we re live from kyiv in our world lead. russian state media claiming a victory in the besieged port city of mariupol. this video allegedly shows more than 1,000 ukrainian marines surrendering to russian forces. ukraine is denying this report. cnn cannot verify if this is real or kremlin propaganda. still, mariupol has been one of the hardest-hit areas since the war broke out seven weeks ago. ed lavandera spoke with one survivor who has tried her best to deliver aid and offer support to citizens in hiding while 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
so watching your city is get bombed and destroyed, people are being killed. you decide not to leave but to help? it s horrible. animals didn t allow even children to go out from the city. reporter: day by day, the video katya captured showed life in mariupol unraveling. she lost touch with the outside world. none of her family and friends outside the city knew if she was alive or dead. life here was falling into an abyss. it was like middle aid. like the middle ages? yes. it s almost like you could feel yourself running out of time. there was only solve longer you could stay in mariupol. i thought i will never go from mariupol until the end. reporter: on march 16th, katya evacuated. she recorded two short videos on her way out, just before seeing
are these people alive? or left in makeshift graves around the city? katya doesn t know and, for her, there is only one way to deal with this haunting reality. i decided that i will cry only when the ukrainian gets victory. ed is with me now from mykolaiv where he is reporting indoors due to a curfew. so, ed, just so moving to see that. seeing that theater and the people outside it, and knowing that it is just completely devastated now and that hundreds of people died. just unbearable. what is going on where you are right now? well, we are west of mariupol, and this is rather close to the front in this area of south-central ukraine. and, you know, based on the news of the day and the sinking of that russian warship, a lot of concern here along the coastal villages and cities of ukraine
lot of common grace on the street, for example, in my yard. and i started to believe that they were crazy because they were like maniacs. they were maniacs to you? yes. they re really crazy. like nazis in the second world war. reporter: after escaping, katya remembered the videos she recorded before the russians ravaged mariupol. ukrainians protesting outside the now famous theater that in a matter of weeks would be the site of one of the most grotesque bombings in this war. the theater still intact. the city s building unscathed. she sees the peaceful faces of families and children. the video is hard to watch.
a family walking on the side of the road a mother, grandmother, and two young girls. so we had two free places in our car, and we saw this family and we decided to help them. reporter: at one of the russian military checkpoints, they stopped in front of a soldier. and he s show us go out and turn on our car ask after that, he begun to shoot. reporter: one of the bullets pierced the car over her head but in the backseat was an 11-year-old, 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 cnn found milena in the basement of a children s hospital in eastern ukraine after surviving lifesaving surng surgery. for katya, relief over the