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CNN Team, Ukrainian Minister Come under Mortar Fire; U.S. Officials Believe Putin Has Made Decision to Invade Ukraine; Lviv Mayor Says Residents Living a "Normal" Life; Russia is Tightening Its Military Grip around Ukraine; Olympic Winter Games Final Day; Ottawa Police Use Pepper Spray to Disperse Crowds. Aired 1-1:30a ET
Aired February 20, 2022 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello, everyone, I'm Michael Holmes, coming to you live from Ukraine.
As world leaders call for a diplomatic resolution, Russia makes a show. Vladimir Putin overseeing a strategic weapons exercise from the Kremlin situation room.
LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And, hello, I'm Lynda Kinkade at CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.
The Beijing Olympic Games comes to close in just a few hours. Elana Meyers Taylor becomes the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history.
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HOLMES: And we begin here in Ukraine, where the threat of a Russian attack continues to grow by the day, as the U.S. warns Moscow could strike at any time. President Biden will be meeting with his National Security Council on Sunday.
Still, Western leaders are making an 11th hour bid for diplomacy. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, spoke with Ukraine's president on Saturday ahead of a phone call with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Faster. Go, go, go.
HOLMES (voice-over): On the front lines, though, no signs tensions are cooling. A CNN team, on tour with Ukraine's interior minister, came under mortar fire on Saturday, the latest example of escalating cease-fire violations near the border.
And some in the West warned that the worst could come soon.
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LIZ TRUSS, U.K. FOREIGN SECRETARY AND MINISTER FOR WOMEN AND EQUALITIES: There are many people who would want to think hopefully about the situation. But I think we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. And that worst-case scenario could happen as early as next week.
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HOLMES: World leaders gathered for the Munich Security Conference this weekend, the Ukrainian President Zelensky among those taking the stage on Saturday, as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris had this warning for Russia.
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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me be clear: I can say with absolute certainty, if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States, together with our allies and partners, will impose significant and unprecedented economic costs.
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HOLMES: Adding to all these tensions, Russia's staging nuclear drills near NATO's borders on Saturday, a show of force overseen by Mr. Putin and his close ally, the president of Belarus.
It comes as officials in the U.S. fear that Belarus could be a launchpad for a possible Russian attack on Ukraine. More now from CNN's Fred Pleitgen.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Russia's army on the offensive in major live fire drills with Belarusian forces inside Belarus but close to the border with Ukraine. Practicing for a massive onslaught, the commander explaining their objective.
Today, at the live fire demonstration, a defensive battle was shown and then a counter strike to restore the forces position along the front line he says.
These troops are part of the more than 150,000 soldiers Russia has amassed around Ukraine the U.S. believes. Washington fears Belarus could be one of the launching pads for an attack on Ukraine. Even though Moscow claims it has no such plans. (on camera): In these very tense times Russia is really flexing its military muscle not just with these massive drills here in Belarus, with exercises elsewhere as well involving some of Russia's elite combat units.
(voice-over): Vladimir Putin himself oversaw nuclear drills near NATO's borders involving some of Russia's most dangerous weapons like the Kinzhal hypersonic air to ground missile or the intercontinental ballistic missile Yars fired from a mobile launcher. Russia fired missiles from air, land and sea showing off the Kremlin's nuclear arsenal.
The main goal of the ongoing exercise is to work out actions to inflict guaranteed defeat on the enemy. Putin's top General said. The widespread military power play comes as the U.S. believes Vladimir Putin has already made the decision to invade Ukraine. [01:05:00]
GEN. LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I believe that we should continue to try up until the very last minute until it's no longer possible. But I think -- I think, if you look at the stance that he is in the day, it's apparent that he has made a decision and that they're moving into the right positions to be able to conduct an attack.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russia denies it will attack Ukraine but its leadership so far has not announced any timeline for the withdrawal of the massive forces it has placed around Ukraine -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Obuz Levanovsky (ph), Belarus.
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HOLMES: As I mentioned, Ukraine's president was among those speaking during the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. While there, he sat down with our Christiane Amanpour, who asked about Russia's provocative actions along Ukraine's border and whether they could be a pretext for war.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: On the so-called false flag issues, you have just talked about two Ukrainian soldiers being killed. The Russians say mines have exploded, Ukrainian mines on their side of the border. We have seen this rhetoric before.
