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Liev Schreiber and Eugene Hütz Bake Easter Bread Using Flour From Ukrainian Demined Fields for Charity Raffle

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Vlad Litnarovych
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Liev Schreiber and Eugene Hütz Bake Easter Bread Using Flour From Ukrainian Demined Fields for Charity Raffle
Eugene Hütz (L) with Liev Schreiber (R) in the kitchen of a Veselka, Ukrainian restaurant in New York City, April 15, 2025. (Source: UNITED24)

Actor and UNITED24 ambassador Liev Schreiber  joined Eugene Hütz , frontman of the band Gogol Bordello to bake traditional Ukrainian Easter bread using flour produced from wheat grown in a formerly mined area of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

The event took place at Veselka, a well-known Ukrainian restaurant in New York City. The two participated in a special baking session focused on paska , a traditional Easter bread that holds deep cultural significance in Ukraine. The flour used in the bread was sourced from farmland in the east of Ukraine that had been cleared of landmines, allowing local farmers to resume wheat cultivation.

“Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world. And what that means is that before the war, Ukraine was one of the top global suppliers of flour, supplying to almost 60 countries. And if they’re not able to produce that flour, it’s not only a problem for Ukraine,” said Schreiber.

Eugene Hütz (L) with Liev Schreiber (R) making paska in the kitchen of a Veselka, Ukrainian restaurant in New York City, April 15, 2025. (Source: UNITED24)
Eugene Hütz (L) with Liev Schreiber (R) making paska in the kitchen of a Veselka, Ukrainian restaurant in New York City, April 15, 2025. (Source: UNITED24)

“So what UNITED24 has decided to do is to create a fundraiser particularly around demining. There are so many reasons why demining is important — getting the people back up on their feet, getting the country working again, making sure that people are safe, children playing in fields. So this is a really, really, really big issue. If you can help, please do. And if you can’t help, just talk about it.”

The event was held as part of Soul of Soil 2.0, a campaign led by Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to highlight the devastating impact of landmines — and the real cost behind every loaf of Ukrainian bread.

As of now, an estimated 139,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory are potentially contaminated with explosive ordnance. While 35,000 square kilometers have already been cleared and returned to productive use, vast areas remain inaccessible and dangerous.

To draw attention, UNITED24 is launching a raffle as part of its ongoing Step-by-Step campaign.

As part of the campaign, anyone who donates $10 or more will be entered into a raffle to win one of 10 exclusive packs of this symbolic flour — a powerful reminder of resilience, recovery, and the fertile land Ukrainians are fighting to reclaim.

Earlier, reports emerged that since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, there have been 811 incidents involving civilians due to explosive remnants of war.

A total of 1,158 people have been affected, including 335 fatalities. Among the killed are 18 children.

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Isaac Liev Schreiber is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award as well as nominations for nine Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. Schreiber’s early film roles include Mixed Nuts (1994), Party Girl (1995), The Daytrippers (1996), and Big Night (1996). He acted in the first three Scream films (1996–2000), Ransom (1996), The Hurricane (1999), Hamlet (2000), Kate & Leopold (2001), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), The Painted Veil (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), and Spotlight (2015). He acted in the Wes Anderson films Isle of Dogs (2018), The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023). He made his directorial film debut with Everything Is Illuminated (2005).

Eugene Hütz is a Ukrainian-born singer, composer, disc jockey, and actor, most notable as the frontman of the Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello.

Paska is a traditional Easter bread particularly spread in Central and Eastern European countries with cultural connections to the ancient Byzantine Empire, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Eastern Catholicism. In the Ukrainian language, Easter is called Вели́кдень (Velýkden'). The term paska comes from the Greek word for Easter (from which it has also entered Russian as па́сха (páskha). The Ukrainian word па́ска (páska) is one of the words used for a traditional egg-enriched Easter bread or cake in Ukraine, whilst Вели́кдень (Velýkden') is used to denote the day. Among different communities and families it may be used variously for the braided, elaborately decorated loaves of Easter bread, or the tall Easter cake cooked in tin cylinders sometimes called babka, baba or in Russian, kulich.