Maksim Chmerkovskiy shared another video update from his home country of Ukraine, letting his followers know that while he and his family are “safe,” the situation in the country right now is still “pretty dire.”
The Dancing With the Stars coach posted two videos to Instagram on Friday to keep people informed of what’s happening in Kyiv one day after Russia deployed a missile attack on the capital. “I’m out here, again, I’m safe. We haven’t been told to move, and I’m just following instructions. That’s all I can say,” Chmerkovskiy began his update. “But the reality is that I’m also talking to my friends that are here, the Ukrainians, and the situation is pretty dire.” He went on to explain that “people are being mobilized” and “the whole country is being called to go to war. Men, women, boys…are going forward and getting guns and getting deployed to defend the country.”
The professional dancer also made it clear that he is by no means attempting to “represent everybody” in Ukraine, nor is he “reporting the news,” noting that given that people “are very aggressively charged” over this event, “this is gonna be tough.” He continued, “If it’s not resolved in a peaceful manner in some way or form in the next day or so, or two, I think it’s gonna take a turn for very, very much more aggressive actions and a lot more casualties.”
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Chmerkovskiy went on to point out that this is a particularly dire situation for the most vulnerable in their community. “There are kids that are getting sick, people are sheltering and people that aren’t able to just get up and run, right: small children, elderly people. This is like it is in every conflict, I’m just drawing attention to the fact that this is what’s happening,” he explained. “Some of my friends’ kids got sick overnight, last night. Some of my friends can’t leave because they have some people that are old that [are] just coming over this COVID nonsense that was happening.” He concluded his first post by promising more updates in the near future, adding, “I’ll say some stuff when I’ll be able to.”
In a brief follow-up video, the DWTS star also explained that he is “not currently trying to leave” the capital and is “not moving towards the border currently. It’s, I heard, not safe.” These posts come the day after Russia began invading the country, during which Chmerkovskiy also shared videos of Kyiv and became choked up while speaking about the fate of his city. “The main thing is that I’m safe. But like I said, a lot of people are not, and this is very, very, very real, what’s happening now,” he said. “I’m packed, I’m ready, my hotel has a bomb shelter. We can go there now, but the few of us decided to maybe wait until we hear the sirens and then we’ll be down there.”
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