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Germany Halts Nord Stream 2 Pipeline After Russia's Action; Putin Orders Troops Into Pro-Russian Regions Of Eastern Ukraine; New Studies Suggest 4th Shot Might Not Be Needed. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired February 22, 2022 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Prices go even higher, especially on the energy front. Oil prices hitting $99.50 a barrel this morning before backing off, remember gasoline prices here in the United States are already high, seven-year high of $3.53 a gallon, up 20 cents in just the past month.

Also, we have to look at the stock market. You've seen the Dow take a hit this morning. U.S. markets have been retreating. You see the Dow down almost 300 points, about 0.9 percent. Kate, I think given all the wide-reaching consequences of this crisis, it's easy to see why market turbulence is likely to continue from here.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Matt, thank you so much. As I mentioned previously, President Biden is going to be addressing the nation on this crisis at 1 p.m. Eastern, we will bring that to you, live. Let's get over to CNN's Jeremy Diamond. He's live at the White House for us. So what are you learning over there right now, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Kate as you said, we're expecting President Biden to speak at 1 p.m. and he is likely going to be addressing what we have been told is coming today, and that is new, severe, significant U.S. sanctions aimed directly at Russia over what the U.S. is now officially calling an invasion, the beginnings of an invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces.

That was a comment by the Principal Deputy National Security Adviser John Finer. Of course, CNN has not yet been able to independently verify that there are new Russian troops that have entered those two regions that Putin recognized yesterday as independent states, but a significant statement that they are now calling this an invasion, particularly when you think about what President Biden said would be the metric for these sanctions and what exactly would constitute an invasion. Here's the President last month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion but it only met with a severe and coordinated economic response that I've discussed in detail with our allies, as well as laid out very clearly for President Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And now the question is exactly how significant and severe these sanctions that we're expecting the U.S. to announce today to actually be? We know that in the past, the U.S. has talked about cutting off Russian banks' access to the Swift financial system, imposing severe export controls are also taking additional actions as it relates to that Nord Stream 2 pipeline. A lot of options are available but they've made very clear that this is going to happen in waves as Russia continues as the U.S. expects it will continue to escalate this military situation with Ukraine. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Jeremy, thank you so much. Joining me now for more on this is CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Susan Glasser. She's a staff writer with the New Yorker. And also with us is Steve Hall, former chief of Russia operations for the CIA. Steve, troops ordered in by Vladimir Putin, the White House now calling it an invasion. What do you think of this moment?

STEVE HALL, FORMER CIA CHIEF OF RUSSIA OPERATIONS: Well, it's a really important moment. And it's particularly important for Putin because he is watching very, very closely what the Western reaction is going to be. He's been very clever about sort of putting his toe in the water here, he hasn't, you know, do some sort of massive pincher move that's going to go for Kyiv right off.

Instead, he started off with the Donbas areas and recognizing those two so-called stateless and is going to send troops and if he hasn't already. So he's watching very, very carefully. The very good news about Nord Stream 2 is that's a very, very strong reaction. And that's the kind of reaction that is called for.

I think, less good news out of the -- out of the American administration where we -- were sort of kind of not being as a firm, as I'd like to see it. Saying things like, well, this is the beginning of an invasion, so that implies we're going to begin to start to maybe do things. Putin will see that I think, is a sign of weakness and a sign of some flexibility that he's got, unless, of course, the President comes out this afternoon, and puts on you know, the full -- you know, the full hardest super sanctions that had been discussed, like taking them off Swift and other -- things like that.

He's got to -- Putin has to receive the message from the West that he has -- that he's already -- that he's already done it and the response is going to be very strong. And I hope that's what we see this afternoon from the White House.

BOLDUAN: We're going to dive into that in just one second, Steve. But Susan, as Steven mentioned, the Nord Stream 2 project, this announcement from Germany, Matt Egan, laying out how significant that's really is, how significant is it at this -- is this move at this point? What does it mean if it's -- I don't know, only a temporary halt?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that's right. It's on -- it's unclear, Kate. And you're right to point that out because they essentially remove the bureaucratic certification for the pipeline to proceed. So it's not clear that is definitively killed for forever and that's an important, you know, sort of estrous to place on this that we don't know, one way or the other.

But I have to say, Vladimir Putin has almost certainly already baked the assumption that this was going to happen into his decision-making. He understood that the end of Nord Stream 2 as a consequence of this. He understood that very severe sanctions on the part of the United States in the European Union were a consequence of moving forward in this way to essentially violate the sovereignty of the independent nation of Ukraine.

