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Actor and activist Sean Penn skipped Sunday’s Academy Awards to visit Ukraine, missing the ceremony where he ended up winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance in One Battle After Another. In his absence from Hollywood, Ukraine’s state rail group, Ukrzaliznytsia, honored by giving him its own version of an Oscar, Agence France-Presse reports.
Per AFP, Ukraine’s state rail group (Ukrzaliznytsia) knew that Penn would miss the awards, and so the agency decided to “[give] him one of his own,” as they shared via Twitter/X. The “Ukrzaliznytsia Oscar” (if we’re to give the thing a name) is shaped like the iconic statuette, and was made from flattened metal taken from a train destroyed during a Russian attack. The agency called the gesture “a symbol of resilience.”
Penn has been a vocal and active advocate for Ukraine ever since the start of the Russian invasion. He visited the country in 2022 to film the documentary Superpower, fleeing the country by walking to Poland once fighting broke out, and at one point saying he considered joining the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He’s since become close friends with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, gifting him one of his two previous Oscar trophies during one visit, telling him that, “When you win [the war], bring it back to Malibu, because I’ll feel much better knowing there’s a piece of me here.”
Penn beat out his OBAA co-star Benicio Del Toro, Frakenstein’s Jacob Elordi, Sinners’ Delroy Lindo, and Sentimental Value’s Stellan Skarsgård in winning at this year’s ceremony. See the complete winners list and revisit everything that happened during the 2026 Academy Awards by checking out Consequence’s Oscars Live Blog.
Sean Penn was a gifted an "Oscar" made of the metal of a railway car damaged by Russian shelling by the head of Ukrainian Railways.
Penn skipped Sunday's Academy Awards, where he won Best Supporting Actor, in order to travel to Ukraine.
🎥: @Ukrzaliznytsia pic.twitter.com/AKTUlh00KV
— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) March 17, 2026
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