Right now from lviv, like so many stories of this war, it sounds like something out of world war ii, children forced to hunker underground as bombed go off above them, surviving for weeks on nothing but grain. that is the tragic reality of the war here today, a war that the president of estonia today has elements of genocide. our ed lavandera is in kyiv. he spoke to people suffering this reality. ed, just an incredible story here of how one family managed to stay alive and all they had to do. reporter: yeah, really struck us, as we ve been driving around the areas north of kyiv that were under russian occupation for so long. you see children, teenagers witnessing the aftermath of this horror. it really got us to thinking
Witnessed the innocence of childhood die before his eyes. watching yvonne makes you wonder how a teenage mind copes with the horror in front of him. his family says, to understand, we must see what they experienced. yvonne s family never left this backyard shed for more than 30 days while russian troops occupied this city. yvonne s grandfather and father showed us how they survived on nothing but homemade bread. so, basically they would take the grain, the raw grain, and grind it down into flour or a version of flour. and then they would make their own bread in this oven. and that s what they lived on for more than a month. reporter: five adults and four children hid in this underground bunker. this is where yvonne heard weeks of artillery blasts and cries for help, the sounds of war that will haunt survivors forever. translator: i slept here. my sister and my mom slept here. and another family slept here
The cross bearing katya s name was made by his grandfather, who dug the shallow grave because they couldn t store the bodies at the hospital. translator: i can t take this well when i see this. i cry but i am not showing this. i feel weak, because i cannot do anything. yvonne is 16 years old. in two months of war, he s witnessed the innocence of childhood die before his eyes. watching yvonne makes you wonder how a teenage mind copes with the horror in front of him. his family says, to understand, we must see what they experienced. yvonne s family never left this backyard shed for more than 30 days, while russian troops occupied this city. yvonne s grandfather and father showed us how they survived on nothing but homemade bread. so basically, they will take the grain, the raw grain, and grind it down into flour. or a version of flour. and then, they would make their
Ivan s grandfather and father showed us how they survived on nothing but homemade bread. so basically they would take the grain, the raw grain, and grind it down into flour, or a version of flour, and then they would make their own bread in this oven. that s what they lived on for more than a month. reporter: five adults and four children hid in this underground bunker. this is where ivan heard weeks of artillery blasts and cries for help. the sounds of war that will haunt survivors forever. translator: i slept here. my sister and my mom slept here. another family slept here too. we tried to curl up and sleep here together. sometimes when things got really scary, our dads would come down and stay with us. reporter: ivan s grandfather, sergei, said russian soldiers said the family would be killed if they tried to escape. police say more than 50 people were killed here, many of them