• e-mail

Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio has donated $10million (£7.6million) to a fund for Ukraine, where his grandmother was born in 1915. 

The actor was reportedly very close with his grandmother - Helene Indenbirken - and would take her to premiers of many of his films. DiCaprio would call her 'Oma'.

The donation from the 47-year-old was announced by the International Visegrad Fund, according to Polish News.

Ukraine has been under Russian invasion for almost two weeks, which has resulted in thousands of deaths and wide-spread destruction of homes, schools and hospitals.

It has also sparked the fastest exodus of European people since the Second World War, with more than two million refugees fleeing into neighbouring countries.

DiCaprio is famous for his philanthropy, and the situation in Ukraine as well as his personal connection to the country has apparently prompted the large donation.

Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio (pictured centre at the movie premier of his global hit 'Titanic' with his mother, left, and grandmother, right) has donated $10million (£7.6million) to a fund for Ukraine, where his grandmother Helene was born in 1915

Indenbirken was born in Odesa in 1915 as Jelena Stepanovna Smirnova, and two years later migrated to Germany with her parents in 1917. She would have been barely two years old at the time.

She left the city the year before the Odesa Bolshevik uprising, which saw the city transferred to the Soviets, and settled in Germany. She died in 2008 at the age of 93.

Odesa is seen as one of Putin's key targets in Ukraine for its strategic coastal location, with Kyiv's forces currently bracing for a major attack there.

Experts believe Russian forces are moving in the south of the country in order to cut Ukraine off from its vital access to the Black Sea.

International Visegrad Fund, which announced the donation, was founded in 2000 by the governments of the Visegrad Group countries - The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. 

All four countries have welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, and there is no sign that the numbers will slow any time soon.

According to its website, the Fund works to promote regional cooperation to the four countries as well as others, 'especially the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership regions,' it says.

The Fund does this 'by financing grants and awarding scholarships and artist residencies through its annual budget'. 

The website says that the fund had an annual budget of 8 million euros, given to it by the four governments, meaning DiCaprio's donation has surpassed even that.

DiCaprio (right in December) was reportedly very close with his grandmother - Helene Indenbirken (pictured left together in 1996) and would take her to premiers of many of his films

Pictured: Helene IndenBirken and Leonardo DiCaprio at the premier of The Aviator

Pictured: Civilians prepare to board a train during snowfall as they flee Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Odessa, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. Indenbirken was born in Odesa in 1915 as Jelena Stepanovna Smirnova, and two years later migrated to Germany with her parents in 1917

A number of other Hollywood stars have donated funds to Ukraine since Russia's President Vladimir Putin launched his illegal war on the country.

Last week, Mila Kunis and husband Ashton Kutcher announced they would match up to $3million (£2.25m) in donations to the country.  

The fundraising efforts of Kunis and Kutcher surpassed expectations, and today hit $18.9 million after just six days. 

Kunis was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine before moving to the US when she was seven years old.

In a video on the GoFundMe page, the couple said they were aiming to hit $30 million, with all proceeds donated to Flexport.org, Airbnb.org and their attempt to aid Ukrainian civilians as their country comes under attack from Russian forces. 

Taking to Instagram when the total hit $15 million, she wrote: 'UPDATE!! 15 million. We are halfway to our goal. Thank you for the support!

'We just wanted to give you a quick update as to where we stand with the fundraising. We're halfway through. We're super-excited, and we want to say thank you to each and every single one of you. It's been an incredible past 48 hours.'

Generous: Kunis and her husband Kutcher vowed to match up to $3,000,000 in donations to help provide 'immediate' humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees

Sharing a short video with followers, the actress added: 'I have always considered myself an American, a proud American. I love everything that this country has done for myself and my family, but today I have never been more proud to be a Ukrainian.'

Husband Kutcher, who accompanied his wife for the video from their family home, revealed they had received no less than 50,000 donations to the GoFundMe page, within days of going live.

He said: 'We're halfway there. We're at $15 million, and we're heading to $30. We're going to make this happen.

'There are some problems in the world that take a village to solve, and there are other problems that take the rest of the world. This is one of those other problems.'  

Since Russian troops went in on February 24, they have advanced into the country and shelled Ukraine's main cities, forcing thousands to flee.

Moscow says it not to target civilian areas, despite widespread evidence otherwise. 

Ukrainian forces were bolstering defences in key cities on Wednesday as Russia's advance faltered amid fierce resistance in some areas, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said, while the strategic port city of Mariupol remains encircled as a humanitarian crisis grows.

Women sort the donations at the volunteer and humanitarian HQ set during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Odesa, southern Ukraine

Across the country, thousands of people are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, in nearly two weeks of fighting.

Russian forces have seen their advances stopped in certain areas - including around Kyiv - by fiercer resistance than expected from the Ukrainians.

Ukraine's general staff said in a statement that it is building up defences in cities in the north, south and east, and that forces around the capital are resisting the Russian offensive with unspecified strikes and 'holding the line'.

In the northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces are placing military equipment among residential buildings and on farms, the Ukrainian general staff said. 

And in the south, it said Russians dressed in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv. It did not provide any details of new fighting.

On the diplomatic front, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was expected to fly to Turkey later on Wednesday, and meet Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday.

The trilateral meeting was to take place on the sidelines of a summit being hosted by Turkey, a member of Nato, but no further details were announced.

In Kyiv, back-to-back air alerts on Wednesday morning urged residents to get to bomb shelters as quickly as possible over fears of incoming Russian missiles. An all-clear was given for each alert soon afterward.

Such alerts are common, though irregular, keeping people on edge. Kyiv has been relatively quiet in recent days, though Russian artillery has pounded the outskirts.

Kyiv regional administration chief Oleksiy Kuleba said the crisis for civilians in the capital is growing, with the situation particularly critical in the suburbs.

'Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, frustrating the evacuation of people and continuing shelling and bombing small communities,' he said. More than two million people have now fled Ukraine, according to the UN.