Maks Chmerkovskiy Criticizes Kirstie Alley Over Ukraine 'Real vs. Fake' Post

While others have taken a hard line against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, actress Kirstie Alley raised eyebrows with her "fake news"-powered tweet on the topic. On Friday, the "Fat Actress" and "Cheers" star wrote, "I don't know what's real or what is fake in this war. So I won't be commenting. I'll pray instead."

The sidelines approach did not sit well with many commenters, most prominently her old "Dancing with the Stars" partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who is in Ukraine while bombs are dropping, and who has been providing frightening reports from the besieged nation.

"Dear Kirstie," he responded. "We haven't spoken in a while, but I clearly remember being right next to you while you were organizing trucks of aid during hurricane Sandy and I remember all that you were saying to me about situations where innocent are suffering."

He went on to forcefully tell her, "That same energy is needed right now."

Revealing that her words must have stung him, he ended with, "No one needs your prayer if you don't know what's real or fake."

Chmerkovskiy's most recent update from Ukraine revealed, "The night went fine but there was a lot of shooting in Kyiv and some neighborhoods around… This is real, this is really happening."

Chmerkovskiy, 42, and Alley, 71, were partnered on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2012.

Alley's approach is not only at odds with much of social media, even many Russian celebrities — who have a lot to lose if Putin decides to punish them — are speaking out against the invasion. The New York Times reports one of the country's most famous TV anchors, Maksim Galkin, wrote on Instagram, “There can be no justification for war, I say no to war!”

Valery Meladze, a singer, said via video, "What happened today is something that could not and should not have happened. Ever. I plead you to stop military hostilities and start negotiations," while rocker Zemfira Ramazanova wrote, "No to war."

In a video shared almost 20 million times by Saturday, Russian tennis pro Andrey Rublev wrote "no war please" in English on the lens of a video camera recording him at a tournament in Dubai Saturday.

Worldwide protests against the war continued into the weekend, including inside Russia, where the sentiment is likely to get protesters jailed.