On March 15, Sean Penn was missing from the 98th Academy Awards, held at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles. Penn, who bagged the Best Supporting Actor award for One Battle After Another, skipped the huge prestige to catch up with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine. 

Posting a picture of the meet-up on X, the Ukrainian leader wrote, “Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is. You have stood with Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale war. This is still true today. And we know that you will continue to stand with our country and our people.”