Richard Branson met with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday amid a fresh wave of Russian missile strikes.
Mr Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin, met with Ukraine’s leader in Kyiv where he became a new ambassador for Ukraine’s official fundraising platform, UNITED24.
Video released of the encounter shows Mr Zelensky telling the entrepreneur: “It is very important that famous and influential personalities keep joining this platform.
“One of our key tasks is to keep the world's focus on Russia's war against Ukraine, which has been going on for over a year.”
Mr Branson told Mr Zelensky how he had travelled through Lviv in the west before arriving in Kyiv, meeting soldiers who had lost limbs to the conflict.
He said: “We met some of the soldiers there. One had lost both arms and a leg and he was still smiling, positive and wanting to get back to the front line.”
In his visit to Ukraine, Mr Branson visited Bucha - the site of Russian war crimes earlier in the invasion - with American philanthropist Howard Buffett, supporting the construction of a new kitchen to feed children in educational facilities.
Those benefiting from the kitchen will be residents of Bucha, Borodyanka and Nemishaevo.
The Virgin Galactic founder attended an event for the kitchen alongside Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska and Bucha mayor Antaoliy Fedoruk.
Mayor Fedoruk said on Telegram: “More than 10,000 hot meals will be cooked here every day for our children. Another similar factory will be built in the Kharkiv region with Mr Howard's support as well.”
It is the second time Mr Branson has been known to have visited Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February last year, having met Zelensky in June.
He wrote in a letter on his website at the time that he visited some of the sites of devastation caused by Russia’s invasion, and called it a “humbling and emotional experience”.
The latest visit came as Russia stepped up attacks on frontline cities in eastern Ukraine on Monday.
Putin’s forces were pounding Ukrainian positions around besieged Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region and other cities and towns with air strikes and artillery barrages, Kyiv said.
“The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire," Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, said of Bakhmut.
The small and now largely ruined city on the edge of a chunk of Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk has for months been the biggest battleground of the war and has witnessed heavy fighting.
