'DWTS' Pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy Slammed For Not Staying & Helping His Country After He Escaped Ukraine

Dancing With the Stars pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy is being called out for escaping Ukraine amid the war to return home to his wife, Peta Murgatroyd, and their son, Shai.

"My man, you were there and fled. I don't fault you for that. But you took a spot on a train of women and children and took a press lap highlighting it. Your outrage now seems ... misplaced," one person wrote on Twitter, while another added, "I like Maks and understand that he has a wife and small child but yeah, he was also between ages 18-60 and could have stayed and helped his country. He didn't. Would have been better for his brand to just leave and hope people didn't notice."

A third person weighed in, writing, "Let me see if I have this right. We're supposed to care that a healthy, strong, young man whose only claim to fame is Dancing With the Stars, made it onto a train and into Poland safely. In lieu of women & children in that spot. Hmm ok."

The dad-of-one returned to the U.S. last week after he was stuck in the country, as the Russian-Ukraine crisis ramped up. While talking to CNN, Chmerkovskiy explained how he has been feeling.

"I realized it's all women and children and I'm too big and I'm taking up space," he said when he got to the train station in Kyiv. "I put myself in between trains. Internally, I justified my space because I was outside."

“I spent the last couple of days with survivor’s remorse,” he confessed. “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.”

"I just don't want to resent peace somewhere else because of what I just saw, that's the reality. I don't know really what to say right this second,” Chmerkovskiy said. "The reason why Ukraine is standing right now is because of the Ukrainian people. And the fact that the entire world is helping. Huge shout-out to Poland, huge shout-out to neighboring countries. The way I was treated through the whole process of leaving into Poland, I've just got to bow down to the Polish people."