[11:35:00]

GLASSER: What really I think was so alarming to me and what I think suggests that we're really at the beginning of whatever attack Vladimir Putin has planned on the nation of Ukraine is that speech yesterday from the President of Russia. That was not a speech that simply ends with the recognition of two stateless in the eastern part of Ukraine. That was a full-throated attack on the legitimacy and independence of Ukraine, as a country.

It's suggested that Vladimir Putin will not be satisfied until he has eliminated Ukraine as an independent Western-oriented democratic, small d state. And that, I think, is very alarming. These sanctions are a response to Russian aggression, but they at this point are not designed to, nor will they deter Russian action, they are a response to it, not anything that Vladimir Putin didn't anticipate.

BOLDUAN: Steve, I wanted to get your take on that as well. What was it about Putin's speech yesterday that is so unsettling considering -- and different, I guess because he's made in very inflammatory, very aggressive speeches in so many times before?

HALL: Well, I think one of the things that are difficult for Westerners to understand with regard to Putin is it, first of all, he's always been like this, you were alluding to previous speeches that he's made. I mean, he has said horrific things and ridiculous things and made, you know, historic speeches in the past.

But I think one of the things that are so striking that strikes a lot of Americans, I would imagine is that you know, we have been -- we the West had been pushing back and saying, look, this is, you know, against international law, you can't just annex parts of a country, you know, first Crimea, now these two little parts in the East Donbas.

And then to see Putin as opposed to sit back and go, huh, you know, they're making some good points there you know, what if Russia were suddenly attacked by so we wouldn't want pieces of Russia hacked off? I mean, it's a very non-Western way of thinking of things when he comes out with a speech essentially saying, yes, you guys don't get it. I'm all about drawing the lines. I'm all about, you know, spheres of influence. I'm all about getting rid of NATO.

And to hear that from him at this particular point when his military is actually on the move, doing what he says, I think strikes a lot of Americans is thinking, well, geez, what's this all about? I thought he understood this. And they are very different than we are here in the West and that's one of the things that you saw in that speech.

BOLDUAN: And you can -- you can feel that today is a critical moment for two very obvious reasons. One, we're going to hear from President Biden, as we've mentioned, at one o'clock this afternoon, we were also just showing you live pictures of Vladimir Putin, speaking live before reporters. We'll bring you in the headlines that come out of it. He's speaking live, as well. We're going to have much more ahead. Steve, Susan, thank you very much.

Coming up for us, a huge settlement for the Women's National soccer team, how their win for equal pay could have an impact far beyond their sport? The details, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: We're following breaking news. Members of the Women's National Soccer Team have reached a landmark, $24 million settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation, this ending a six-year-long brutal legal battle over equal pay. CNN's Brynn Gingras is joining me now with the details. I mean, Brynn, this is a long time covering, we've been -- we've -- so many, me, included have covered this extensively. What is the settlement mean?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, just smiling, right? This is so great for women, not only in sports, but just women in general getting this equal pay. Let me go over the details of that settlement. Essentially, this means that the $22 million is going to be a back pay to these players who filed the lawsuit in 2019, 28 players essentially saying their gender discrimination, they deserve the same amount of money that the men were making, especially since they've won multiple World Cups and they -- men hadn't.

And also, even more than that, this means going forward, that there is going to be equal play, a level playing field for women in the sports, U.S. Soccer. So I want you to hear from Megan Rapinoe, she's one of the plaintiffs in that suit. Here's her reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN RAPINOE, U.S. WOMEN SOCCER TEAM PLAYER: No, I'm just so proud, to be honest, I'm so proud of you know, all the hard work that all of us did to get us here, obviously, the players on the team and the players this lawsuit represent and our extended team that has helped us. But it's a really amazing day. I think we're going to look back on this day and say this is the moment that you know U.S. Soccer changed for the better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: And again, U.S. Soccer changing it for the better not just for soccer but for women's sports in general. This all has to be finalized in contract negotiations with U.S. Soccer, the men's team will be at the table for that as well, so it's going to be exciting to see how this moves forward.

BOLDUAN: Very exciting, a huge day and a long time coming.

GINGRAS: Absolutely, yes.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for doing this, Brynn, it's good to see you. All right, I want to turn back to our top story this hour, Russian troops, on the move in the eastern part of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, formally recognizing two separatist regions as independent, world leaders in the face of this condemning Putin's actions, imposing tougher sanctions against Russia and possibly more to come. Let's get the very latest. Sam Kiley is live in eastern Ukraine for us this hour -- AT THIS HOUR. Sam, keep us updated.

