the day when death seems to have won, but we hope for a resurrection. we believe in the victory of life over death, and we pray that death loses. >> president zelenskyy said that life is beginning to return to normal in the liberated areas of ukraine. but life returning also means images like this. we've just been able to confirm the details of this video. it's a makeshift grave for a mother and her son. the video shows two-plywood crosses on a grave with two names. marina and ivan. both died march 5th. and in the neighboring town new satellite images detail the sheer destruction wrought by the russian forces. these drone images are extraordinary. block after block of ruined lives, destroyed homes. it's said to have suffered the brunt of a weeks long fire fight but is now free from the imminent threat of russian forces. same cannot be said for other kwlairs of the country. today a russian general speaking on state television in comments picked up across the world made a sweeping statement about russia looking to establish, quote, full control of southern portions of of ucrin. that would include cities like odesa and mykolaiv. the area from eastern ukraine to a separatist region where russia already has forces. again, these words were not from vladimir putin or his defense minister, the general now overseeing the entire war in ukraine. according to "the new york times" it's a relatively obscure military figure. that's what the times is phrasing and his job traditionally involves organizing political propaganda. we should also point out these claims come on the very day that russia provided more information on the sinking of their black sea flagship. now, they say only one member of the crew died. they say 27 are missing and that 396 people were evacuated. we don't know whether those numbers are correct. we do know they still claim that rough seas and a fire onboard sank the ship. ukrainian forces say they struck the ship with missiles, a view the u.s. believes is credible. as we examine the claims of that russian general and frankly any russian officials it's worth examining the assessment how well russians are conducting themselves in the east. >> reporter: we continue to see them try to address their integration of air and ground forces which was dismal in the early weeks of this campaign. they appear to be trying to fix that integration going forward, but, again we wouldn't assess they've solved all their problems. >> this is all to say any russian claim needs to be heavily and carefully examined. what we do know is this. intense fighting is still ongoing in the east where evacuations are perilous. one ukrainian official says, quote, the russians do not allow us to save the civilians. and around mariupol continued air strikes as ukrainian defenders are still trapped vunded in a massive steel plant. this is easter weekend in ukraine. ed lavendera in one recently liberated ukrainian town and the horrors its residents witnessed. >> reporter: war stopped time here. bombs and artillery scorch this village in northern ukrain. russian occupation ravaged the minds of its people. the story of what happened here is just emerging revealing how the russian army held this village hostage for more than 30 days. sophia shows us the underground bunker in her shed where she first hid from the fighting. she says she had food stored here that the russians ate. this is where she slept. sophia says russian soldiers went door-to-door rounding people up and taking them at gunpoint into the basement of the village school. sophia tells us that when the russian soldiers moved them all into the basement of the school building that they were put down there and that the soldiers told them they were being put in the basement to die. a woman named natalie took us into the basement where she was trapped. i was in a stupor, natalie tells me, i was just sitting there, praying, hoping it would all stop soon. residents tell us there were about 350 people held hostage in the basement of this school building. men, women and children forced to live in these horrific conditions. in fact, it was so strangulating, there was so little air circulation that one resident told us that 12 elderly people died here because they couldn't breathe. and their bodies were left while the fighting raged outside. these are some of the only known images captured in the school's basement. the faces say it all. she's telling me that about 35 people slept in this small room. nobody could lay down. they slept kind of sitting with their knees up against their chest. the rooms are littered with makeshift beds, school bucks and russian troop meal boxes, but it's the art on the walls that stops you in your tracks. this is how the children passed the time. colorful drawings on a canvas of anguish. the people who were trapped down here etched names onto this concrete wall. they marked the days with a calender crossing out the days as they went by. everything down here has the feel of a world war ii era concentration camp. above the basement russian soldiers took over the school building. residents say they were used as human shields. they knew the ukrainian military wouldn't fire at the school with civilians inside. grabbing food from a humanitarian delivery truck and takes us to her home. russian soldiers threw grenades through her windows and defecated on the house floors. she was also held hostage in the school basement with her 1-year-old daughter. did you think you were going to survive that? i thought my child would not survive, she tells me. i asked them to let me out so the child could be breathe fresh air because she felt bad. they said let her die, we don't care. sophia, how did you feel when you got out of the basement of the school? she says one of the villagers opened the basement door and said the russians left. the trapped villagers were surprised. in the morning our guys entered the village, she said. we cried, we hugged them and cried. what will you tell your daughter about this experience? nothing, she says. her daughter will not remember it, and she will tell her nothing. >> ed lavandera joins us now. i mean, can you talk about the challenge people are facing now, i mean as they're