“Dancing With the Stars” pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy spoke Friday about his mental state after fleeing Ukraine for Los Angeles.
“I’m a big boy, but I know for a fact that I’m going through something mentally,” Chmerkovskiy said on “Good Morning America.” “I get into these cry moments, I’m emotional, I can’t control it.”
The 42-year-old Ukrainian American publicly chronicled his journey out of Ukraine after Russia invaded, including a train ride to Poland and a flight to Los Angeles, which landed Wednesday.
But in Friday’s interview, Chmerkovskiy sounded remorseful.
“I cried from the airport, I felt embarrassed ... the entire ride back cause I was the only man on the train amongst all women and children,” he said. “I feel guilty. I feel bad. I feel ashamed. I feel upset.”
Reports out of Ukraine had suggested that men between the ages of 18 and 60 were prevented from leaving the country and expected to join the war effort. Chmerkovskiy, who was born in Odessa and moved to Brooklyn, New York, as a teenager, didn’t directly address that situation in his sit-down on “GMA.”
Chmerkovskiy was in Kyiv when Russia began attacking the city on Feb. 24.
“There’s ALWAYS another way! WAR is NEVER an answer!” he wrote on Instagram.
On Monday, Chmerkovskiy boarded a packed train to Poland and arrived in Ukraine’s western neighbor about 23 hours later. He then caught a flight to Los Angeles.
“I just don’t want to resent peace somewhere else because of what I just saw, that’s the reality,” Chmerkovskiy said at the airport. “I don’t know really what to say right this second.”
More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, according to the United Nations.
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