Peta Murgatroyd has begged fans to “pray” for her husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy while he is in Ukraine

The 42-year-old dancer is back in his home country filming amid the Russian invasion and his fellow ‘Dancing with the Stars’ pro took to Instagram to ask fans to “pray” for that he “comes home soon.”

She wrote: “Please pray for my husband Maks. I don’t usually ask these things from my social media network, however today is extremely hard and the next few will be even harder. My pain is overwhelming and I’m struggling, but you sending your positive light and love to him would mean the world to me. Truly, I wish for nothing more. Many of you are asking for details and I don’t have the answers, but yes, he is safe right now. Please pray that he comes home soon. Please pray that he has a swift, safe exit.”

The invasion on Ukraine was launched by Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday (24.02.2022) with several strikes being fired across the various cities and Maksim had taken to Instagram himself as he reported from the capital city of Kyiv.

In a video which showed a passing army truck and in which sirens could be heard, the star – who has five year old son Shai with Peta – explained that he was “very scared.”

He said: “This is the reality. I’m in Kyiv, contrary to what I probably should’ve done a while ago, and not that no one saw this coming, but everybody was hoping that the finality of this situation would be averted, that there wasn’t going to be these kind of aggressive measures. I want to go back home [to the U.S.]. And I realize that I have the way to — I realize that I have a different passport, and my family is far away.I’m uneasy, I’m very scared … but I do know, at the very least, I have a chance. I have a passport and a way out. A lot of people here do not, and it’s f****** nonsense.”