Ashton Kutcher — who’s been showing his support for Ukraine, where wife Mila Kunis was born — is calling on his social media following to deliver a message to Russian citizens.
“If you know someone from Russia, call them and tell them their media is lying to them,” The Ranch actor, 44, wrote in a Twitter post in both English and Russian on Monday. “Ukraine doesn’t want to fight, they just don’t want Putin’s government and don’t want to be occupied.”
Post for socials: If you know someone from Russia Call them and tell them their media is lying to them. Ukraine doesn’t want to fight, they just don’t want Putin’s government and don’t want to be occupied.
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) March 1, 2022
Kutcher also shared tweets from Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky saying that the lodging service is offering free housing to 100,000 refugees fleeing from Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion. (Kutcher is an investor in the company.)
Over 520,000 refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia waged war last week, the United Nations has estimated. The U.N. expects the total to reach 4 million in coming weeks. Ukrainian civilians have been killed during the invasion, which has seen Russia try to take over Ukrainian cities while the country’s army — and armed citizens — fight back.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed European Parliament on Tuesday, saying, “We are fighting just for our land and for our freedom,” adding, “Nobody’s going to break us. We are strong. We’re Ukrainians. We have a desire to see our children alive. I think it’s a fair one. Yesterday, 16 children were killed.”
When Russia invaded last week, Kutcher took to Twitter to say, “I stand with Ukraine.” The assumption is that he’s speaking on behalf of his family as Kunis, 38, does not have public-facing social media accounts.
Kunis, who married Kutcher in 2015, was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, when it was still part of the former Soviet Union. At age 7, her family moved to the United States — with just $250.
Kunis has said her parents, who reside near her in Los Angeles, didn’t tell her they were moving to a different country when they left, amid the fall of communism. The family, along with her older brother Michael boarded a train to Moscow. From there, they flew to Los Angeles on a refugee visa. She started school days later.
“I literally had no clue of a different continent let alone a different language or people or diversity,” she said on a HouzzTV special in which she gave her parents condo — which they have lived in since 1992 — a makeover. Moving to L.A. “was all very jarring and very shocking.”
She told The Telegraph in 2011 that she blocked out second grade completely and doesn’t “have any memories… My parents tell me, I cried every morning and when I came back from school.” However, she soon adapted.
Kunis’s dad had worked as a mechanical engineer and her mother was a physics teacher in Ukraine but their degrees and jobs didn’t transfer. So they pursued new professions in the U.S. with her dad becoming a cab driver — and doing other odd jobs — and her mom worked at Rite Aid. While Kunis landed her role on That ’70s Show in 1998 — with future husband Kutcher — she also a job at Rite Aid with her mom.
“My mom would pick me up from ’70s Show, and she’d take me to work with her,” she told Elle in 2014. “I’d have to work the ice cream counter or photo counter until closing all the time.”
Kunis said in her 2011 interview with The Telegraph, “Nowadays, if you have money you think Moscow or wherever is great. But that’s not the reality of the Russia I grew up with.”
Kunis now has two children of her own with Kutcher: daughter Wyatt, 7, and 5-year-old son Dimitri.
