Maksim Chmerkovskiy has traveled back to Poland in order to provide aid to Ukrainian refugees after escaping the country three weeks ago.
After his return to the United States, the Dancing With The Stars pro admitted that he had been suffering from “survivor’s remorse” in an interview with CNN.
“I spent the last couple of days with survivor’s remorse,” the 42-year-old dancer confessed after landing in Los Angeles. “And I’m currently working on an opportunity to go back. Probably sometime next week I’m going to go back to Poland and joining efforts on the ground. Sort of want to justify my safe out that way.”
The news was confirmed by his wife Peta Murgatroyd who took to her Instagram Stories this past weekend to express how much she was already missing her husband after his brief return from the war-torn country.
Peta captioned a photo of Chmerkovskiy with their 5-year-old son Shai, “Missing you already.”
Maksim later went on his own Instagram to share updates on his status and how he was working to aid refugees in a live stream.
“Hi everybody,” he began the live. “I’m fine. I’m good. I spent some time at home. I enjoyed some of that Los Angeles weather. Saw my family, saw my friends, obviously spent some time. And we’ve been working. We’ve been working on tangible opportunities to help.”
The DWTS alum revealed that he and his family had started a charitable organization named Baranova 27 for the street he was born on in Odessa, Ukraine.
“My father and my bother, together with a lot of people that we work with all the time, that we just friends with, and with the help of whom, we’ve started our organization, Baranova 27. For those of who’ve been following, Baranova 27 is the address where my father, myself and Val were born, in Odessa in Ukraine,” he revealed. “So, that’s where, sort of our roots are at. And we’ve been working diligently on making Baranova 27 something that, as big as it took off, that it can continue that way.”
Before signing off of his Instagram live session, Chmerkovskiy told followers that the crisis in Ukraine was only getting worse and pleaded for their support.
“Right now, we’re getting a little bit hungover, people are getting tired,” he said candidly. “And this is the time, that I would like to ask everybody to realize that it didn’t not end or slow down, it got worse in Ukraine.”
“Humanitarian crisis is getting worse. People are getting hurt worse. There are more people hurt, and there are more people affected,” Maks continued. “I would really, really like for you guys to give yourself a day off. Tune out, go to church, spend time with your family. Do your thing. But please, come back to us and come back to realization that a lot of people still need our help, and we should continue providing this support, because we now showed Ukraine as a world, that we can all do it together, and we have to continue probably doing that.”