Delia Smith said “human beings together can do anything”, urging a solution to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The TV chef, 80, said she “can’t believe” the co-incidence that her new book, encouraging people to think about the human existence, is being published as war rages on in Ukraine.

Speaking on The One Show about You Matter: The Human Solution, Smith said: “Like the title, I desperately want everybody to know they matter and that everybody is individual.

“But, also, human beings are such an incredible wonder that I sometimes think that we miss it – how incredibly wonderful we are, especially when we are in unity together.

“And we are just seeing little glances of that now; we are going through this terrible war but we are seeing what happens when everybody gets involved. There’s a lot of power there.

“What I’m saying to people in the book is, ‘Come away from the noise, sit down, think about the wonder and beauty of human life, your own life but also the life we all share together.’

“Why should we live in a world of chaos when we can easily solve it?

“Human beings together can do anything.”

Smith also said she can teach people to make pancakes and is hoping she can teach people to “find out what they can do, beneath in themselves.”

She added: “I think we are in a terrible state, the world is in chaos but we need to be optimistic – but we really need to look at what can be done.”