Elena Samodanova, ex-wife of “Dancing With the Stars” pro Gleb Savchenko, has rebutted his claim that she had abducted their daughters by moving to China.
Savchenko has requested an emergency child custody order on grounds that Samodanova took the two children to Hong Kong in 2023 for what was supposed to be a year-long stay while she worked on a project. She signed documents promising the move would be temporary but never came back, he said.
Moreover, Savchenko claimed in legal filings obtained by TMZ that his ex had taken the girls to visit Russia, where she’s from, and to Vietnam, both over his objections.
To keep them in Hong Kong, she “obtained permanent Hong Kong residency, enrolled the children in an expensive private school, got the children a cat, became engaged, and had another child with her fiancé” in order to build a new life for their family without him, according to the documents he filed Monday. As a result, he can only see his daughters when he visits them in Hong Kong, and even then, Elena attempts to “drastically limit my access to our daughters,” he alleges.
The two dancers were married for 14 years and divorced in 2020. Savchenko is asking for temporary sole custody of 15-year-old Olivia, the elder of their two children, and for Samodanova to be barred from seeing her, pending the outcome of an upcoming court hearing. He didn’t mention custody of 8-year-old Zlata in that filing. But he implied he is also petitioning to get Zlata back under the international Hague Abduction Convention, which was created to reunite parents with their wrongfully removed or retained children, USA Today reported.
Samodanova, for her part, accused Savchenko himself of “wrongful international retention,” since Olivia is actually in Los Angeles with her father right now, and he had canceled her June 5 return ticket.
“The statement from Mr. Savchenko’s attorney misrepresents our family’s reality,” Samodanova told TMZ. “As Olivia’s primary caregiver, I have raised her every day while Gleb worked full-time on ‘DWTS.’ Today, Olivia thrives in Hong Kong. She attends a top school and is an elite ballroom dancer.”
She noted that keeping Olivia in Los Angeles will “directly jeopardize her future, education and athletic progress” and that “ironically, Gleb himself holds a Permanent Resident card” in Hong Kong. Samodanova called his emergency filing “a rushed attempt to bypass proper laws,” but Savchenko said Olivia doesn’t want to go back.
The former couple are scheduled to attend a court-ordered child custody mediation session on Aug. 5, followed by a formal court hearing on Aug. 18.