More than one million Ukrainians have been able to successfully escape the country as Russia escalates its brutal attacks.

Unfortunately, that is only a small percentage of the nation’s population.

Several 90 Day Fiance stars have loved ones in Ukraine and fear for their lives as Russian forces shell cities and slaughter civilians by the thousands.

Alexei Brovarnik is from Ukraine. He still has family there. Loren admits that this has been a dark time in their household.

Loren Brovarnik famously met Alexei during her birthright trip to Israel.

However, Alexei was originally born in Ukraine, where he still has family.

Alexei and Loren fell in love, married, and he moved to the United States, where he is now a citizen — and a father of two.

In a new interview about Loren & Alexei: After The 90 Days, Loren spoke on many topics.

In addition to parenting Shai and Asher, what it’s like to have two babies during a pandemic, and more, she opened up about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This has not been easy for any of us to witness, but this is obviously taking its toll upon Alexei.

“He has family there still [in Ukraine],” Loren confirmed to Entertainment Tonight.

“And he even said, I didn’t think it was going to affect me as much as it did,” she shared.

“And,” Loren confirmed, “it’s still affecting him.”

“I don’t want to say our tone in our house has been depressing,” Loren characterized.

She said that, more accurately, “it’s been sad, it’s scary.”

Loren elaborated: “Because this is real.”

“I mean, he grew up in Ukraine and then grew up in Israel,” Loren noted.

“And those are two spotlight countries and it’s hard,” she added.

“But we do talk about it,” Loren expressed, “and it’s very important to talk about instead of bottling it up.”

Alexei is not the only member of the franchise’s cast who is from Ukraine.

Natalie Mordovtseva is one of the most well-known Ukrainian reality stars, having appeared on multiple seasons of the show.

When the war began, many who knew her from the show immediately thought of her kind, elderly mother.

“My mom is safe from today morning, she made it to Europe with some other families,” Natalie wrote this week.

“Unfortunately, my all friends are locked at that hell,” she grimly confirmed.

“Every night they telling me that they gonna die,” Natalie lamented. “I’m suffering with my people.”

Fan-favorite Yara Zaya is also from Ukraine, having often spoken of her love for her home country even after moving to the United States with Jovi Dufren.

Yara has given interviews about the devastation, reporting on what her friends and family have told her.

While her family is not in one of the most targeted areas at the moment, she still has many friends in Kyiv — a city under siege.

Lana, whom fans met when David Murphey flew to Ukraine to meet her, is even closer to this, because she is not in the United States.

At her last update, she was still in Ukraine, geo-tagging her location as Kyiv.

This invasion is a horror that has only worsened despite the courageous defense put up by the people and leadership of Ukraine.

Numerous Russian-born 90 Day Fiance stars have also spoken out.

Julia Trubkina has repeatedly called for peace, expressing her horror at the senseless invasion and the death toll.

Unfortunately, some have attacked her, as if being born in Russia made her somehow culpable for the twisted ambitions of one madman.

Varya Malina has called Vladimir Putin even worse, and she wasn’t wrong to do it.

Many Americans who remember the spring of 2003 know what it is like to watch their country launch an invasion and be powerless to stop it.

Thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest the war, many being arrested immediately (as protest is not protected under Russian law).

Unfortunately, it was seemingly inevitable that at least one cast member from the franchise would have a catastrophically awful take.

This dubious honor fell to Sasha Larin, also from Russia, who married Emily Larina.

Sasha seems to be the only one under the mistaken impression that Russia had some sort of justification for invading, but declined to share what he thinks that it was.

While Sasha did scale down his statements, he didn’t exactly walk them back, sticking to vague posts about things being “okay” soon.

Refusing to condemn a deranged despot invading his sovereign neighbor because he wants to is a weird hill upon which to die.

As always, our hearts go out to the Ukrainian people: those fleeing the carnage, those fighting against all odds against invaders, and those mourning the dead.

Late last year, the 90 Day Fiance franchise surprised fans with new spinoffs starring fan-favorites.

One of those spinoffs stars Loren and Alexei Brovarnik, a pair of longtime stars who are very popular with the fandom.

In this clip of the premiere episode, things aren’t entirely perfect in their household.

Alexei is going to be gone for 8 days, leaving a very pregnant Loren home with their 14-month-old baby.

It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes.

In this clip from the premiere (which airs Monday, Janaury 10), Loren is looking at looking after baby Shai without Alexei present for more than a week.

She’s pregnant, and her objection isn’t that he’s attending a wedding in Israel — but how long he’ll be gone.

“He’s leaving a pregnant woman and a 14-month-old,” Loren’s father points out.

Loren replies: “And I was okay with it until he said, ‘I really want to take advantage of the weekend, so I’m gonna go three days earlier.'”

She laments that he made this decision “‘without even being like ‘Are you comfortable with… how does it make you feel?'”

“With this pregnancy I’m — I don’t want to say depressed, but I’m more isolated,” Loren explains.

“And on top of everything, I have Tourette’s syndrome,” she reminds viewers.

“And anxiety triggers it,” Loren notes. “Stress triggers it. Talking about it triggers it.”

Loren recalls how, during her pregnancy with Shai, she struggled with her Tourette’s a great deal.

Now, during her second pregnancy, she is experiencing that again.

This pregnancy is more difficult than her first, between the pandemic and caring for Shai. 

Even so, she makes it clear that she understands why Alexei needs to attend this wedding in Israel.

“If he didn’t go now, he wasn’t gonna go for a really long time again,” she tells her parents.

Defending her husband in the confessional, she adds: “When Alex came to America, I definitely felt guilty because he left everything for me.”

“And I’ve always said, like, it’s important for him to stay connected to where he came from,” Loren affirms.

“‘Cause if it was the other way around,” she reasons, “I would want the same thing.”

Her father worries that Alexei is making this decision when his first priority should be his family.

“I think it was a very selfish move on Alex’s part to leave his wife and child,” Loren’s dad expresses.

“I understand he had to go to the wedding, I got it,” he admits.

“But to extend it out just to have vacation,” Loren’s dad continues, “it wasn’t work. It wasn’t deployment. It was a choice.”

Looking after a baby or a toddler by yourself is challenging under the best of circumstances.

Small children have a lot of energy, limited coordination, almost no impulse control, and very little life experience.

As a result, even the most well-behaved children can find themselves injured or in danger after just a few moments without supervision.

In Loren’s case, we’re talking about a difficult pregnancy — both physically and emotionally — added to her childcare duties.

It’s true that Alexei is only leaving for a little over a week, and that his primary reason for traveling is for a wedding.

But considering the risks involved in travel and what that week will be like for Loren, one can understand her parents’ concerns.