massive scale and nothing to show for it. russia s military was humiliated by the ukrainians and caused a lot of harm in the process. and they ve devastated scores of families at irpin cemetery, the ne newly widowed weep. her husband fought alongside their son in irpin and died in his arms on the battlefield. yulia, killed by a russian mortar shell. and tetyana, her husband oleksandr promised he would come back in a few hours, but was killed defending their neighborhood. i m very proud of him, tatiana says. he s a hero. we have many people in ukraine who have not fled and are defending our home. sasha died just 200 meters from our house. laying the dead to rest, another sad task they ve become
mariupol. local and u.s. officials confirming the report is unconfirmed. president zelenskyy says the possibility should be taken seriously. we begin on the ground with this report from fred pleitgen near the capitol. reporter: the tour is a sad routine for the body collectors in the outskirts of kyiv. finding corpses has become eas eerily normal here. a body burned beyond recognition. a mangled car wreck. two bodies burned beyond recognition. a house that wasccupied by russian troops. an elderly woman dead in the bedroom. a fierce fight by the underdog ukrainians to drive them out.
russian state media, i can t believe it was a hard hitting question. he chose this opportunity to lay out in defense of what russia has been doing and their special military operation here in the donbas region. he didn t talk about kyiv or anything else, the plan a that did not go according to plan, but once again, we hear him say we were there to liberate the people, here to save ukrainians, as bizarre and wild as that sounds, given the images and the brutality that we re seeing unleashed upon ukrainians and god knows what we re going to see coming out of mariupol. he s saying we were provoked to come in, right, and we were threatened here, in russia. this nazification, the nationalism that has been growing within ukraine was posing a threat not only to ukrainians in his words but to russia and thus this was a justifiable special military operation and as you heard, in his terms, it is going to according to plan. six weeks in, the when of this that strikes me as much as the what. sa
[ inaudible ] and that war never happened. reporter: roman and helena are the owners of the academy. do you think your students here are now prouder to be ukrainian american than even before this war? yes, i think they are proud about their roots. that they ukrainians and about ukrainian standing strong. staying together. reporter: before we say good-bye to the students, i get to talk with them a bit. if you had superpowers, what would you do? if you had superpowers? save the good people. save the good people? yeah. that s what you would do as superwoman? yeah, yeah. and like, make the house fly into the air. make the house fly into the air? yeah. fly to safety? yeah. reporter: the laughter of children who have a lot on their minds. the children here are also learning about charitable giving. they and their families have
left behind evidence of some incredibly intense battles after they retreated. cnn s fred pleitgen shows us the devastation as well as the ongoing dangers. but first a warning, his report has some graphic images. reporter: the tour is a sad routine for the body collectors in the outskirts of kyiv. finding corpses has become eerily normal here. a house destroyed by an artillery strike. a body burned beyond recognition. a mangled car wreck. two bodies burned recognition. a house that was occupied by russian troops. an elderly lady dead in the bedroom. these bodies evidence of a brutal russian occupation and then a fierce fight by the underdog ukrainians to drive them out. a fight 81-year-old katarina witnessed up close in her village.