Tears of Strictly’s Nikita as his grandmother f lees Kyiv
STRICTLY Come Dancing’s Nikita Kuzmin has paid tribute to his ‘incredibly brave’ grandmother after she made a gruelling twoday escape from Kyiv.
The dancer, who was partnered with Tilly Ramsay in the latest series of the BBC show, shared news of his reunion with his 120,000 followers on Instagram.
He said he drove for 13 hours from Frankfurt to meet his grandmother and mother in the Polish city of Krakow, about 160 miles from the Ukrainian border.
He wrote: ‘Picked up my grandma from Poland! She is so incredibly brave & strong, 2 nights without sleeping, walking 8km+ in the freezing cold, when on a normal day she can barely walk!’
Nikita was born in Ukraine but moved to Italy when he was nine. His aunt, grandfather and paternal grandmother remain in Kyiv. About half of the capital’s 2.8million residents have fled the conflict, while the city has been slowly encircled by Russian forces.
An emotional Nikita said collecting his grandmother had ‘immersed’ him in the refugee crisis ‘for the first time in real life’.
He added: ‘Although I should have been happy for my family, I couldn’t. Just had tears in my eyes, because of how sad the situation is. How many thousands of kids and women doing their absolute best to stay strong.’
He described watching people ‘waiting for the next train to go somewhere, anywhere in the hope that somehow things would be OK’, adding that for many ‘all they have known as home, it’s not there any more’.
The dancer has used his social media platform to promote charities working with refugees and in the war-torn country itself. He has called on his fans to donate and help ‘in any way possible’.
Nikita’s Strictly co-stars offered their support to the dancer, with judge Shirley Ballas writing that her heart ‘breaks for all who are caught up in this conflict’.