Strictly dancer Nikita Kuzmin details grandmother’s ‘escape’ from Ukraine

Strictly Come Dancing star Nikita Kuzmin has detailed his grandmother’s journey out of Ukraine amid the Russian invasion.

The professional dancer, 24, who was partnered with Tilly Ramsay on the last series of the BBC One show, was born and raised in Ukraine before moving to Italy aged nine.

Speaking about his grandmother on The One Show, he said: “She managed to escape from Kyiv.

“We didn’t know if she would manage on the way from Kyiv to Poland, the streets in which the bus passes you don’t know if the Russian troops are going to shoot the bus and we were all the time anxious, there were two strike points.

“On the border she had to walk five-miles, she hadn’t walked until last year she had an operation, this is when your instincts kick in and she managed to do all of it and she surprised us.

“She’s just so brave and I just love her so much.”

The dancer revealed his grandmother arrived 13 hours ahead of schedule but said it was “heart-breaking” to see other families at the railway station who were suffering.

Kuzmin and his family moved from Ukraine to Italy to support his sister’s dancing career, which prompted his own career to flourish.

He said that all his childhood friends, people he has trained with and competed against “are all right now defending the country from invasion”.

“It is exactly when it hits you home when you start to see the streets in which you have been walking which you grew up, where all your childhood was, right now being destroyed, bombed and it is honestly just heart-breaking and I’m just praying for the best.

“I still have my grandparents in Kyiv, my aunt, for the moment they are safe but obviously we are just trying to call them everyday and hope that they answer.

“Every day you just hope for the best,” Kuzmin added.

It comes as stars Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello and Nile Rodgers announce they will perform in Concert For Ukraine, a two-hour fundraising event raising money for the humanitarian appeal in Ukraine.

Kuzmin added: “It is so inspiring to see everybody uniting, I can just feel the love and the appreciation from all over the world and it is honestly in those terrible times it is one of the things which keeps you going.

“I think all Ukrainian people feel the support from the whole world.

“We were in Prague with my grandmother and there was a Ukrainian flag’s hanging everywhere and I could just see from the mirror of the car she was sitting in the back and she was smiling so much because you could really feel welcome.”

Kuzmin became a six-time Italian champion in Latin and ballroom, and later joined the German version of Strictly, Let’s Dance.