Natasha, hi. i am natasha. this morning has been especially difficult. katya woke up to hear that dnipro was attacked for the first time. explosion she says she has no time to hide. katya s afraid she ll lose contact with her mum. she s been trying to convince her to leave. when do you think you ll be
And he d and we decided to help them. at one of the russian military check points, they stopped in front of a soldier. he show us, go out, and turn on our car and after that, he begun to shoot. reporter: one of the bullets pierced the car over her head but in the backseat was 11-year-old milena, shot in the face. the russians, realizing their mistake, sent the girl to a hospital. katya, now separated, traveled on without knowing if the young girl survived until one tworks, three, four, five, six, seven. reporter: cnn found her in the basement of a children s hospital in eastern ukraine after surviving lifesaving surgery. for katya, the relief is overwhelmed by the horrors of what she witnessed. i saw a lot of dead people, a lot of graves on the street, for example, in my yard. and um, i started to believe
Now, even as harrowing accounts of destruction emerge from ukraine, so, too, are tales of courage and survival. cnn s ed lavandera speaks to one resident of mariupol, who tried her best to deliver aid and offer support to civilians in hiding while she was running for her life. reporter: when the first bomb struck mariupol, katya thought her most effective weapon would be a gentle smile, and the ability to calm terrified families. she lived in an underground shelter, coordinating relief supplies for the trapped civilians of this besieged city. so we re watching your city get bombed and destroyed. people are being killed. you decide not to leave, but to help? it s horrible. the animals didn t allow even children to go out from the
But anyway, we cannot give up. it must be terrifying, though, for you. i cannot. i cannot even explain what i feel now. putin s war has created an exodus from ukraine. since the beginning of the invasion, more than four million people have left. and by mid march, thousands are crossing into romania every day, at this border, in the tiny town of siret. they re met with a wall of kindness from the romanian emergency services. . . ..and from hundreds of volunteers, like katya. katya is from dnipro, in south east ukraine. her mum still lives there.
Used only in helping to resolve this crisis. one desperate call came from katya, and ivf doctor fleeing russia s assault on kharkiv. you are sitting in your apartment, or between two walls because all the time there s bombing. every, day she chips a web cam to see whether or not her home is destroyed. it s still there! still standing, for now. for kasia, a strangers phone number, a lifeline in a moment of desperation. i texted anastasia, i don t know what to do. she said, come here, immediately. she arrived to find a room waiting when she needed it most, and a friend speaking her mother tongue. only then learning her new friend was russian. was it a surprise for you to learn that the person helping you was from russia? it was very interesting feeling. but when i saw her, all of this doubt just all went away because a! this is exactly what we needed.
This crisis. one desperate call came from katya, and ivf doctor fleeing russia s assault on kharkiv. you are sitting in your apartment, or between two walls because all the time there s bombing. every, day she chips a web cam to see whether or not her home is destroyed. it s still there! still standing, for now. for kasia, a strangers phone number, a lifeline in a moment of desperation. i texted anastasia, i don t know what to do. she said, come here, immediately. she arrived to find a room waiting when she needed it most, and a friend speaking her mother tongue. only then learning her new friend was russian. was it a surprise for you to learn that the person helping you was from russia? it was very interesting feeling. but when i saw her, all of this doubt just all went away
Ukrainians who have gotten out of mariupol and other parts of eastern ukraine are scrambling to get on board evacuation trains, trains that will take them to safety in western ukraine. cnn boarded one train carrying more than one thousand people, mostly women and children. husbands and fathers must stay behind to fight. our ivan watson spoke to some of the evacuees. i ve been speaking with katya, who is eight months pregnant right now. she is traveling alone with her daughter heading west because they don t know what will happen. and i asked where are you going to give birth to your child? and she said well, where it s safe right now. and that s just an example of one family. she s left her husband behind. he s serving in the military right now. reporter: further down the train, i meet a group of women and children who just escaped southern ukraine. how long did you live under russian military occupation? one month.
Ukrainians, especially during the first weeks of the war. sergei estimates that during the month that he and his team were working, they evacuated around 100,000 people. these days, the crowds have gotten smaller but strangers are still packed together for this long trip. everyone seems to be fleeing a different part of eastern ukraine. she fled her village outside the city of zaporizhzhia with her 19-year-old son after enduring two weeks of russian shelling. translator: i feel outrage, complete outrage, and i feel fear when they are shooting. reporter: some evacuees brought their pets. the the kitten is handling the train ride a little bit better than the puppy. the two families sharing this compartment met each other on the train for the very first time. i have been speaking with katya, who is eight months pregnant right now and she is traveling alone with her daughter.
Who is eight months pregnant and she is traveling alone with her daughter heading west because they don t know what will happen. i asked where are you going to give birth to your child? and she said, well, wherever it s safe right now. and that s just an example of one family. she s left her husband behind. he s serving in the military right now. reporter: further down the train, i meet a group of women and children who just escaped southern ukraine. how long did you live under russian military occupation? one month. one month from 27 february. how would you describe that experience? all this time i went outside only two times, just because i hear a lot of cases of rape. rape. reporter: in addition to hearing unconfirmed stories of rape, the women told me they
With babe in arms, trying to console her daughter. leading the mission, the former ukrainian president petro poroshenko, marshalling the crowds. he s pleading with nato to reconsider and impose a no fly zone, for the sake of all those subjected to russian bombardment. the russians is completely bombing, with air bombs, with missiles, the civilian people, and you see all these people are suffering from that. and this is completely unacceptable. and when we are asking the no fly zone, this is exactly for these people. and with this situation, we need to defend them. katya tells us, yesterday they shelled day and night, hitting the hospital, the university and the tax office. they are shelling