Prince Harry 'desperate to return to the royal fold' after bold claims during Ukraine trip

Ben McCaffrey
Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:29:42 +0000

Prince Harry has shown he is "desperate to return to the royal fold" after his claims during a trip to Ukraine, a royal commentator has said.

"I will always be part of the Royal Family," the Duke of Sussex told ITV in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, after denying the notion he was "not a working royal".

"I'm here working, doing the very thing that I was born to do," he said.

Hours earlier, he had participated in a demonstration of cutting-edge de-mining technology alongside the HALO Trust, the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance organisation.

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The trip had already grabbed the headlines on Thursday, when he spoke at the Kyiv Security Forum unexpectedly.

There, he directly called on Vladimir Putin to end the war, and antagonised Donald Trump by demanding the US show "leadership".

But Harry's declaration this afternoon that he will forever be a member of the Royal Family may be true by blood, but is it by definition?

"Prince Harry is clearly desperate to return to the royal fold," royal commentator Rafe Heydel-Mankoo told GB News.

"The more distant and disconnected he is from the Monarchy, the more his relevance wanes. This is why he is undertaking these faux 'royal' engagements.

"It's the only thing in civilian life he knows how to do; it is the best way of attracting media attention and, ultimately, I suspect he hopes it will somehow open a path for his return to the Royal Family."

The author stated that "of course" Harry is a member of the family by blood, but maintains he is "not a working royal".

"Creating his own version of a royal engagement does not make him a working royal - especially not when these trips are also designed alongside commercial operations for private financial gain," he added.

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"The position of Queen Elizabeth and King Charles is quite clear: if the Sussexes wish to pursue private commercial ventures, they can never be working royals."

Harry and Meghan stepped away from their royal duties and moved to America in 2020.

And during their recent trip Down Under, the duke revealed that, following the tragic death of his mother when he was 13, he didn't want to be a royal at all.

"It killed my mum, and I was very much against it, and I stuck my head in the sand for years and years," he told a packed crowd, including Meghan, in Melbourne.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the People's Channel, in spite of his claims, "He isn't working royal in the conventional sense."

"He's stepped down as senior working royals, because they wanted a half-in, half-out situation, which Queen Elizabeth didn't feel was feasible," he explained.

"Of course, he'll always be part of the Royal Family, but as for doing what he was born to do - well, he was born into the institution, and the Sussexes have created a brand from their activities in stepping down, but the brand was brutally created."

But it was royal biographer Nigel Cawthorne who put his views in the simplest of terms: "Being royal is his USP. What else has he and Meghan got to sell?"