LVIV, Ukraine – Hollywood actress and U.N. humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a surprise visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday.
During her visit, Jolie hastily exited a train station “as air-raid sirens went off” in the city, according to video tweeted by Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist for Bellingcat, and by Reuters.
In the video Grozev shared on Twitter, which has been viewed more than 200,000 times, the actress appears to pick up speed as she walks out of the station with a group of people. Sirens can be heard in the background.
After crossing a street, she smiles and waves to a man recording her on his phone. “Are you afraid?” he asks her. Off-camera, Jolie responds, “No, no, I’m OK.”
It’s unclear when the video was taken. USA TODAY has reached out to Jolie’s representative for comment.
According to Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy, Jolie – who has been a UNHCR special envoy for refugees since 2011 – had come to speak with displaced people who have found refuge in Lviv, including children undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station in early April.
The attack in the eastern Ukrainian city appeared to deliberately target a crowd of mostly women and children trying to flee a looming Russian offensive, killing at least 52 and wounding dozens more.
“She was very moved by (the children’s) stories,” Kozytskyy wrote. “One girl was even able to privately tell Ms. Jolie about a dream she’d had.”
He said Jolie also visited a boarding school, spoke with students and took photos with them, adding “she promised she would come again.”
According to Kozytskyy, Jolie also met with evacuees arriving at Lviv’s central railway station, as well as with Ukrainian volunteers providing the new arrivals with medical help and counseling,
“The visit was a surprise to us all,” he wrote. “Plenty of people who saw Ms. Jolie in the Lviv region could not believe that it was really her. But since Feb. 24, Ukraine has shown the entire world that there are plenty of incredible things here.”
Contributing: Naledi Ushe, USA TODAY
