‘We need to feel empowered to speak truth to power.’ On a visit to Ukraine, the Duke of Sussex tells Royal Editor Chris Ship that people want to see an end to conflict and endless division.
Six years after he left the UK with Meghan, Prince Harry has said he will “always be part of the Royal Family”.
The Duke of Sussex has been speaking to ITV News at the end of a two-day visit to Ukraine, in which he appears to be more confident to speak out on issues about which he feels strongly.
“I am here working doing the things that I was born to do”, he said, “And I enjoy doing it.”
He had travelled an hour’s drive from the capital Kyiv on Friday to a town which is now synonymous with a war crime.
In Bucha, four years ago, Russian forces are accused of committing war crimes.
Five hundred people were murdered and executed in the town during a month-long Russian occupation, before Ukrainian forces retook the area.
As they did so, the troops made the grim discovery of what had happened to many civilians here.
And when issues are as big as this, Prince Harry appears to have decided he can be bolder when it comes to speaking about some world events.
When we asked if he feels like the shackles have been removed after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit as working royals in 2020, he said: “From my perspective, we need to feel empowered to speak truth to power. It’s really that simple.”
“What would worry me if we live in a world where anyone in my position or anybody, anywhere can’t speak about the very things and the realities that we are seeing”, he told us.
He didn’t want to feel “gagged”, he said, because everything is considered too political.
“I fundamentally disagree with that.”
He was talking to us from St Andrew’s Church in Bucha, the site of a mass grave in 2022, and where there is now a memorial for the 500 civilians killed here.
I followed his speech on Thursday at the Kyiv Security Forum, calling President Putin by name, urging him to stop the war.
And he spoke of the need for “American leadership” on Ukraine after the USA had previously pledged to protect the country when it gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s.
Harry didn’t mention Donald Trump by name, but he did provoke a reaction from the US President last night, who said the prince “does not speak for the UK”.
Given the risk that his words could make things more difficult for King Charles in the USA next week, we asked Harry if he thought his speech in Ukraine would have an impact on the State Visit.
“No, I don’t think so. Not at all”, he replied.
As just about the whole world knows, Harry and Meghan left the Royal Family in 2020, but the Duke of Sussex said today that he will always be part of it.
Harry said: “I will always be part of the Royal Family, and I am here working doing the things that I was born to do. And I enjoy doing it.”
He also spoke about his mother, Princess Diana, as he drove into a wood in the early morning to see the work of the de-mining charity, The Halo Trust.
The images of the late princess walking through a minefield in Angola in 1997 changed the way the world saw the issue of landmines – and the impact they have had for decades afterwards on civilians.
The Halo Trust means so much to Harry, because – as he told us today – it meant so much to his mother.
“It’s sad, it’s very, very sad because nearly 30 years ago, since my mother was in Angola, here we are again in a new conflict”, Harry said after seeing the work to remove Russian ammunition and other ordnance from a former battlefield near Bucha.
He added: “It’s sad, it’s depressing, but thank God for Halo Trust.”
What Harry says he wants to do more now is to use his platform to bring attention to issues, like those he has spoken about in Ukraine, that have fallen off the world’s news agenda.
The Iran war has taken a lot of the attention away from Ukraine in recent months.
So was this a Royal tour or not royal tour? With the Sussexes, everyone always has an opinion.
On certain issues, however, military ones in particular, Harry appears to be done with the tiptoeing around.
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