kyiv s mayor vitali klitschko wore a flak jacket as he walked through the streets surveying damage. we never leave. this is our homes. we defend our children, our family, our buildings, our city and our future, future of ukraine. well, the curfew in kyiv is intended to prevent civilian casualties. people are not allowed to leave their homes without special permission unless they re heading to bomb shelters. authorities in the eastern city of kharkiv say one person was killed in strikes on tuesday. officials reported 65 instances of shelling in one day with 600 residential buildings destroyed. and in another part of the country to the south, the deputy mayor of mariupol says that russian forces are holding doctors and patients against their will at a hospital there. the russian army use doctors
the $800 million package of new military aid that the u.s. is now sending to ukraine includes antiaircraft and anti antiarmor, system grenade launchers, machine guns as well as body armor, but ukrainians want to make sure their soldiers are fully protected battling russian forces, so industs you civil i can t thinks are making extra sets of body armor themselves, including flak jackets. we have more from cnn s ivan watson. reporter: a melody in a time of deep uncertainty, a family hard at work turning their living room into a makeshift workshop producing locally made armor for the ukrainian military. says this is heavy. this is a flak jacket.
equipment. some of the people decided to remain in ukraine have been using their skills to assist the war effort behind the scenes, helping to make gear for those on the front lines of the conflict. cnn s ivan watson has their story. reporter: a melody in a time of deep uncertainty. a family hard at work, turning their living room into a makeshift workshop, producing locally-made armor for the ukrainian military. translator: this is heavy. this is a flak jacket. reporter: these flak jackets are the work of this grandmother and former seam stress. russia s invasion of ukraine pulled this 68-year-old out of retirement to work as a volunteer sewing flak jackets for ukrainian soldiers. she says she sews these flak jackets with love, and it s with that love that she hopes it ll
several days into this modern war, vitali says he asked his mother-in-law to help sew armor when his son s godfather couldn t find a flak jacket before heading off to combat. this operation relies on donations and improvisation. this is some padding for the flak jackets to go around the armor plates. and they are made from the material they use for floor mats for cars. the armor plates come from scrap metal scavenged from old cars, welded and reworked by volunteer mechanics and field tested. so he s taken out a plate to a firing range. and this is 6 millimeters in width and they tried different kinds of firearms and rounds and he it was able to block some rifles. but a sniper s rifle punched right through, as did a machine gun. they re not using this width for their flak jackets.
matter how long the hours, you arduous the terrain, the weather, or how challenging the story. and 24-year-old alexandra was a ukrainian journalist who volunteered to serve as a consultant for the fox team on the ground in tv. this young woman was only 24 years old. her life had been upended by this war, and how did she respond? by throwing on a flak jacket and making sure that she was there to help benjamin and pierre see and understand her country and countrymen as only a ukrainian could do. the bravery of these journalists speaks for itself. but it s necessary to reiterate how important their work was, as well. in these days, it s easy to rag on journalism. journalists are quite literally called the enemy of the people. and yet considering what life would be like without journalists, particularly those who report from conflict zones.