[11:45:00]

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, well, I'm in Kramatorsk, which is in the province or the oblast, as it's called here of Donetsk. Now, it's the Donetsk People's Republic, so-called and the Luhansk neighboring that People's Republic that the Kremlin officially recognized last night and the Duma, the House of Representatives effectively in Moscow also moved to recognize.

The issue for local people now and for the wider world is whether or not that recognition for Russia means that the land I'm standing on right now is included in that. Do they still lay claim to this area, or are they going to stay behind what's called the line of contact, behind the pre-existing frontline from when the country was first invaded back in 2014?

You recall then, of course, they established these two semi-states and they also -- this is the Russians took Crimea into the Russian motherland formally as an annexation. Deep concern also coming from a NATO which is confirmed in the -- from the Secretary-General there, Kate, Jens Stoltenberg, saying that the NATO now had evidence there had been an invasion, a further invasion of Ukrainian territory by Russian troops into the so-called Donbas area, these two now recently, records are recognized by Russia in the semi-independent states.

That is very significant because, of course, it is the threat of invasion that has meant that the threat of sanctions from the European Union and the United States has been raised against the Russians. We're waiting to see the extent of those sanctions, though, and whether or not it's really acknowledged as a full-scale invasion yet, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Sam, thank you so much for the update. Joining me now for more on this, especially about the region that Sam's talking about right now, CNN Military Analyst, retired Major General James "Spider" Marks. Spider, it's great to see you. Thanks for being here.

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, as Sam was talking about, this is a map of -- this is the map that we've been looking at for weeks now, right?

MARKS: Right.

BOLDUAN: The three sides of where Russian troops have been positioned around Ukraine. Let's focus on what is now considered the frontlines.

MARKS: Correct.

BOLDUAN: This -- the Donbas region, this disputed territory, where if Vladimir Putin as he has ordered troops in, if they are moving in, this is where we would expect the fighting to happen. But what is that fighting look like here?

MARKS: Yes, I think for orientation, the Donbas really is that --

BOLDUAN: Right.

MARKS: And this is the separation between the separatists in Russian forces who have been there for eight years, and Ukrainian forces are already in the Donbas. So if there is fighting, it's going to be in this area. So the first step is Putin has ordered forces in and it's been reported that they have begun to reinforce. Now, bear in mind, forces are already here --

BOLDUAN: Already there.

MARKS: -- Railheads are there, road networks there, etcetera. So they're moving forces into this area, Donetsk, Luhansk, and as a result of that, this is now an area that probably initially is not going to see much fighting. If Putin says, push it out, this is where the conflict will start.

BOLDUAN: And that's what I wanted to ask you because as you mentioned, forces have been there since 2014, right? They've been in there. Ukrainian forces are also in this region.

MARKS: Within there.

BOLDUAN: There has been fire back and forth, shelling back and forth, this has been going on.

MARKS: Right.

BOLDUAN: But what happens next? How much do you -- would you think that Russia -- how much of a bite can Russia take out, and how much can Russia hold? What do you think?

MARKS: Well, they certainly -- they certainly could chunk off all of this, it would be rather bloody right now, and then they could hold it. I don't think that's an issue. I think what's probably going to happen is a quick movement in, obviously, all the sanctions of the world's going to yell and scream at them.

BOLDUAN: Right, exactly.

MARKS: But the forces will move in. And I think in very short order, with this new force, probably an increase, let's say double in size, there will be immediate elections, which will then it'll be a sham election --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

MARKS: -- That says we really want to be Russian, just like he did in Crimea back in 2014. He'll have then additional legitimacy to bring in more forces, then he begins some conversations with the Zelensky government says, this is legit, the state -- the state, let's exist. We're going to start pushing out.

BOLDUAN: One of -- let's pull it back out one more time --

MARKS: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Because you mentioned this is the region that we just zoomed in on, but we have forces -- lots of forces in Belarus, right? So when you're looking at this, I'm curious, if the threat is -- and we -- and you have Vladimir Putin saying that Ukraine owes his ancestry to the Soviet Union, to the Russians. That's a lot of other people -- a lot of other nations who are threatened when he says that.

MARKS: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: What other nations do you think need to be on high alert now when you know that there are troops here and you know what Vladimir Putin is saying now?

MARKS: Great question because Belarus is essentially a vassal state of Russia. That's what he's established.

[11:50:00]

MARKS: He'd love to establish the same type of relationship in Ukraine. And the countries that we need to be concerned about are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania. Bear in mind that in 1999, three countries -- three additional countries joined NATO, brought it up to 19. Then over the course of the next 20 plus years, we've gotten it up to 30 that includes Slovakia, Slovenia, etcetera, so we've got this great expansion.

