Scottsdale dance company offering classes that help raise money for loved ones fleeing from Ukraine

Ukrainian family makes it to Arizona, but without one very important person

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - A ballroom in Scottsdale has become a hub for Ukrainian families to come together and find ways to help loved ones in the country.

As some have become refugees in Poland, families struggled to bring them to Arizona, like Luda McRae, who was desperate to get her parents out of Ukraine.

Now, most of their loved ones are in Arizona after a month of trying.

"We learned two days after they left, a bomb was literally dropped in their backyard and we don’t even know what happened there. So I’m relieved for their lives," McRae said previously.

She's close friends with Artem Blakhotnyi and Inna Berlizieva who own Imperial Ballroom Dance in Scottsdale. Her parents sought safety in Germany before coming to Arizona, thanks to help from Berlizieva's brother's family.

"They were also trying to cross the border at the same time, so we coordinated for our families to meet in Ukraine," McRae said.

They crossed in the same car. However, 26 days again their lives stopped.

Not in the car was Berlizieva's brother. Because of Marshal Law, he wasn't cross the border with his wife and children.

"A younger wife who has two children, crossing the border, saying goodbye to your husband, and you don’t even really know are we going to see each other or not. You don’t know and being by yourself in a different country, not knowing the language, not having a sense of where family is, or anything, it’s really scary. It’s the scariest thing. It's just the scariest nightmare," Berlizieva said.

While her brother fought for survival in Ukraine, the Scottsdale couple says their sister-in-law and their four year old kids were unable to get visas despite long waits at the U.S. embassy in Warsaw.

"To bring them here to shelter them here, pay for their flight pay, for their food anything that requires to help them to be safe. Just to save the children," Blakhotnyi said.

They all just want the war to end.

Blakhotnyi's cousin and their child died in a bombing on the second day of the invasion. McRae has many male cousins who can’t leave, and she’s trying to support.

It’s all deeply personal, and they’re raising funds by offering dancing classes every Monday Wednesday and Friday at Imperial Ballroom Dance Company.

A month later, the family danced together, but an important person is still missing.

On the morning of Saturday, April 23, Yanna, her daughter Mariia and son Pavlo finally arrived in Arizona, ending a weeks-long evacuation from the battlefield of Ukraine.

"Her mom and dad are still in Ukraine. Her husband. So, it’s very, very difficult," Berlizyeva said. Yanna is their sister-in-law who left Kharkiv eight days after the war started with her kids.

Yanna said the hardest part was saying goodbye to her husband, Berlizieva's brother, who couldn’t leave the country and is in Ukraine.

"Unfortunately through three tries we tried to get them U.S. visas and tourist visas. It was impossible. They were getting denied without any explanation," Berlizieva said.

There’s still so much unknown and so much pain.

"This is definitely the hardest for all of us to understand what Ukrainian families are going through when they have to have separation of families, they just scatter around the world," Berlizieva said.

Yanna’s husband is OK at last check in Kharkiv, as are her parents. They hope to return when it’s safe.

More information on the classes can be found here.