We understand the concept of false flags but how tense is that?
How do you think you can stop it?
Have you considered the levels of the current provocations?
ZELENSKY (through translator): Any provocations are very dangerous. As I already said, I think the most complicated question that in the Crimea, in the temporary occupied territory of the Donbas, along the borders of Ukraine and Russia, there's 30,000, 35,000 on the temporary -- or temporary and there is 35,000 more and 150 along other boards. So provocations are indeed very dangerous if you have this number of
troops. One shelling, one fire, cannon fire can lead to war. And we perfectly understand. As I said, I do think so and this is what our partners believe,
I mean the partners who are around us who have joined borders of us, who know the history of the Soviet Union and they do understand the kind of risks we are facing. Poland, the Baltic states, Lithuania and Estonia, Latvia, Moldova, they know what that could lead to.
So we need to be very careful. I can't tell you about what will happen now. If you compare to 2014, 2015, there were much more casualties, unfortunately. When someone in mass media says now this is the most horrific situation, that is not true.
It is horrible, it's a tragedy for our nation, for our people. It is a tragedy and in the future, you will see that this is the tragedy for Russians as well, who used to have good relationship with the Ukraine.
How do we stay neighbors and live with each other from now on?
But we are at a different point in our lives. We are not talking about neighborhood. We are talking about the war and that it shouldn't start. This is why the risk is high.
What was shown yesterday on the temporary occupied territory there, shown some shelling allegedly flying from our side and they have shown something flying all the way to Rostov region of Russia.
This is just plain provocation. These are pure lies. There's no one dead or wounded. This is just cynicism of such a high level that they are blowing up something on their side and shooting. This is not the first time since 2014 that they are aiming their guns and shooting at the territory that they themselves control.
This is the kind of cynicism. That's it. And all we care about is peace. And I've mentioned this many times to the president of the Russian Federations and Angela Merkel and Macron in 2019 and we have sent a massive amount of signals, all on a monthly basis.
We have been passing on to different world leaders and directly to Russian federations that we are ready to sit down and speak. Pick the platform that you like. Pick the partners that will be there around the table with us. We are ready for that, prepared for that.
What is the point of us shooting and proposing diplomacy at the same time?
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HOLMES: Now a short time ago, I actually sat down and spoke with the mayor of Lviv about the looming military threat from Russia. Andriy Sadovyi said his residents are ready to defend the city if Moscow escalates the conflict with Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: What are you having to do to the city?
What sorts of changes have you had to make in case there is an invasion?
MAYOR ANDRIY SADOVYI, LVIV, UKRAINE (through translator): Six months ago, we started to prepare the city for an emergency situation; for example, how to provide water without electricity. And we are capable of doing that today.
We tripled our reserves of medical supplies. We increased the blood reserves. We rearranged the work of all our strategic enterprises. We are ready today to live life under extreme conditions.
HOLMES: What would the people of Lviv do if the Russians invaded?
How would they react?
SADOVYI (through translator): Firstly, people are ready to defend. The territorial defense is being actively developed, not only in Lviv but in all cities of Ukraine. In total, there are approximately 2 million people. They are learning how to use weapons and provide medical aid. This is our country and we must protect ourselves.
HOLMES: How has this tension, this threat, impacted your city and the mood of the city?
SADOVYI (through translator): If you see the life in Lviv or in other cities, you will see no tension.
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SADOVYI: Only a person who watches the news would be worried. Everyone here lives a normal life. Yet everyone is getting ready. This energy for preparation gives strength and certainty. Lviv is a safe city and we have welcomed all of them.
HOLMES: Did you ever think as mayor you would be running a city under the threat of Russian invasion?
SADOVYI (through translator): It has been happening for eight years already. And today, we have understood that the threat coming from Russia is stronger than ever. It can happen tomorrow. It can happen in a month. It can happen in a year because Russia wants to destroy Ukraine. And it wants to destroy the whole democratic world.
That is why we have to be like a lion, to push the bear back to its den.
HOLMES: If Russian officials were listening to this interview right now, what would you say to them?