And from Putin's perspective, this is encroachment. This used to be my buffer zone. This is how I protected myself from all these hated European countries that for years abused me. That went away and he wants to reclaim that.

BOLDUAN: One of the things, when we're looking at this map because we were just learning the Pentagon has now confirmed that U.S. special forces who -- had been in Ukraine, they'd been in Ukraine training the Ukrainian counterparts, they have now left. This was a question of, if they were going to be pulled out and when they were going to go? Now we know that they have. What does that mean?

MARKS: Well, significant that all American forces are out of Ukraine. We had a routine relationship with -- training relationship with the Ukrainian military. All those forces, probably around 300, a lot of special ops guys have gone back to Poland and Romania and they're on standby with additional forces that have come in in case there's some noncombatant evacuation requirement, if Kyiv is threatened, Lviv is threatened. I mean, if those kinds of contingencies come up, we have additional forces to help extricate and move those folks out.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, General, thank you so much.

MARKS: Thanks, Kate for having me.

BOLDUAN: I really, really appreciate it. This really helps a lot of us. All right, coming up for us, do we need a fourth COVID vaccine dose? New studies suggest, maybe not. We'll discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:00]

BOLDUAN: Turning now to the pandemic. New data suggesting that three COVID shots might be enough and analysis by the New York Times taking a deep dive into the latest big pandemic question which is how many boosters will we need? The Times cites several recent studies that indicate the current three-shot regiment, if you want to call it that, is enough to protect most people from a serious illness for a long time.

Joining me now for more on this is Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo. She's a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It's great to see you again. Dr. Marrazzo, thank you for coming in.

DR. JEANNE MARRAZZO, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: Hello, Kate thank you.

BOLDUAN: Where do you fall on this question of when and whether we'll need a fourth dose also you know known as another booster?

MARRAZZO: Yes, the reason this is a very exciting thing to talk about right now is because, we have two studies coming out in the last week that looked at parts of the immune system that are much harder to study than simple antibody levels, which you may know, you can look at just with a drop of blood. These studies looked at memory T and B cells.

And these are cells that once they encounter the infection, sort of go into hiding and then if the infection comes out, again, they get super activated and start pumping out all kinds of things. What these studies showed is that the memory cells that were induced by the vaccines were actually quite robust and good and gave a very good immune response to the next set of challenging viruses, including Omicron, which was never included in the original vaccine. So, very encouraging, saying that your body is much smarter, perhaps

when it's primed with vaccination than we thought it might be based on detection of antibodies alone.

BOLDUAN: Is it more -- these might be both and rather than one or the other. But is it more that there are now signs of diminishing returns on additional doses, or is there a concern that I don't know the next booster -- for the next booster we may need it to be variant-specific and so we need to hold out for that?

MARRAZZO: Yes, you hit the nail on the head, right? I mean, the only thing more complicated than the human immune system is the evolution of this crazy virus, right? So we don't know if there is going to be a variant that's around the corner that is going to be so what we call antigenically distinct from the current set of variants that it will completely escape the immune system's ability to respond.

If that's the case, we are going to need a different vaccination, and that won't be the same as a booster, it will probably be a complementary vaccine. So lots of reasons to carefully chart the molecular evolution of the virus in the population emerging variants and keep our tabs very closely on what people are doing from an immunologic standpoint, as they get farther out from their -- from their shots.

BOLDUAN: Israel has been offering the fourth dose for people over 60 for some time now, Doctor, what are we seeing that they don't or vice versa?

MARRAZZO: Great question. Not just Israel, but Sweden recently recommended a fourth booster shot for people over 80, the United Kingdom reportedly is considering it for people over 75. This basically recognizes that people who are in that age group just don't have as much of a robust immune response, right? Their immune systems are a little bit aged.

And so anything you can do to again, top off that tank, or top-up that tank is really going to be good. And remember, people who are older are the ones who really got into the most trouble with COVID infection. So anything you can do to protect that group probably makes sense.

I understand the FDA is reviewing that data now to consider whether we're going to do that in the United States. I don't think it's a bad idea. I think focusing on older people is really where we need to go as well as immunocompromised people for other reasons.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Dr. Marrazzo. Thank you for coming in.

MARRAZZO: Thank you. Take care.

BOLDUAN: All right, we'll talk to you soon. And thank you all so much for being here AT THIS HOUR, I'm Kate Bolduan. INSIDE POLITICS with John King starts right now.