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Source: "Bleak" U.S. Intel Assessment Shows Russia Continues Invasion Preps; National Archives Confirms It Found Classified Docs in Boxes from Mar-a-Lago. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 18, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of a brand-new hour on CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for staying with us. I'm Victor Blackwell.

There's a bleak new assessment from U.S. intelligence that warns that Russia could invade Ukraine in days. The U.S. estimates up to 190,000 forces are positioned near the border but that includes tens of thousands of pro-Russian separatists already in the Donbas region.

This afternoon, the State Department says the blown-up vehicle in the disputed areas of Eastern Ukraine, that was staged attack and is part of a Russian false flag operation aimed at provoking an attack, or using that as a pretext to go in.

Now, President Biden is set to speak with European and NATO allies this hour and at 4:00 p.m., top of the next hour, he will speak to the nation.

CNN's Matthew Chance joins us now from Kyiv.

Matthew, Ukraine says its ceasefire violations are surging in the eastern part of the country. Now you have the State Department accusing Russia of staging this car explosion. How are you Ukrainian officials reacting to all of this?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're agreeing with the State Department's assessment of that explosion in a car in the center of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, which is a rebel- controlled city, the east of the country. They say this -- nothing to do with them. They are saying it was a false flag operation, if you like or an attempt to create even more tension that could be used potentially as a pretext for Russia to escalate its armed conflicts in that region. Russia backs those regular groups in the east of Ukraine.

You combine that explosion in Donetsk with the exchange of artillery fire and cease-fire vie lags over the course of the past 48 hours or so, a sharp increase in those violations. You saw the pictures yesterday of the kindergarten, the preschool that was hit by a couple of artillery shells. Well, that's been happening repeatedly, according to the Ukrainian defense official that we've been speaking to. And, of course, on the other side, the rebels are saying that, you know, the Ukrainians are firing back into the residential areas on the rebel side of the front line as well. You know, that's led the authorities such as they are to announce mass evacuations of the civilian population from those rebel areas, ordering the old people, the women and children, to move to the east, towards Russia, where the authorities in Russia are making facilities available to cater to runs of thousands of people. So, it's going to look very much like humanitarian crisis, kind of crisis that Russia could point to if it wants to stage an invasion or wanted to escalate its military activity and say, look, for the sake of these people, we're intervening. That's what the definition of a pretext of a false flag.

BLACKWELL: So, President Zelensky is scheduled to meet with Vice President Harris, maybe others as well at the Munich Security Conference. To do that, he's got to leave country, go to Germany. Are there concerns about Zelensky leaving while all this is going on?

CHANCE: Yeah, I think there are some concerns. Even though the White House spokesman earlier today refuse to be drawn on it, Ukraine officials I've spoken said there's opinion some concerns expressed that if you leave the country and the flight situation changes. You might not be able to get back again.

What Ukrainian official presidential spokesperson says, we just spoke to about this, he says, look, diplomacy is as important as the situation on the frontline in Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.

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Diplomacy must continue, he said to us.

So, you know, that's a really good indication I think that, you know, that visit by President Zelensky to the Munich security conference where he will be meeting the U.S. vice president, you're right, and possibly other U.S. officials as well, other officials from around the world. At the moment, it's likely to go ahead, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Our Matthew Chance for us there in Kyiv, thank you so much.

As we mentioned, in less than an hour, President Biden is expected to speak about the crisis in Ukraine. He also is expected to speak with European and NATO allies this hour.

Our CNN's Kaitlan Collins is at the White House.

So, we just got an update, though, Kaitlan, from the White House on those Ukrainian cyberattacks. What have you learned about those?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, remember, those were the attacks that the Ukrainian government said were the largest in their history. They happen in recent days against the websites for the defense ministry in Ukraine, the army, two of the country's largest banks.

And now, just a few moments ago, from the White House podium, which is notable, the White House is attributing that attack to the Russian government. They may have seen evidence they do believer Russia is responsible for that attack which, as you remember, Victor, it was the denial-of-service attack where basically hackers go and flood these websites, destabilizing them, shutting them down. It caused some panic and a chaos when it came to operating those websites.

And now, very quickly, one of the top National Security Council officials who work on cyber security came out and said they do believe Russia is responsible for that attack. That's the first time the White House has attributed the attack to Russia. It was presumed that it could be them, given the traffic and hacks like this before, and you've seen them tried to take these methods before to try to cause chaos, sow some destabilization. And now, they are saying they do believe it was Russia.

We should note that Russia has denied having anything to do with it. That also is pretty typical for them. But the White House says that they are confident that they were behind this and they also noted the speed, Victor, in which they came out and attributed this attack, because normally they take their time with these attributions. But Ann Neuberger came out and said they wanted to do it quickly, they wanted to be out there, and they do believe Russia is responsible.

So, of course, keep that in mind in the context of what you've heard from people like Secretary Blinken when they talked about what a lead- up to a Russian invasion of Ukraine would like if one does happen. Not just manufacturing those reasons to justify an invasion, creating a real or fake chemical weapons attack as Secretary Blinken suggested yesterday. But also, once that attack happens, they said there could be more cyberattacks like this one.

