{"id":2061465,"date":"2025-10-01T06:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T06:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2061465"},"modified":"2025-10-01T06:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T06:35:06","slug":"princess-anne-makes-surprise-ukraine-visit-and-leaves-a-personal-tribute-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/princess-anne-makes-surprise-ukraine-visit-and-leaves-a-personal-tribute-world-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Anne makes surprise Ukraine visit – and leaves a personal tribute | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Princess Anne has placed a toy bear as a poignant tribute at a children’s memorial in Ukraine, during an unexpected visit to the war-ravaged country where she also met Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

The King’s sister travelled to the capital Kyiv on Tuesday, at the request of the Foreign Office, in a show of solidarity with children and families facing the horrors of the Russian<\/strong><\/a> invasion.<\/p>\n

The Princess Royal<\/strong><\/a> met Mr Zelenskyy to discuss the UK’s support for Ukraine<\/strong><\/a> and its ongoing resistance.<\/p>\n

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\n The Princess Royal and First Lady Olena Zelenska laid soft toys during a visit to a memorial for children killed in the war. Pic: PA
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Anne’s secret visit, which was not publicised beforehand for security reasons, came just two days after a Russian aerial bombardment killed at least four people in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old girl, and injured at least 70 others.<\/p>\n

The attack, which lasted more than 12 hours, was one of the heaviest in recent months.<\/p>\n

The purpose of her trip was to highlight the traumatic experiences of children living on the frontline, Buckingham Palace said.<\/p>\n

Joining First Lady Olena Zelenska at the children’s memorial, Anne left the teddy in tribute to youngsters killed in the conflict, saying her daughter Zara Tindall had the same bear.<\/p>\n

As the 75-year-old princess stepped back after placing the traditional-looking teddy at the base of the memorial alongside scores of other cuddly toys, she told Mrs Zelenska: “That was one that my daughter had.”<\/p>\n

Mrs Zelenska also left a bear in tribute.<\/p>\n

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\n Anne is the latest British royal to make a trip to Kyiv. Pic: PA
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The site commemorates more than 650 children who have died since the start of the conflict in 2022.<\/p>\n

In Kyiv, she also met female police and armed forces representatives and heard about their key role protecting women and children.<\/p>\n

Visiting the Child Rights Protection Centre, she spoke to families and children who have been returned and reintegrated, and met some of those working to return more Ukrainian children.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong>
Putin issues defiant message over Ukraine<\/strong><\/a>
Moldova’s pro-EU party wins elections against Russia-leaning rivals<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\n \"Princess\n <\/div>
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\n Princess Anne spoke to young people who lived under occupation. Pic: PA
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\n The Princess Royal met Ukrainian war veterans relaxing in a salt therapy room at a rehabilitation centre. Pic: PA
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More than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred or deported by the Russian authorities to Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Princess Anne is the second working royal to visit Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In April last year, the Duchess of Edinburgh was the first to go<\/strong><\/a> and bring a letter of support from the King.<\/p>\n

Anne’s trip also follows that of her nephew Prince Harry, who made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital<\/strong><\/a> just over two weeks ago with a team from his Invictus Games Foundation.<\/p>\n

Anne also visited a rehabilitation centre, where she met Ukrainian veterans returning from the frontline.<\/p>\n

The King has met Mr Zelenskyy a number of times<\/strong><\/a> and marked the country’s independence day in August by sending a message of solidarity.<\/p>\n

During Donald Trump’s recent state visit to the UK, Charles also took the opportunity to stress the importance of supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n

He told the US president in his banquet speech: “Today, as tyranny once again threatens Europe, we and our allies stand together in support of Ukraine, to deter aggression and secure peace.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.sky.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Princess Anne has placed a toy bear as a poignant tribute at a children’s memorial in Ukraine, during an unexpected visit to the war-ravaged country where she also met Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The King’s sister travelled to the capital Kyiv on Tuesday, at the request of the Foreign Office, in a show of solidarity with children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2061466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2061465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Princess-Anne-makes-surprise-Ukraine-visit-and-leaves-a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061467,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061465\/revisions\/2061467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2061466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}