Maksim Chmerkovskiy is sharing an update from Poland to increase relief efforts for his home country of Ukraine.
Shortly after arriving in the central European country from the United States on March 20, the “Dancing With the Stars” alum took to social media to share the news with his followers.
In his Instagram Live video, Chmerkovskiy stated that he and his family have started a charitable organization, of which he is on hand to organize and help distribute aid after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“My father [Aleksandr Chmerkovskiy] and my brother [Val Chmerkovskiy], together with a lot of people that we work with all the time, that we’re just friends with, and with the help of whom, we’ve started our organization, Baranova 27,” Chmerkovskiy said.
“For those of who’ve been following, Baranova 27 is the address where my father, myself and Val were born, in Odessa in Ukraine. 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.”
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Chmerkovskiy’s philanthropic efforts come almost exactly three weeks after he arrived in Poland by train. Describing it as a 31-hour journey with no sleep, Chmerkovskiy called his experience, in which he recalled witnessing families being split up, “traumatizing.” Before the end of his video, Chmerkovskiy, wed to Peta Murgatroyd, also shared a plea about increasing awareness for the ongoing crisis.
“Right now, we’re getting a little bit hungover, people are getting tired,” he shared. 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,” the dad of 5-year-old Shai continued. “People are getting hurt worse. There are more people hurt, and there are more people affected. 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.”
