Greensboro Reporter

Anatoliy Alosha has maintained communications with his family in Ukraine as he watches his home country being attacked amid its conflict with Russia.  

“Everybody’s going to the underground subway now, and it’s so many people, it feels like it’s the safest place," Alosha told Fox 8 News on Feb. 25.

The Greensboro resident awoke that day to an influx of approximately 30 messages notifying him of the invasion by Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. So far, most of his family members have reported that they are safe.

The co-owner and dance instructor at Fred Astaire Dance Studio, Alosha has called Greensboro home for two decades now. Despite enjoying The Gate City, he highlighted the weight of despair he feels living more than 5,000 miles away from his family.

In a recent update, Alosha was told his best friends woke up to the sounds of planes flying overhead and sirens blaring across the city. His sister, who lives in a high-rise building, has fled after also hearing the sounds of military planes. Other family members have fled underground and to other unknown whereabouts from the capital of Kyiv as Russian troops close in on it. 

“They left to go to our summer home, they got to our summer home, everybody who they can, and they just said, ‘I’m not worried if we’re going to die, we’re going to die together,’ and that’s what it is now,” Alosha told Fox 8 News.

He hopes the war ends before tensions rise any higher.

“It’s hard. I wish I could be with them now. Of course, dancing helps, but it is really hard. I mean, it’s horrible. I wish -- I hope he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is not going to kill a lot of people,” Alosha said, according to Fox 8 News.