Mila Kunis and her husband Ashton Kutcher have been working tirelessly to raise money for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion two weeks ago. But she confessed that, no matter how much good they’re doing, it’s devastating to witness what’s currently taking place in her home country.
In a conversation with Maria Shriver for her digital series, “Conversations Above the Noise,” the actress confided, “I very much have always felt like an American. People were like, ‘Oh, you’re so Eastern European.’ I was like, ‘I’m so L.A. What do you mean?’ My whole life I was like L.A. through and through. Then this happens—and mind you, we have friends in Ukraine, Ash and I went and met with [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy right before COVID. I’ve been there, but have always considered myself very much an American.” Kunis was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, but moved to America shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union as a young child.
She continued, “This happens and I can’t express or explain what came over me, but all of a sudden I genuinely was, like, ‘oh my God, I feel like a part of my heart just got ripped out.’ It was the weirdest feeling.” But she added that this sense of solidarity with the Ukrainian people doesn’t mean we should villainize any other people or countries. “I don’t think that we need to consider the people of Russia an enemy. I do really want to emphasize that,” Kunis clarified. “I don’t think that that’s being said enough in the press. I think that there’s now, ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ mentality. I don’t want people to conflate the two problems that are happening. I don’t think it’s the people of Russia. I don’t want there to be a thing of ‘all Russians are horrible human beings.’ I don’t want that to be the rhetoric. I do encourage people to look at it from the perspective of, ‘It’s the people in power, not the people themselves.’”
Kunis also expressed her feelings of unity with the country in the description on her GoFundMe page, which has now surpassed its original goal of raising $20 million. “Today, I am a proud Ukrainian,” she wrote. “While my family came to the United States in 1991, I was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine in 1983. Ukrainians are proud and brave people who deserve our help in their time of need. This unjust attack on Ukraine and humanity at large is devastating and the Ukrainian people need our support.”
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