Sean Penn, who won Oscar but skipped awards, is in Ukraine: official

KYIV, Ukraine -- Sean Penn, who won an Oscar for best supporting actor 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 AFP reporter saw the “Mystic River” star getting out of a black car in central Kyiv earlier 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.

READ MORE: Sean Penn wins Oscar but ‘couldn’t be here tonight, or he didn’t want to,’ says Kieran Culkin

IN PICTURES: Big wins and hottest looks on the red carpet

“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,” a senior Ukrainian official told AFP, adding: “He just wants to support Ukraine.”

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 sat down in the president’s office.

“You have stood with Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale war. This is still true today,” Zelensky said.

In an interview with AFP in February, Zelensky listed “One Battle After Another”, starring Penn, among his most recently watched movies and said he “liked it.”

A second source told AFP that the actor was also “planning to go to the front” in eastern Ukraine.

The film Penn co-directed, an admiring portrait of Zelensky about his rise from comedian to war leader when Russia invaded in 2022, premiered at the Berlin film festival in 2023.

In 2025, Penn and rock star Bono made an impassioned plea at the Cannes film festival for the West to stand by Ukraine, posing for pictures on the red carpet with Ukrainian soldiers.