The Duke of Sussex says his “conscience is clear” after speaking out against members of the royal family as he defended his controversial memoir Spare.

On a visit to Kyiv last week – which followed his trip to the UK  – Harry told The Guardian his 2023 autobiography was a “series of corrections to stories already out there”.

After his four-day visit to Britain, in which he reunited with his father the King in their first face-to-to face meeting for more than year, Harry said he would like to spend more time in the country and that the past week had “definitely brought that closer”.

His Kyiv visit was with a team from his Invictus Games Foundation after an invitation from the Ukrainian government and Olga Rudneva, chief executive of the Superhumans Centre, an orthopaedic clinic and rehabilitation centre for adults and children affected by the war in Ukraine.

“I know that [speaking out] annoys some people and it goes against the narrative,” Harry told The Guardian in an interview published on Sunday (British time).

“The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.”

The prince, who celebrates his 41st birthday on Monday, denied “that I aired my dirty laundry in public”.

“It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear,” he said.

“It is not about revenge, it is about accountability.”

Harry spilled plenty of royal family secrets in Spare, including accusing his stepmother the Queen of leaking to the media, revealing a violent altercation with his brother Prince William and claiming his father put his own interests above Harry’s and was jealous of Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle.

The bombshell book sold more than 1.4 million copies across the US, Canada and Britain combined on its first day of publication in January 2023, publisher Penguin Random House said. It became Britain’s fastest-selling nonfiction book, with 400,000 copies sold in the UK alone on day one.

Sunday’s admission marks the first time Harry has publicly addressed in detail the backlash surrounding his disclosure of the private family information.

In Kyiv, the duke participated in a panel discussion at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. While there, he paid tribute to “the wives and mothers who keep their loved ones on the straight and narrow, they deserve as much respect as anyone who serves”.

Asked about advice for those leaving military service and who may miss the camaraderie, Harry said: “You will feel lost at times, like you lack purpose, but however dark those days are, there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

“You just need to look for it, because there will always be someone – a mother, father, sibling, friend, or comrade – there to pick you up.”

“Don’t stay silent. Silence will hold you in the dark,” he said.

-with AAP