Prince Harry teased an engaged Ukrainian couple about wearing braces while meeting them during a surprise visit to Kyiv, video posted on social media shows.
The clip, which appears to have been shared by the bride-to-be, shows the Duke of Sussex shaking hands with the couple and asking if they were "getting married tomorrow." After the pair said they had been together nine years, Harry joked that they might be marrying because they both had braces. A bystander off camera quipped that the braces were "like magnets," prompting Harry to ask, "And when you kiss, you don't get stuck?" The question drew loud laughter from those present. The bride’s caption said the couple did not "stick with braces when kissing" and thanked Harry for his "invaluable support of Ukraine and veterans."
The encounter took place during a visit arranged by the Invictus Games Foundation, the charity Harry founded to support wounded service personnel. The trip followed a brief stay in the United Kingdom during which he met King Charles, and included engagements in Kyiv intended to highlight aid and rehabilitation for injured Ukrainian service members, his office said.
During the same weekend, Harry visited a makeshift memorial to fallen soldiers in Independence Square, or Maidan, where he became visibly emotional as he viewed photos, flags and mementos left to honor the dead. "I don't know how to describe it," he said in footage of the visit, adding that the display was "the most insanely sad yet beautiful thing" and praising the care placed into each photograph and memento.
At another engagement, a Ukrainian businesswoman, Mariia Didkovska, presented Harry with two gifts for his wife, Meghan Markle: a decorative plate inscribed with a line celebrating Kyiv taken from the writings of a Ukrainian poet and translator and a bottle of champagne encased in a wooden box. Didkovska, who runs a restaurant and a bar in Kyiv and is involved in a project supporting a military hospital, told Harry the champagne should be saved for the "special day when we celebrate our victory." Harry replied, "Sooner rather than later," and accepted the plate saying it was for his wife.
Harry travelled to Kyiv with a team from the Invictus Games Foundation after obtaining permission from his wife and, he said, the British government. His office told Reuters the foundation plans to help rehabilitate wounded soldiers. The Duke of Sussex has since returned to the United States.
The lighthearted exchange with the couple and the more solemn visits on the trip were captured in social media footage and reported by attendees, underscoring the mix of public outreach and private emotion during the visit to the Ukrainian capital.