And I think a lot of people watching are going to ask, should you be concerned about something like this happening. And the National Security Council officials who are in the briefing right now said there are no credible threats to the U.S. homeland right now, but talk about, of course, power companies, electricity and water companies being hyper vigilant in this time and making sure that they are taking the proper steps to try to avoid a scenario like that one.

BLACKWELL: Kaitlan Collins for us at the White House, thank you, Kaitlan.

Just in, about 150 U.S. army soldiers will take -- they will be moving to participate in training missions in Hungary in the coming days.

Joining me now is William Cohen, who was the secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and former senator who represented Maine.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your time. So, these 150 troops who will be heading over, when you got 150,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, that number seems miniscule. But is it about the number? What's the message? What's the significance?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE UNDER PRESIDENT CLINTON: It's largely symbolic and I think it's consistent with the Biden administration is doing, saying, we've got to send more troops to all of the countries who've been added to the NATO membership. We're going to beef up our presence and beef up the security that we provide to all of them, because it's Ukraine today but every member of NATO ought to know they are on the dinner menu for Putin.

What he has said is I want all those countries that joined NATO since 1997, I want U.S. troops out of there. I want them to be vulnerable to the kind of extortion I am now exerting on Ukraine.

BLACKWELL: For weeks, experts like yourself have told us here is what it will look like if Russia decides to invade. There will be disinformation. There will likely be false flag operations. There will likely be cyberattacks.

Well, the disinformation we have seen, the U.S. now, the U.S. now says that this car that exploded out of a government building, that was a false flag attack. Also says that the cyberattack that we saw early this week, they've now attributed that to Russia.

Are you convinced as this latest intel assessment is that Putin has not made the decision or all these three elements now just the lead up to an invasion?

COHEN: I've always been personally convinced that he's going to attack.

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And this is the message that President Biden has to deliver certainly to our NATO members. Here we have an independent country Ukraine whose people want to be free (INAUDIBLE). So, he's going to kill thousands of innocent people that pose no threat to him. This is the message that President Biden delivers to NATO, here's the intelligence, and followed by a message to the American people as well.

This is going to come as some expense to us as well as all the European members. We're likely to see an increase in inflation, oil prices will spike in the short term. We'll have attacks on some of our facilities. We already know or suspect at least that Russia has penetrated some of our critical infrastructure.

But I will say also that we are not unarmed. Should Russia proceed along these lines and attacking NATO members, we are not in a position that we're defenseless, and letting go of that. I think that Putin has to understand, he's making a big mistake in term of thinking he can simply invade and kill innocent people and then not be held out to be the pariah of the world.

Maybe he doesn't care about that. But I think it's' going to be difficult for him in the future to say, listen to me, I only want peace. He wants peace on his terms and that means, absolute surrender on the part of Ukraine, absolute surrender on the part of NATO, get out of Europe (INAUDIBLE) war and peace. Those are terms we can't accept.

BLACKWELL: Mr. Secretary, let me lean now on your experience as a member of Congress and having to sell missions like these, involvement like this, to a constituency. Many Americans are focused primarily on inflation, the cost of food, the cost of clothing, the cost of cars, filling up the gas tank, crime in some places.

What is the case you make to people that this is something they should care about, this conflict between Russia and Ukraine 5,000 miles away?

COHEN: Well, we have seen demonstrations take place in the United States, in our border in Canada, saying they are fighting for freedom. Well, we have to understand that Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom and their freedom is something that we support because we don't want to stand for allowing the kind of government that Russia has where if dissent in Russia, you either face prison, poison, execution and certainly exile.

We don't want that kind of a totalitarian type of government to spread. And what we're seeing is authoritarians like Putin as in China, as of other countries, we're seeing an attempt made to discredit democracy, to deny individuals the right to be who they can be.

And so, freedom is very much at stake. It's not just freedom to war or not wear a mask. We're talking about freedom in our lives to do what we want to do and be able to do it as we see fit. So, freedom is something this country is founded upon and we mean that not only for us. Those people yearning to be free in other parts of the world that our friends and allies and partners.

BLACKWELL: Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, thank you, sir.

COHEN: Good to be with you.

BLACKWELL: Let's discuss further. Global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw, former spokesman for the organization for security and cooperation in Europe. He is in Ukraine. And Jill Dougherty who is a CNN contributor on Russian affairs and former CNN Moscow bureau chief. She is also an adjunct professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Welcome back to both of you.

Let me start with you, Jill, and the State Department now says this blown-up vehicle that we're seeing the false flag here, the cyberattack that is attributed to Russia. Do you believe we're seeing the run-up? We're seeing the equation that could tell us that Putin has indeed made up his mind.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, RUSSIAN AFFAIRS: I don't think you can go that far, but I can tell you and it's quite obvious, in modern warfare conflict, it's not only the military part of it, there's an information war raging right now.

And an example, here in Moscow on state media, today, there has been video constantly shown of people who are being evacuated from the Donbas region. That's the breakaway region, eastern part of Ukraine, very close to Russia and these are Russian speakers. People are being loaded onto buses. There are pictures of old women, children and very touching pictures as these people are going off to Russia.

