Former "'Dancing with the Stars" pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy shared videos on his Instagram page Thursday from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv after Russia began attacks on his native country.
“Honestly I’m getting really emotional, it’s been a little difficult,” Chmerkovskiy, 42, says in one video.
“I will never be the same. This is stressful and I’m getting old feelings back, like I’ve done this before,” he captioned the post of another video.
(Note: There is profanity in the video below.)
Chmerkovskiy’s posts came just hours after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine following a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin authorizing military action.
Chmerkovskiy's videos included sirens that could be heard in the background. He became emotional as he talked about his family and the families around him in Ukraine.
"I want to go back home. And I realize that I have the way to — I realize that I have a different passport and my family is far away," he says in one video. “What I'm realizing is that my friends whose kids are here, whose moms, dads are here, and elderly people are here, they can’t just escape.”
Chmerkovskiy and his wife, fellow dancer Peta Murgatroyd, are parents to 5-year-old son Shai. In his video, Chmerkovskiy asks fans to respect the situation and refrain from overwhelming his wife with messages.
In one of his captions, Chmerkovskiy wrote, “War is NEVER an answer!”
“I am not, at this point, someone who is pleading for someone else’s safety from a far distance, from a safe distance. I’m somebody who is about to go into a bomb shelter,” Chmerkovskiy says in one video.
Chmerkovskiy, a "DWTS" regular for 17 seasons, posted earlier this month on Instagram about returning to Ukraine and working as a judge for a TV dance series in the country. In one of his videos on Thursday, Chmerkovskiy talks about recently falling “back in love” with the country and the people of Ukraine.
“I know now who these people are. I know now who this country is, what it represents, what it stands for. It’s completely not what is being portrayed to the Russian people in order to justify this invasion,” Chmerkovskiy said.
Chmerkovskiy later said in his Instagram stories that he was safe and staying at a hotel equipped with a bomb shelter but stressed that “a lot of people are not” safe.
Chmerkovskiy also urged the dance community to "use your thumbs" to spread information.
"Just get on social media and start saying things," he said.
Murgatroyd on Thursday afternoon posted her own message to Instagram, asking for prayers for the safe return of her husband and for the people of Ukraine.
"My pain is overwhelming and I'm struggling, but you sending your positive light and love to him would mean the world to me," she wrote in part.
"Please pray for Ukraine and the innocent civilians whose lives are being greatly uprooted. I grew to love this country the couple of times I visited and they're in an unfathomable situation," she also wrote.