Dancing with the Stars alum Maks Chmerkovskiy had posted a devastating video from Kyiv in the hours after Russia invaded Ukraine. "I'm in Kyiv, contrary to what I probably should've done a while ago," he began.
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"Everybody was hoping that the finality of this situation would be averted, that there wasn't going to be these kinds of aggressive measures," he added before posting a second video of military vehicles driving through the city center as he broke down in tears over the "reality" of the situation of his friends and family who "cannot just escape".
WATCH: DWTS alum Maks Chmerkovskiy posts devastating video from Kyiv as Russia invades Ukraine
Maks is married to fellow DWTS pro Peta Murgatroyd and shares one child, 5-year-old son Shai Aleksander, with her. Maks has a US passport and is able to leave the country; his family emigrated to the US from Ukraine when he was 14.
He then pleaded with his Russian fans to listen to him, and not the "propaganda".
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"I know you know me and there are a lot of people in Russia watching this and watching the news, and hearing propaganda and hearing complete nonsense talked about. I am not someone pleading for someone else's safety from a far, safe distance, I am someone about to go into a bomb shelter because [expletive] is going down," the professional dancer cried out.
"In 2022, a civilized world, this is not the way we do things, and as a powerful forward-thinking country, Russians need to get up and say something."
Maks is married to DWTs pro Peta
"This is all one man's ambition, of something," he continued, "and however convenient it sounds in Moscow, and however comfortable you are, this is not the right steps or the correct actions."
"I am very scared," he concluded.
In his caption, Maks - who has danced with Heather Morris, Vanessa Lachey, and Amber Rose - shared that he will "never be the same", revealing that this moment in the country feels "like the way it was when and why we left in the 90s" and sharing that his "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 is BBQ grills and not war."
Maks has danced with Heather Morris, Vanessa Lachey, and Amber Rose
Hours later, he shared an update and insisted he is "safe" and "has options".
"But a lot of people are not, and this is very very real," he added. "I am packed, and my hotel has a shelter and we can go there now if we want, but a few of us decided to wait for the sirens."
He also shared he would keep fans updated but that the "reality is exactly how it looks on TV".
Maks later shared an update
Ukraine declared independence from the laws of the USSR in 1991. In recent years, Russian president Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the disintegration of historical Russia".
He has called Russians and Ukrainians as "one nation", and has demanded the country's government decline any invitation to join Nato. Putin has also frequently accused Ukraine of being a puppet state, controlled by the West after pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in 2014.
Russia retaliated at the time by seizing the southern region of Crimea and triggering a rebellion in the east by Russian-backed separatists.
In the last 24 hours Putin has attacked airports and military headquarters, as tanks and troops rolled into major cities from neighboring Belarus, and the port cities of Odessa and Mariupol.
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