reporter: nazar said he couldn t sleep, thinking about his kids trapped in mariupol collecting rainwater to drink, cooking over open fires he made multiple trips rescuing nearly 100 students and their families, like maxim and his mother if it weren t for nazar, do you think your life might have been in danger yes, of course, because two days after we left mariupol, our house was burned this is the first of my students and they grew up with me and all our school grew up. we made it together. reporter: nazar s old school now destroyed. but with his students safe, he s determined to keep dancing. matt bradley, nbc news, zaporizhzhia, ukraine. remarkable. that s nightly news for this thursday. thanks for watching. i m lester holt. please take care of yourself and each other. good night
finally, he went from teaching kids dance to making trip after trip to rescue children from a war zone matt bradley now with one of ukraine s heroes reporter: not all heroes wear capes. some wear dancing shoes. we met nazar shashkov who ran a ballroom dancing school in mariupol it wasn t so long ago you were using this to bring kids to dance competitions yes, it was my big dream for a long time. reporter: but russia s invasion changed his tune for weeks he used this same van on daring drives into the besieged city to get his students and their families out. it was fragment of shell that had ricocheted from floor and get here. shrapnel? shrapnel, yes and this - this was broken. reporter: facing russian checkpoints, land mines, artillery shells you could have driven yourself out of there, never gone back. yes, yes. why didn t you do that because of the kids.