Oscar-winner Sean Penn skips Academy Awards ceremony to visit Zelensky in Kyiv

Sean Penn, who won a best supporting actor Oscar for One Battle After Another on Sunday, was in Ukraine on Monday where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support for the war-torn country.

An Agence France-Presse reporter saw the Mystic River star getting out of a black car in central Kyiv earlier on Monday, wearing sunglasses and carrying a box of cigarettes.

Penn, a vocal advocate for Ukraine who has visited the country several times, on Sunday won his third acting Oscar but was not at the ceremony.

“We can say that he’s in Ukraine but it’s his personal visit; that’s how he sees it, that he needs to be in Ukraine. He just wants to support Ukraine,” a senior Ukrainian official said.

Penn, who co-directed a 2023 documentary about Zelensky – met the Ukrainian president on Monday.

“Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is,” Zelensky said on social media, posting a picture of the pair in the president’s office.