Prince Harry says 'you're going to win' on Ukraine trip

Prince Harry says 'you're going to win' on Ukraine trip

Britain's Prince Harry made a surprise visit to Ukraine over the weekend, meeting wounded veterans and medics specialising in war injuries and telling them: "You're going to win the war."

Prince Harry says 'you're going to win' on Ukraine trip

Making his fourth visit to Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion, Prince Harry told the wounded soldiers that "the world will continue to support" Kyiv and expressed hope that the lengthy war would end.

He took part in events Saturday and Sunday in the western city of Lviv, with the trip kept secret for security reasons.

The British royal took to the stage at a conference for medics organised by Superhumans, a clinic in the city that specialises in the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers.

"You're going to win the war and then you're going to be set up for success," Prince Harry told listeners, including Health Minister Viktor Liashko.

The prince, a former British army officer and founder of the Invictus Games, also met athletes hoping to represent Ukraine at next year's games in the British city of Birmingham.

His trip took place as Russia has pounded Ukraine in the run-up to winter.

The 42-year-old prince was dressed casually in a dark hooded puffer jacket and brown desert boots as he attended a series of events.

In a school sports hall, he watched wheelchair rugby players zooming around as they vied for a place in Ukraine's team at the next Invictus Games, an international sports contest for veterans and serving military personnel founded by the prince.

Ukraine plans to send its largest ever team 60 competitors to the games next year.

The Russia-Ukraine war has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and left a large number of Ukrainians with disabilities and missing limbs.

The country has around 1.4 million combat veterans, over 10 percent of whom have disabilities.

On Sunday, the prince called the veterans "role models" for society and for Western support for Kyiv's army to be extended to veterans.

"We've invested in them before they put the uniform on, we must invest in them once the uniform comes off."

- Invictus Games -

Among those attending Saturday's event was Illia Pylypenko, 33, from Odesa, who suffered severe burns and lost a lung when the tank he was driving struck a mine.

Adaptive sport "really supported me mentally, I found a new stimulus," he said.

His dream was for every wounded veteran in Ukraine to be able to take part in such games.

Prince Harry told the veterans joining the movement: "When the war is over and when Ukraine wins, we will be ready to support you in holding an Invictus Games."

At the rugby game, he hugged a player he recognised: Valeriy Odainyk, a former contestant at the Invictus Games in Canada in 2025 who has an amputated leg.

The 41-year-old with a large tattoo on one arm explained to the prince that he was "still an active serviceman".

"So when do you find time to train?" Harry asked.

Odainyk said afterwards he told the prince that his involvement in such sport "all started and continues with the Invictus Games".

- 'I don't know how I stayed alive' -

Another player, 29-year-old Roman Boiko, gave Harry a black T-shirt with the slogan "Free Azov", referring to hundreds of Ukrainian fighters held prisoner in Russia.

Lviv, close to Poland, has become a hub for medical treatment and rehabilitation of wounded soldiers, many of whom require prosthetic limbs.

Volodymyr Fatkiv, a 31-year-old with a paralysed arm, attended one of the events, playing pickleball.

From Lviv, he served in a unit made up of police. In 2024, in Toretsk in the Donetsk region, he had come under fire from Russians.

"A bullet hit me near my heart and then came out in my back, and I don't know how I stayed alive," he said.

He called sport "very important for veterans", adding that he plays badminton and does "archery with my teeth because my left arm is not working".

A bearded former soldier in a plaid shirt, sporting a prosthetic leg with exposed metal, described his experiences organising dragon boat racing for wounded veterans.

The former fighter and now mining engineer, Oleg Spodin, 34, lost his leg in February 2023 when a mortar hit a group evacuating a wounded soldier.

"Unfortunately four of us were killed, my fellow soldiers, and I and two others got out with injuries," he said.

The British prince, a former soldier, has spoken of being profoundly moved by witnessing death and life-changing injuries while on deployment in Afghanistan.

He launched the Invictus Games in 2014 while still serving in the British army.

"Every single person in Ukraine is playing their part in this war," he said Sunday.

"In my mind you've already won, I hope the war is going to come to an end."

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