Maksim Chmerkovskiy says he was arrested in Ukraine for breaking curfew, but was quickly let go when a man recognized him from 'Dancing With the Stars'

• "Dancing With the Stars" alum Maksim Chmerkovskiy said he was briefly arrested in Ukraine on Monday.
• He told "Good Morning America" that it was because he broke curfew.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy said he was briefly arrested earlier this week in Ukraine for breaking curfew, but he said on "Good Morning America" that he was recognized as a "Dancing With the Stars" judge and let go.

For the past week, the professional dancer has been posting videos on Instagram that detail his "traumatizing" experience in Ukraine amid Russia's invasion. On Monday, Chmerkovskiy said he'd been arrested but didn't explain why. He said the incident was a "reality check" that prompted him to try to leave the country.

The Ukrainian-born dancer, who immigrated to the US in the 1990s as a teenager and is now a citizen, arrived in California on Thursday night.

On Friday, he spoke with "Good Morning America" about his time in Ukraine and further explained the arrest. While outside in the city at night, men stopped Chmerkovskiy and asked to see his passport, he said. When they saw that it was a US passport, they started speaking to Chmerkovskiy in English, he continued. But he told them he spoke Russian.

"Then I regretted saying that. I thought maybe it was wrong," the dancer said on ABC's morning show. "But then the guy next to him goes, 'Oh, that's the judge from "Dancing With the Stars." That's Maks. I know him. He's from TV.' He goes, 'Get inside right now.'"

Chmerkovskiy said he didn't feel in danger of being harmed — "I wasn't going to get shot," he said — but the brief arrest made him realize that he didn't have everything he needed "to feel safe" in the country.

As reported by Us Weekly, the pro dancer had temporarily returned to Ukraine to serve as a judge on the country's version of "Dancing With the Stars." At first he told Instagram followers that it wouldn't be safe for him to leave Kyiv, but following his brief arrest, he decided to try to return home. Earlier this week, he shared Instagram videos of himself taking a train, which brought him across the border to Poland, where he was able to get a flight back to the US.

Russia's conflict with Ukraine has been rumbling for years, but it escalated dramatically in recent weeks. Russia assembled vast numbers of troops around Ukraine — as many as 190,000, the US estimated — in the largest military operation in the region since World War II.

Last week, Putin recognized the claims to independence of the breakaway Luhansk and Donetsk areas of Ukraine, ordering troops there for what he described as a limited peacekeeping operation in the east of the country.

Less than 72 hours later, Putin authorized a full-scale attack on Ukraine. In the hours that followed, explosions pounded cities around Ukraine, many hundreds of miles from the previous conflict zone. Ukrainian officials reported fighting on its borders with Russia and dozens of casualties.

Insider's live blog of the invasion is covering developments as they happen.