Maksim Chmerkovskiy, the “Dancing with the Stars” pro who fled his native Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday following a lengthy journey.
The choreographer hugged his wife, fellow “DWTS” veteran Peta Murgatroyd, after landing at Los Angeles International Airport in an emotional moment captured on camera and shared by Entertainment Tonight.
“I just don’t want to resent peace somewhere else because of what I just saw, that’s the reality,” Chmerkovskiy told ET as he walked through the airport. “I don’t know really what to say right this second.”
Chmerkovskiy fled Ukraine on Monday, boarding a packed train to Poland in what he described on social media as a “traumatizing” scene.
“There’s usually up to 30 people in this particular wagon,” Chmerkovskiy wrote on Instagram. “We were told we have to fit 135. Walkways are packed.”
He said he finally arrived in Warsaw after a 23-hour trip that included the train stopping for a tire change near the border of Poland.
“I have a lot to unpack. It’s gonna take a very long time, and the number one priority right now is that the war is just heating up,” Chmerkovskiy said in an Instagram video from a Warsaw hotel room Tuesday. “I keep seeing reports, and they’re going to get worse.”
Chmerkovskiy shared another update from a Polish airport on Wednesday, saying, “Talk to you from L.A.,” as he boarded a plane.
Before he left Ukraine, the 42-year-old chronicled his experiences in the country, including sharing in a video shot in Kyiv this week that he was arrested. He didn’t say what he was arrested for, calling the experience “probably the least traumatizing moment in this whole thing, as far as Ukraine is concerned, but for me, it was just a reality check.”
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