As Russian missile strikes against Ukraine’s power and water supplies ramped up in recent weeks, images of surgeons carrying out life-saving work by torchlight started to make headlines around the world.
Liev Schreiber, who you might know as Hollywood “fixer” Ray Donovan in the hit TV series, or for his roles in films varying from blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine to the Oscar-winning Spotlight, had already been fundraising to support a range of organisations in Ukrainesince the start of the war. But the stories emerging about hospitals being plunged into darkness made him want to do more.
The American actor, whose grandfather was a Polish-Ukrainian immigrant, has launched an appeal to raise $1m (about £833,000) to buy generators to help medics in need; to give them the basic conditions of light and warmth in which to continue their work should power outages continue.
Speaking to Sky News in a UK exclusive interview, Schreiber said he felt he had no choice but to help.
“Russia‘s strategy of responding to military advances by attacking civilian infrastructure has gotten pretty drastic,” he said. “They’ve done a tremendous amount of damage to the energy infrastructure in Ukraine. What we are doing, is just to [help] hospitals and doctors… for them to be able to continue to do the work that they need to do, which is so essential, to keep people alive.
“There’s a couple of hospitals that have had these extraordinary examples of doctors completing open heart surgeries by candlelight and flashlight. These are incredibly capable medical professionals. What we’re trying to do is to raise money to buy generators, to keep all of these hospitals lit so that the medics and the surgeons can do their work.”
Schreiber, a five-time Golden Globe and three-time Emmy nominee, is an ambassador for Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s United24, set up by the president to raise funds for the country following the outbreak of the war.
He has now been joined by five fellow United24 ambassadors – footballer Andriy Shevchenko, heavyweight boxer Oleksandr Usyk, astronaut Scott Kelly, tennis player Elina Svitolina and historian Timothy Snyder – who are all supporting the generator fundraising campaign. Generators start at about $8,000. In just over a week, they have raised $220,000 (about £179,000).
Russia has reportedly been carrying out attacks on Ukraine’s electricity transmission and heating infrastructure since October, in what Kyiv and its allies say is a deliberate campaign to harm civilians. The Kremlin has rejected accusations that it targets civilian facilities.
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Saving lives in the dark
Image: Pic: Oleh Duda/AP
This photograph was shared by cancer surgeon Oleh Duda, who was in the middle of a complicated surgery at a hospital in the city of Lviv when explosions were heard nearby. Moments later, the lights went out, and he had no choice but to keep working with only a headlamp for light before a generator brought the power back after three minutes. “These fateful minutes could have cost the patient his life,” the surgeon said in an interview.
The operation on the patient’s major artery took place on 15 November, when the city in western Ukraine suffered blackouts as Russia unleashed yet another missile strike on the power grid, damaging nearly 50% of the country’s energy facilities.
In Kyiv, the city’s Heart Institute posted a video of similar scenes earlier in November, of surgeons operating on a child’s heart with the only light coming from headlamps and a battery-powered flashlight.
“The medical infrastructure… has just been decimated in Ukraine,” Schreiber said. “Just to keep those doctors working at saving lives is so crucial right now.”
The actor has visited Ukraine three times so far year and his Instagram page is almost solely dedicated to calls for support, as well as clips of the “heroes” he has met there and the work he has carried out himself in and around the country to raise funds and deliver aid.
As well as partnering with United24, he is also the co-founder of BlueCheck, a crisis response organisation set up just weeks after the war broke out with the aim of fast-tracking urgent financial support to Ukrainian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – helping to fund everything from psychological support programmes to the evacuation of orphans.
‘Did I have that level of courage? I felt the answer was no. So I had to do the best I could’
Image: Schreiber has been joined by Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko in his fundraising efforts for generators. Pic: @andriiyushchak
While he is connected through his Ukrainian heritage, Schreiber says it is something bigger that has compelled him to offer his support. “As I sat on my couch with my children watching this war develop, and watching these normal Ukrainian men say goodbye to their wives and children, knowing that they may never see them again as they were loaded on to buses to fight in a war in which they were wildly outmanned and outgunned…
“The idea that it was an existential crisis for them, that without these men going to war, Ukraine would cease to exist. They would lose their ability to vote for their own leaders, to have their own homes, to speak their own language, to raise their children the way they wanted to, to love whom they wanted to love… Anything, everything would be gone.
“That pure idea of democracy for me feels like it’s being challenged all around the world right now. And I felt like when I saw that, particularly in front of my own children, questions were raised for me: Could I do that? Was I Ukrainian? Did I have that level of courage? And I felt like the answer was no. So I had to do the best that I could do, being as Ukrainian as I was – which I’m not, I’m American – I felt like I owe a debt to my grandparents and my ancestors who fought that particular fight over 80 years ago, and it’s now being fought again.
