Just one week ago, former Dancing With The Stars champion Maksim Chmerkovskiy was filming episodes of World Of Dance in Kyiv, where he appears as a judge.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CaE5XjDgFXP/
On February 7th, he shared a celebratory post revealing his new job, as well as being back in his native country of Ukraine and being able to see the “top professional dancers of Ukraine.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZrerbqA26v/
Sadly, his time in Ukraine has not been as incredible as he had hoped it would be. For the past few weeks, Russian president Vladamir Putin has been readying his troops at the Ukranian border and launched a “full-scale attack” on the country this week.
According to USA Today, Putin claims that he is attacking Ukraine in defense of “the Russian-speakers in Ukraine, especially those in the two self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which left Ukrainian control in 2014.”
Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, east, and south and have also taken control of the Antonov Airport, which is about 15 miles from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
Taking to Instagram, Chmerkovskiy shared an update on his current situation in Kyiv.
Standing on the balcony of his hotel, the pro-dancer said that even though they knew this was coming, he “hoped that the finality of this situation would be averted, that there would not be these kind of aggressive measures.”
As he is speaking in his video, you can hear lots of sirens in the background.
He captioned his video, “There’s ALWAYS another way! WAR is NEVER an answer! #standwithukraine P.S. I will never be the same. This is stressful and I’m getting old feelings back, like I’ve done this before. This does feel like the way it was when and why we left in the 90s. Like my old PTSD I’ve finally fixed is coming back. I literally only just forgot about those “always on the edge” feelings and actually started worrying about things like bbq grills. I’m crying as I’m typing this because all man deserves to worry about “bbq grills” and not fucking war. Hug your loved ones.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CaXDCGrgAhk/
He posted another video, lasting four minutes, and revealed that he feels extrmely lucky to have options, as he has an American passport and the financial means to flee the country. Chmerkovskiy is married to fellow DWTS pro Peta Murgatroyd and they have a 5-year-old son, Shai.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ7pPpzhX_p/
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine. See his second video below.