“What If New York Were Bombed?”: Jesse Eisenberg Recalls Russian Attack on Lviv During Humanitarian Trip to Ukraine

American actor Jesse Eisenberg, best known for his roles in Now You See Me and The Social Network, spent a week volunteering at a children's camp in Ukraine's Lviv region and experienced a Russian attack on the city of Lviv during his visit, according to a report by TSN on August 2.

Eisenberg traveled to Ukraine as part of a humanitarian mission organized by the US-based Campfire project, founded by actress Jessica Hecht, known for portraying Susan in the television series Friends.

The group worked with children at a camp in the village of Nahachiv in the Lviv region. During the visit, Eisenberg said he had spent a year learning the Cyrillic alphabet so he could perform his lines in Ukrainian.

Eisenberg joked that he was not a very good actor when performing in Ukrainian, adding that after performances he encouraged people to watch him in an American film if they wanted to see that he could actually act.

The actor said it was important for him to visit Ukraine because of his Ukrainian and Polish family roots. Eisenberg noted that his ancestors came from Poland's Lublin region and recalled that one of his relatives had survived in Lviv during World War II after being sheltered by a Catholic family that saved her life. He added that the Lviv region had always held special significance for his family and that he had felt compelled to visit Ukraine.

Eisenberg also reflected on his experience working with children at the camp, saying it had given him a renewed appreciation for both his profession and the role of art.

“When I see art taught in this environment with kids who are not having their own professional ambitions of artistry, to me, it's this beautiful, pure, wonderful thing, and it makes me like the work that I do, and the work that I'm in, and the industry that I'm in, even more, because I get to see it in this wonderful, pure form,” he said.

The actor and the Campfire team were in the Lviv region during Russia's attack on the city on July 30.

Recalling the experience, he said the air raid alert woke the group during the night, forcing them to take shelter. The following morning, he saw the aftermath of the strike.

“We were woken up by an air raid siren, we went down to the shelter, and in the morning I saw the aftermath of the shelling. It was terrible... I thought: what if New York were bombed, what if my home were bombed? Because Lviv reminded me so much of the city where I live,” Eisenberg stated.

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War in Ukraine

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Jul 30, 2026 19:03

On July 30, Russia launched a large-scale overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 70 missiles and 280 attack drones that killed at least eight people—including several members of a family whose home was destroyed by a ballistic missile—and left dozens injured in cities across the country.

The attack targeted Kyiv and the surrounding region, along with the Dnipro, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

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