Actor and left-wing activist Sean Penn is once again blasting the United States, saying the country needs to accept “a level of shame” for not sending enough arms and money to Ukraine fast enough in its fight against Russian invaders.
Penn made his comments after a screening of his admittedly propagandistic documentary Superpower, which premiered in Berlin on Saturday. The film is about the attack on Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Flag Day star insisted that if Russia wins its war of invasion, the whole world will be in trouble.
“If you imagine what it is if Russia wins, we are all fucked. Just dead fucked,” Penn said, according to the Guardian. “We are already as Americans, I can say, we are having to take on board a level of shame for not having scaled up sooner with the weapons.”
“I think that it’s very clear that, whatever it is going to take to keep U.S. troops out of there [Ukraine], ultimately we will do. And so why not now?” he continued.
Penn feels that the west must rise to save Ukraine and President Zelensky, who he describes as a man with “a tangible sense of the human need for freedom.”
As to Putin, Penn feels the Russian leader is a “creepy bully.”
“I don’t like a creepy little bully threatening him [Zelensky] and his country,” Penn said during his comments. “I do like that there’s no threat that scares Zelensky or the Ukrainians.”
Penn has outright admitted that his documentary of the war between Russia and Ukraine is biased.
“This is not an unbiased film because this is not an unambiguous war,” he exclaimed. “The word ‘propaganda’ can be used as a disparagement. As part of showing the truth of Ukraine’s absolute unity in pursuing all those things without which life is not worth living, then I’m very happy to be considered a propagandist. We made an unapologetically biased film, because that was the true story we found.”
Penn’s co-director, Aaron Kaufman, agreed. “The movie was never meant to be the definitive history of Ukraine,” he said. “It was never going to be the definitive movie about war or Russia. It was our experience, having not been well-educated about Ukraine – we had a very shallow, US-focused view of the region. What the movie became was our journey to find those truths,” he said.
Penn also admitted that he gave President Zelensky one his Oscars and that the statue is sitting in the Ukrainian leader’s office. Penn won two Oscars, one for his performances in the 2003 drama Mystic River and a second for 2008’s Milk.
The I am Sam actor has been a critic of the west’s response to Russia’s invasion since the beginning. Last March he was seen demanding that the U.S. and Poland expedite the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine.And that same month he was urging Hollywood to boycott the Oscars unless the Academy relented to allow President Zelensky to speak during the broadcast.
Last year, Penn claimed that he personally was ready to “take up arms against Russia.”
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