The celebrities’ journeys to Kiev had been funded by way of the US international help system, the Hungarian Prime Minister has claimed
The Hollywood celebrities who visited Ukraine to ‘assist’ the nation throughout its ongoing battle with Russia didn’t do it out of sympathy, however as a result of they had been paid hundreds of thousands, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated.
Stars’ journeys to Kiev had been paid for with cash from USAID, Washington’s major mechanism for funding political initiatives overseas, Orban stated in an interview with Hungarian broadcaster TV2 on Saturday.
“Individuals got cash for his or her opinions. I’m speaking about large celebrities and film stars. They got cash to go to Ukraine, so they didn’t do it from the center or out of sympathy for the Ukrainians – which might have truly been the case – however as a result of they got cash,” he stated.
The funds acquired by the celebrities amounted to “hundreds of thousands of euros or {dollars},” the prime minister claimed, with out offering any names.
Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Ben Stiller and Orlando Bloom had been among the many most outstanding Western celebrities to have visited Ukraine for the reason that escalation of the battle between Moscow and Kiev three years in the past.
In early February, stories emerged on social media claiming that Jolie had acquired $20 million for her journey to Lviv in April 2022, and that Penn, Stiller and Bloom had been written checks of $5 million, $4 million and $8 million, respectively, by USAID.
Again then, Stiller rejected the accusations, calling them “lies coming from Russian media.” The actor insisted in a publish on X that his go to to Kiev was “self-funded.” Penn’s lawyer additionally stated that stories of his consumer being paid by USAID to fulfill with Ukrainian chief Vladimir Zelensky had been “utterly false, deceptive and reckless.”
A number of Western media retailers, together with AFP and Reuters, stated that their reality checking groups had discovered that the claims of stars getting USAID cash originated from a fabricated video and that there have been no obtainable information of the company paying the celebrities.
Shortly after taking workplace, US President Donald Trump launched a clampdown on USAID, accusing it of widespread corruption and inefficiency. He imposed a 90-day funding freeze on the company and transferred oversight of its packages to the direct management of the US State Division.
Orban stated in his interview that the actions of USAID in latest a long time may very well be “the most important corruption scandal within the historical past of the Western world.”
“I’ve by no means seen something like this earlier than – when billions of {dollars} are being transferred from the US price range to foundations and varied types of assist, after which they’re being distributed across the globe and given to those that signify the beliefs, spirituality, packages and particular pursuits demanded by the Individuals, they usually obtain cash for that,” he confused.
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