Now, why are they doing it?

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Because the leaders of Donbas say that Ukrainians are going to attack. Now, the Ukrainians say we have no intention of attacking. Then we have other picture of the day, President Lukashenko of Belarus, with President Putin. Belarus, of course, is the place where Russians are holding this massive military exercises and President Putin really laying his cards on the table, saying, look, all Kyiv has to do is sit down at the table and talk with these guys. Talk with the leaders of the Donbas about economics, military, political humanitarian, et cetera. This can solve the problem.

And then, finally, I would note that tomorrow is Saturday. We'll be having major strategic military exercises, which will include ballistic missile, cruise missiles, et cetera. President Putin will be overseeing this. The pictures I'm sure will be quite striking.

And another reminder that Russia is the other superpower. NATO, of course, is saying, conventionally, you have more array of military hardware since the end of the Cold Ward. And NATO is saying Russia could launch an attack, you know, without warning. So, again, back and forth, that it is very intense right now.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. Let me go to you in Kyiv. We heard from the mayor in that city who spoke at the security conference in Munich saying we need more. We need defensive weapons right now, U.S. we need it Germany.

What is the sense there? The degree of urgency from the government? They put in this urgent request to NATO saying they could be victims of a massive attack soon. Just give us an idea of what the feeling is there.

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, FORMER SPOKESMAN, ORG FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE (OSCE): Sure. Good to be with you, Victor.

Well, I think -- I'm actually right on the edge of the government quarter here in Kyiv. And life is going on as normal. But underneath, I can tell you, talking to Ukrainians, there's a very great sense of anxiety.

I think the sense here is whoever has helped out Ukraine so far, thank you very much. Now I think the feeling is we are as close to Russian aggression on an epic scale as we have ever seen. That's the feeling here right now.

So, what is happening in (INAUDIBLE) described is part of that Russia narrative, is we're going to create a pretext, a narrative to go in. The question here being asked if and when the Russians do formally take over that Donbas area which is, by the way, very heavily bombed out, what are they going to do next? I mean, it's an economic basket case and lots of land mines, things like that. Will this be a first step towards going more south, creating that land

bridge between Russia proper and Crimea, perhaps expanding that area of Russian control? We don't know, of course. Only Mr. Putin knows. That's the big fear here now in is first step to much, much bigger plan.

BLACKWELL: Jill, Vladimir Putin has cultivated his image as a strong man. We just have to look at the shirtless on horseback, judo black belt videos for some of that. We know that Secretary Blinken says that the Russian foreign minister should meet him next Friday for talks in Geneva.

Are there realistic off ramps that allow this strong man to back away from the border and save face now?

DOUGHERTY: I think there are off ramps but so far, they're not being taken. The only real off ramp is to pull back the forces, for Russia to pull back and for negotiations to take place. And on the negotiations, luckily, there is some communication continuing, but it is not getting anywhere because Russia wants an entire package guaranteeing their security instead of the individual issues that the west willing to work on until they can come to some resolution. It doesn't look very promising at all.

BLACKWELL: All right. Jill Dougherty, Michael Bociurkiw, thank you both.

Breaking news now. The National Archives confirms that if found, classified documents in boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago after former President Trump left office. We've got details, next.

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BLACKWELL: Breaking news, the National Archives just confirmed it found classified records in boxes after Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office and they've now notified the Justice Department.

Let's go straight to CNN's Paula Reid.

Paula, what do you know?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, in a letter to the House Oversight Committee, the National Archives confirms that classified information has been identified in boxes recovered from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. In this letter, the archive says it has been in touch with the Justice Department about this discovery as it may constitute a violation of law.

Victor, as we've reported, last month the archives received 15 boxes of materials recovered from Mar-a-Lago. They say they are still inventorying what is in the boxes. They hope to be done with the process by next week. But they only received these materials after the archives reached out

to former President Trump's team about trying to obtain some missing documents.

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Now, in addition to the confirmation of the discovery of classified information, this letter also reveals that the archives say former President Trump continued to tear up and destroy presidential records even after being warned about his obligations under the presidential records act. Now, in this letter, they say that the archives got wind of the fact that the president was doing this.

Victor, I've spoken with sources inside the former president's White House. They say, yes, he used to walk around, and he'd tear up document, draft speeches, memos. Sometimes aides would try to scurry behind him and tape them up.

The Archives got wind of this in about 2018. They said they reached out to the then deputy counsel who said it would be addressed with the former president. But the Archives says, Victor, that based on what they received, it's clear that the former president did not heed the warning and continue to destroy documents.

Now, in addition to that, they also said the Trump administration failed to live up to its obligation to preserve material related to social media accounts of senior officials. So, very significant revelations in this letter about a variety of ways the former president failed his obligations of the Presidential Records Act.

BLACKWELL: Paula Reid with the breaking news in Washington -- thank you, Paula.

In Minneapolis, the family of Daunte Wright says they are disappointed by the judge's sentencing position for Kim Potter. That story, ahead.

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