trying to live? how are they able to eat? how are they able to -- is there electricity in that area? >> reporter: every problem at every corner, and it's really kind of hard as we were walking around that village today to really capture the scope and magnitude of just how much everything is destroyed. and then on top of that, anderson, just the infrastructure you're talking about electricity, power, everything is just dismantled. and then they have to deal with land mines. you saw there in one shot of the piece the stockpiled weaponry on the ground there. the residents there believe that the russians had buried several people if not many more who were killed in the fighting there in the woods around that village. they can't get to those areas because of the concern about land mines, but every aspect of life there has been turned upside down. i asked one woman what will happen of this vil lage. she didn't think it would survive. >> we mentioned fighting ongoing at the besieged port city of mariupol. today residents fortunate to escape told cnn about some of their experiences. >> reporter: so many should have bip evacuated but the russians kept shelling. they are not human beings. i don't know who gave birth to them. horrific. we were just thinking about our survival. i don't know how i'm going to tell my son about such terrifying events. >> joined now by retired u.s. army brigadier general pierce. i appreciate you joining us. when you hear the stories of how the russians behaved in the areas that they occupy, how does that comport with what any modern day military, how they should behave in an occupied area? >> it's beyond all ethics, mores, principles with violations of criminal conduct as we would say on our own side, war crimes. it's gone vicious, and war is always vicious, anderson. and you've covered it a lot over the years, but this is -- this is a -- this is a fight right now, an existential fight for both ukraine who's fighting for its very existence and now for the putin regime. and they're going to continue to push forces in. it's fought over the tops of villages and towns and cities. so there's an unbelievable civilian cull and they're caught in it. you get war rage, partisans, militias. you have vautner group that are violent and it's ugly. i don't know how long it will take -- >> earlier we heard from admiral john kirby from the pentagon talking about whether russian forces have been able to fix the issues that they were facing within their own logistical supply, within their own coordination supply between ground operations and air operations. do you think -- and it seems like it remains to be seen whether they have been able to in this now new offensive in the donbas area. do you think it's an army that is capable of fixing those kind of problems in this amount of time? >> these are fundamental military and organizational issues that normally takes months to train and enforce. the russians are having to slap together a core force with mangled forces coming out of kyiv and that have already been. there is is significant morale problem, and how do you factor in what is will the fight, what is spirit which is something the ukrainians have in abundance. and i think the russian troops in many ways are being pushed into it and fighting for their lives. but there's also a blood lust for the reasons i talked before. logistics of trying to bring them in but the whole battalion tactical group. structure is light on logistics. the russians have got courses from four different military districts across the country, and they're trying to put that all together with a new general. it's hard. it would take months normally to do this. a lot of these troops already have combat fatigue, early signs of ptsd on both sides. but it is really playing hard on the russians. >> you know -- >> an enormous leadership problem. >> david from "the new yorker" was on last night. i think it was he who said and i might be wrong. he said even an army that is incompetent -- an army may be incompetent, but if they don't -- if the commanders don't care about their own troops and don't care about civilians in the areas that they're fighting in even an incompetent army can wreak huge havoc i mean if they are well-armed and just have artillery and tanks and have no compunction about having their own troops killed or killing anybody down rank. >> yes. i think we've seen numerous examples of just absolute loss of control of formations, discipline that starts from the bottom up not the top down. and i think that there's a shock going on out there, and the russians for all the reasons we've stated it's gone into aspects of blood lust. we've been hearing and reading about intercepts in all that. and again, the horror that's like the second world war in this region is fought over these villages. and of course the villages are fighting. you've got the ukrainian fighting spirit, but of course at that time now the villagers also become targets because they're seen as the enemy by the occupying force. and it's hard all around. >> retired brigadier general i appreciate it. still to come the mystery two former russian executives along with members of their families. two families, similar deaths looking for answers. nic robertson will have the latest ahead. and republican congresswoman marjory taylor green testifying for three hours about what she could and what she often could not remember about events surrounding january 6th and challengers hoping to prprevent her re-election campaign. we'll see hohow that will go ahead. wealth is breaking ground on your biggest project yet. worth is giving the people who build it a solid foundation. wealth is shutting down 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reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your pharmacist or doctor about shingrix. shingles doesn't care. but you should. want to tell you about a mystery now, one that may or may not have a connection to the war in ukraine in reports most recently bloomberg of russian elites dissatisfied with vladimir putin's war. all we know are two former russian gas executives and members of their families died in two separate countries in 24 hours. and investigators are trying to understand if they're connected and figure out exactly what happened. neck robertson has details. >> reporter: coincidence or kremlin revenge? 