were in Poland before the start of the war. Thus, now there are about 3 million citizens of Ukraine in Poland,” Deshchytsia said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He stressed that the assistance provided to Ukrainian citizens in Poland deserves great gratitude and praise.
“Ordinary Polish citizens, literally from the first days of the war, went to checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish border and met our citizens themselves, mostly women, children, the elderly, picked them up in their cars and took them to their homes,” Deshchytsia said.
According to him, there is also centralized assistance, which is very well organized.
“There is assistance both at the central and local government levels, as well as at the level of civil society. Non-governmental organizations, various foundations, volunteer organizations almost continuously provide assistance to Ukrainians,” the ambassador said.
Deshchytsia added that if we are talking about the level of state support, then at the initiative of the government and unanimous supra-party support in the Senate and the Sejm of Poland, a law on assistance to Ukrainians was adopted, helping the citizens of Ukraine to more easily adapt to the conditions in which they found themselves in Poland.
“Firstly, it allows them to stay in Poland legally for the next 18 months with the right to extend their legal stay in the country for another year and a half, and with the documents they arrived with. Secondly, this is a one-time financial assistance for each person, amounting to approximately PLN 300 [equivalent to $80-100]. Thirdly, it is an opportunity to speed up the employment procedure, the opportunity to receive the same social, medical, and pension benefits that the Poles have. To do this, however, you need to get a Polish identification code. Fourthly, this involves helping Ukrainian children to get them into educational institutions, kindergartens, as well as free education in higher educational institutions,” the Ukrainian ambassador explained.
The Belarusian embassy has been evacuated from Ukraine, Belarusian Ambassador in Kyiv Igor Sokol said.
“All financial accounts were blocked by the Ukrainian side, intolerable conditions were created, and there were threats of physical violence all the time. We were actually under siege, so the leadership, the Foreign Ministry of the country decided to evacuate the embassy,” Sokol said on the STV television channel.
“It was the last group of 11 employees and two family members to leave by seven cars via the corridor that was provided by the Ukrainian side, because they failed to provide security in the direction of the Republic of Belarus. We had to leave for the Republic of Moldova,” the ambassador said.
