By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Ali Rogin Ali Rogin Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russian-strike-kills-dozens-sheltering-in-school-as-ukrainians-in-mariupol-vow-to-fight-on Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio First Lady Jill Biden spent part of this Mother's Day making an unannounced visit to Ukraine, meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart, Olena Zelenska, as America’s top diplomat returned to the post in Kyiv for the first time since the war began. Meanwhile, Russian attacks continued overnight, including a strike on a school in eastern Ukraine that officials fear killed dozens. Nick Schifrin reports from Kharkiv. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: It is good to be with you. We begin again tonight in Ukraine where First Lady Jill Biden spent part of this Mother's Day making an unannounced visit meeting with her counterpart Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.Zelenska had not been seen in public since Russia launched stitch invasion of Ukraine on February 24. A U.S. official says the two women have exchanged correspondence over the last few weeks.And today in the capital city of Kyiv, America's top diplomat returned to the post for the first time since the war started. That says Russian attacks continued overnight, including one in eastern Ukraine where President Zelenskyy says 60 people were killed. Nick Schifrin has our report from Kharkiv. Nick Schifrin: These blown out walls, this pile of debris all that's left of a school turned shelter. Local officials say 90 people were hiding here from the very bombs that reduce the building to rubble. Russia claims its targets are military, but its battlefield of choice has been civilian neighborhoods like this one outside of Kyiv where today Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy compared Russia's invasion to Nazi Germany's crimes in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President (through translator): You say never again, tell Ukraine that our cities which survived such a heinous occupation that 80 years are not enough to forget, saw the occupier again Lima. Nick Schifrin: In a statement Russian President Vladimir Putin threw the accusation back. He says the self-declared independent regions of Ukraine's east were working on the quote liberation of their native land from Nazi filth.Tomorrow, Moscow will celebrate the anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat and Western officials say Putin could declare victory in Mariupol after Russian forces destroyed it. Mariupol evacuee 71-year-old Volodymyr Chichko has been through hell. Volodymyr Chichko, Mariupol Evacuee (through translator): They bombed us at night and in the day, one jet after another. As soon as it appeared boom, boom. The whole center, the whole center. Nick Schifrin: Russia is bombarding Mariupol final holdout, the Azovstal steel plant. The resistance is led by the Azov battalion, which began as far right militants now integrated into the Ukrainian army. Ilya Samoilenko, Azov Regiment: Surrender is not an option because Russia is not interested in our lives. They are not interested to let live. Nick Schifrin: Ukrainian officials hope that those fighters in Mariupol can hold out a few more weeks, by which time there'll be more Western weapons here and Ukraine could launch a counter offensive. Here in Kharkiv, they've already launched counter offensives that have was Russia away from the city but Geoff, U.S. officials fear that tomorrow Putin could use that Victory Day parade to declare that he's going to escalate this war that has already stolen so many lives and destroyed so much of this country. Geoff Bennett: Thank you, Nick. And a note our coverage of the war in Ukraine is supported in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from May 08, 2022 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Ali Rogin Ali Rogin Ali Rogin is a correspondent for the PBS News Hour and PBS News Weekend, reporting on a number of topics including foreign affairs, health care and arts and culture. She received a Peabody Award in 2021 for her work on News Hour’s series on the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect worldwide. Rogin is also the recipient of two Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association and has been a part of several teams nominated for an Emmy, including for her work covering the fall of ISIS in 2020, the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2014, and the 2010 midterm elections.