55-year-old sergei and his wife and daughter found dead in their home in spain on tuesday. and a 51-year-old former vp and his wife and daughter found dead in their moskow apartment monday. russia's state news agency says moskow police are investigating the deaths of the family as a murder-suicide tantamount to saying nothing suspicious here. spanish police are now guarding his luxury house north of barcelona. an official source close to the investigation says the bodies of his wife and daughter, which showed signs of violence, were found inside the home. and his body was found outside in the garden. the neighbors describe them as wealthy but often traveling. >> translator: he had nice cars. i thought they were romanian from what i understood, and besides you could see they were people with money. >> reporter: the investigative source says spanish police have sealed their probe into the deaths. no leaks that might prejudge their case. two different investigations, two very different jurisdictions. historically spain's judiciary significantly more transparent than russia's. russia's investigators releasing this ultrashort 4-second video of the crime scene inside the apartment. the family's employees reportedly alerted a relative the parents and daughter weren't answering calls from within their locked apartment. police found all three dead from gunshot wounds. suspicious deaths of russians overseas and at home are nothing new. former russian spy alexander poisoned and killed in london 2006. a british coroner questioned the apparent suicide in his locked bathroom of oligarch and kremlin critic boris borizski near london 2013. 2018 the attempted murder by a deadly russian nerve agent. so too in russia putin critic alexei navalny poisoned, nearly killed in 2020. there is no evidence they were putin critics. there is evidence, however, that despite kremlin demands for loyalty among the elite some previously silent putin allies are coming out against him. today as putin's war polarizes russians for and against, suspicions of shady kremlin killings will likely linger long after moskow's investigators close the case. nic robertson, cnn, brussels. >> you heard nic mention alexi navalny. he was the subject of a fascinating new documentary premiering sunday # p.m9:00 p.m eastern on cnn. what was it about navalny's story that drew you? >> first and foremost thank you for having me on the program tonight. when i first met alexei, this is a man who had just survived an assassination attempt. he was poisoned with a soviet nerve agent as your intro indicated and he happens to be an incredible character, an amazing guy. and, you know, i just understood this would make an incredible documentary. >> i understand you were actually there and your crews were there when navalny tracked down the would-be assassins. >> that's right, we started making this film as a murder mystery. a team of investigative reporters who were working with alexei to piece together, forensically piece together this map, the movements of this fsb assassins who followed alexei to siberia and tried to poison him with novichok. it was extraordinary to witness this investigation unfold in realtime in front of our cameras. >> how do you think navalny's story -- and he's in prison now. how do you think navalny's story helps inform the world about vladimir putin? >> i think our film is a canary in the coal mine of sorts. the horrors we're seeing play out in ukraine today, the war crimes that are being committed every single day. the weaponization of information, a disinformation industry that vladimir putin and his thugs are pedaling, that's all in our film. our film is sort of a micro look at this whole dichotomy. and what i really hope when people watch the film is that they remember vladimir putin is not russia and russia is not vladimir putin. what alexei navalny offers is an alternate vision for what russia could one day be. >> he obviously has not seen the film i assume, right? this wasn't finished while -- he's been in prison for a while now. >> they don't get cnn but i understand he's been reading all had reviews and trying his very best to stay informed about what's going on with the film. >> it's just remarkable. what do you think -- yeah, i mean who knows how long he'll be away. they can continually -- obviously the justice system there is in the control of the security services and the authorities. daniel, i really appreciate it. the film airs 9:00 p.m. on cnn. it's fascinating. we'll have more on the ukraine later. coming up next the details in congresswoman marjory taylor green's hours long testimony in court. challengers trying to prevent her bid for re-election for her conduct related to the january 6th riot. are you haunted by your cable service? have you noticed strange, frightening fees on your monthly bill? do you experience feelings of dread when you pass by your cable box? if the answer is yes... who you gonna call? directv stream. now get $30 off over 3 months. well, more on the war in ukraine later in the broadcast. we want to switch now to the latest of events surrounding the january 6th investigation. marjory taylor green testified in court for more than three hours in court today. randy kaye has more. >> reporter: republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene defending her alleged role in the january 6th riot. >> prior to january 6, 2021, had you heard people were planning to enter the capitol building illegally in order to disrupt the electoral count process? >> no, absolutely not. i don't know anything about that. >> reporter: true to form greene was combative from the start. early on greenu was asked if she was aware of any effort to interfere with the electoral vote count. >> i had no knowledge of any attempt, and so that's a question that i can't answer. >> can i ask the court to acknowledge this is an adverse witness, a hostile witness? >> reporter: greene strongly defended various tweets she was confronted with leading up to january 6th saying she was only encouraging a peaceful ma