Maxim Chmerkovskiy is no longer Ukrainian and had no obligation to stay and fight Putin’s army because he is technically American after fleeing Odessa as a 14-year-old refugee in 1994 and automatically losing his citizenship in the process, friends say.
Chmerkovsky, 42, was in Kyiv filming World of Dance Ukraine when Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24. He delighted fans with footage from behind the scenes of the show and told them how he “fell in love” with this country again.
He escaped the war on a train full of women and children and returned home to Malibu last week, where he lives with his wife and son.
The Dancing with the Stars pro was crucified by critics not only for fleeing the region when other less equipped volunteers were left to fight, but for subsequently detailing his ordeal on social media and TV interviews.
The dancer, who admitted he was “bad” about his choice last week, declined to be interviewed by , but on Tuesday, an acquaintance said he had done nothing wrong.
“Max is not a Ukrainian citizen, he is a US citizen. He couldn’t just “stay and fight.”
“The story of avoiding any obligations to Ukraine is simply not true,” they said.
The source added that he moved to the US as a 14-year-old refugee in 1994 and automatically renounced his citizenship in the process. Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship.
Maxim Chmerkovskiy is shown as a teenager with his younger brother Valentin. They moved to the US when he was 14 in 1994 as refugees and automatically lost their Ukrainian citizenship.
Before the war, Max flew back and forth to Kyiv to work on Ukrainian dance TV shows. He is featured in an Instagram post before the conflict started.
Chmerkovskiy is shown on the train from Kyiv to Poland. He said that he sat between the cars so as not to take someone’s “seat”, but he could not stay there all the time because it was too cold.
It remains unclear who rushed to get him out, as he said on CNN. He told Anderson Cooper that he was “fired on by sources” including “military” who told him that he would be the first to be evacuated when Putin struck and that he “had no choice” but to leave.
He did not provide any other details about who exactly told him to leave.
Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country, and President Zelenskiy has issued a desperate appeal to the world for able-bodied men to join the International Legion of his Territorial Defense Army.
Chmerkovskiy returned to the US last week and is now at home in Malibu with his wife and child.
He says he will return to Poland next week to help with the relief effort. In the meantime, he is raising money online and his family in New Jersey is raising money and packaging aid for refugees.
His brother Valentin, another DWTS pro, and his father Alexander “Sasha” Chmerkovskiy help with this.
Sasha, head of Dance With Me USA, lives in Edgewater, New Jersey with his wife Larisa.
Valentine lives in California with his wife, dancer Jenna Johnson.
Their grandmother lives in Brooklyn, New York, which is the first American city they settled in after emigrating in the 1990s.
Chmerkovskiy joined DWTS in 2006 when he was 26 years old.
Max Chmerkovsky with mother Larisa, father Sasha and brother Valentin. The family moved to the US in 1994 as refugees.
Max with his son, grandmother and brother Valentine in Brooklyn. The family moved to New York in 1994.
He’s been on the show for fifteen seasons, and Kirstie Alley is among his most famous co-stars.
His flight from the conflict was a great relief to his fans, but angered critics and people who didn’t watch the show, especially considering how many older people, women and foreigners in Ukraine chose to fight.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday night, he said Ukrainians are “ready” for conflict and have been preparing for it for months. When Putin invaded, Maxim claims he was “told” he “had to leave.”
“They just told me I have to go. I must say about the Ukrainian people as a whole, they were ready for this conflict. That’s the general feeling.
“All the time they told me, if something happens: “we will take you out, you will be the first.”
“When everything happened, it happened suddenly. The day it happened, someone bombed my phone saying, “You have to go.”
Maxim Chmerkovskiy with his wife Peta Murgatroyd on Thursday in Malibu after returning to America from Ukraine
“They started calling me from various sources, the military said:“ You have to go, things are about to go crazy.
He clarified who helped him leave or advised him to leave. Other Americans reported that they did not receive any assistance from the State Department and were forced to find their own ways out of the conflict.
Maxim said that he was “very bad to go” and it got “even worse” when he got to the Kiev station and realized that he was one of, if not the only man on the train.
“I realized that it was all women and children, and I was too big and taking up space. I’m stuck between trains. Internally, I justified my space because I was outside,” he said, referring to his decision to sit between the cars for a while along the way.
He eventually went back inside because it was “too cold”.
“I helped a lot with bags and stuff, just to make sure I wasn’t taking up space.”
Now he says he is going back to the region to help at the Polish border. He did not give any indication that he would enter Ukraine to fight.
“I spent the last couple of days with the remorse of the survivors. I am working on the possibility of returning to Poland. I want to justify my safe this way,” he said.
Railway station in Kyiv on Monday morning. 1.7 million people left Ukraine