“As we see disinformation and misinformation popping up all over the world, it feels like Ukraine is the sort of stark example where it’s incredibly clear what’s happening. Maybe not to folks who are limited to Kremlin media, but for the rest of us, it’s very clear how fragile our democracy is and that we need to protect it and that we need to cherish the freedoms and liberties that we have and that were earned by our ancestors.”
‘We are all brothers and sisters and we need to think like that’
Image: Speaking to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Pic: United24
Schreiber, who is a parent to two teenagers with his former partner, actress Naomi Watts, said as a father he could not sit by and do nothing.
“The life that [my children] have, the luxuries that are afforded them because of the battles my grandparents fought and the opportunities that I’ve been allowed, are not just granted,” he said.
“It feels like public discourse has lost a kind of civility and I think that’s being reflected in this war. I need my children to know what’s important. I need my children to know what the values are and principles that are important to me are, which is that we treat each other with civility and humanity.”
Horrified by the images and news reports coming out of Ukraine at the start of Russia’s war, the world was quick to respond with donations of money, essentials and support. But nine months on, the initial groundswell of support has inevitably dipped.
Schreiber said the Ukrainians he has spoken to are in “remarkably good spirits… just incredibly resilient people and they’re convinced that it’s just a matter of time before this is over and they’re victorious”.
But he still hopes people will continue to show support for the country in any way possible.
“We are all brothers and sisters and we need to think like that. And we need, especially at this time of year, to be aware of those in need. And these Ukrainian people are deeply in need right now.”
A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.
Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.
“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.
The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.
Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.
He also set up social media accounts in his name.
Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.
Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.
The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”
Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.
Image: Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”
Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”
Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”
The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.
‘I know where you live’
On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.
The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.
Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”
Image: Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA
Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.
The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.
“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.
“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”
Image: Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA
Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.
He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”
Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.
Gary Glitter has been made bankrupt after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman he abused when she was 12 years old.
She sued the disgraced singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, after he was found guilty of attacking her and two other schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
Glitter, 80, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 and released in 2023 but was recalled to prison less than six weeks later after breaching his parole conditions.
A judge awarded the woman £508,800, including £381,000 in lost earnings and £7,800 for future therapy and treatment, saying she was subjected to abuse “of the most serious kind”.
The court heard she had not worked for decades due to the trauma of being repeatedly raped and “humiliated” by the singer.
Image: Glitter was jailed for 16 years in 2015. Pic: Met Police/PA
Glitter was made bankrupt last month at the County Court at Torquay and Newton Abbot, in Devon – the county where he is reportedly serving his sentence in Channings Wood prison, in Newton Abbot.
Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, the law firm representing the woman, said: “We confirm that Gadd has been made bankrupt following our client’s application.
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“As he has done throughout, Gadd has refused to cooperate with the process and continues to treat his victims with contempt.
“We hope and trust that the parole board will take his behaviour into account in any future parole applications, as it clearly demonstrates that he has never changed, shows no remorse and remains a serious risk to the public.”
Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.
He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.
His sentence for the 2016 convictions expires in February 2031.
Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.
But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.
Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan will play Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the upcoming Beatles films – with a Stranger Things star also portraying one of the Fab Four.
The two Irish actors will be joined by London-born performers Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.
The cast for the Sam Mendes project was revealed at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, with all four appearing on stage and taking a bow together in Beatles style.
Image: (L-R) Mescal, Quinn, Keoghan and Dickinson appeared together at the announcement. Pic: Reuters
Mendes is making four interconnected films – one from the perspective of each of the band members – and they are all set to be released “in proximity” to each other in April 2028.
It marks the first time The Beatles and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.
Playing McCartney is another big role for 29-year-old Mescal, who recently starred in the Gladiator sequel and was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 for Aftersun.
Barry Keoghan – who also got an Oscar nod for The Banshees of Inisherin – will portray the other surviving Beatles member, Ringo Starr.
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Image: Pic: PA
Meanwhile, Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, who appeared with long hair as Eddie Munson in the fourth series, takes up the role of George Harrison.
Harris Dickinson has the challenge of stepping into the shoes of perhaps the most famous Beatle, John Lennon.
The 28-year-old recently starred in erotic thriller Babygirl with Nicole Kidman and also appeared in satire Triangle of Sadness.
Mendes told the industry audience at CinemaCon there is “still plenty to explore” despite the Beatles’ rise having being well chronicled.