SADOVYI (through translator): If they attack us, then they will suffer from big losses in both military personnel and equipment. This is our free land. And we will never give it to anyone.
SADOVYI: (Speaking Ukrainian). Never give up.
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HOLMES: For more on all of this, let's bring in Matthew Schmidt, he's an associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven. He joins me from Connecticut.
Professor, good to have you back again.
When you listen to Putin and his speeches and his comments, does it seem to you that this is about a lot more than immediate security issues, that he wants Ukraine back in the old Soviet style orbit?
Make Russia great again, if you like?
MATTHEW SCHMIDT, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN: Yes. I think if you listen to the Ukrainians, like the mayor you just spoke to, you see a couple of things.
First, nobody really believes Russia's security claims, that they are really worried about missiles in Ukraine because NATO could put missiles already in the Baltic states and they would be closer to Moscow than they are in Kharkiv.
The second thing is, again, as the mayor was talking about here, Putin is trying to build a kind of manifest destiny for Americans.
He's trying to create this sphere of influence that extends from Moscow to Kyiv and around Central Asia and Belarus and rebuild the kind of cultural and economic and military powerhouse that is not a unionized thing like the Soviet Union was but nonetheless is ruled from Moscow.
HOLMES: Yes, that a really good point.
Given what you have seen has developed into the serious situation that it is today, has your view on the likelihood or otherwise of actual conflict altered?
Have Putin's actions give you any optimism for a peaceful resolution?
SCHMIDT: Not really. Mostly, I was concerned by the letter that the Russian foreign ministry gave in return, in response to the American latter. If you look at the Russian, it is harsher and more immediate than its translation.
In the Russian, they seem to be saying that they will react, not respond, which is the translation, but react immediately. So this seems to me to be signaling, again, very hard, that they are on a war footing. And a few days ago, I would've been more blase about this.
But right now I would say that it is probably more likely than not that we will see a reinvasion.
HOLMES: Yes.
How then does Ukraine survive this?
Even if not an invasion, Russia's economic strangulation, which is going on now, one assumes that the pressure won't just suddenly stop if there is not an invasion.
SCHMIDT: No. Ukraine's ultimate strategy here is to fall back into a kind of insurgency. And again, as the mayor astutely said, lead the Russians back home. This war is not popular in Russia. It is particularly unpopular among the military aged cohort and their parents.
If there are a lot of body bags that end up on the steps of the Kremlin, you might see some kind of Maidan revolution. You might see protests in the streets.
The other thing I think is if you look at what Zelensky was saying about pushing the button here on sanctions, he is trying to signal to Moscow that the economic costs of this invasion would be enormous, so enormous that that alone might be a kind of deterrent, along with the risk of Russian casualties.
HOLMES: You talk -- you taught strategic studies at the U.S. Army school. I wonder what you make of his positioning of his troops, his strategic placing of them, given your experience at the School of Advanced Military Studies.
SCHMIDT: Well, they are pretty classic. The person I would turn to is his top general, Valery Gerasimov, where you look at what he has written.
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SCHMIDT: And he has talked a lot about something that we would translate as hybrid war or what he thinks of as kind of hacking society.
So he sees what's going to happen in a place like Ukraine, as coming from many other realms besides the direct military realm, that he would cyberattacks. And of course, you have this information warfare that is going on.
What you are trying to do there is break society by sort of hacking its social functions and that the military's job is to inject enormous amounts fear by injecting pain. And if you look at the way they are arrayed, that's what you see, especially this capacity to threaten Kyiv itself.
So that's what I would look for, is that that becomes the major pain point, the unexpected pain point, should hostilities commence again.
HOLMES: Do you think Vladimir Putin is being surprised at the level of Western unity on this?
Do you think that he thought there would be more division that he could exploit?
SCHMIDT: I think he did. I think he is also surprised at the Biden administration's strategy to keep releasing intelligence information ahead of any potential move. That reads to me -- and I have no source on this -- but it reads to me like there are a team of psychologists somewhere in the White House, that have run up a psychological profile on Putin and are essentially running this against him by coming out ahead and saying, we know what you are going to do.
Now if you do it, it won't have the same kind of psychological impact. And again, I think that plays into this kind of social hacking that Gerasimov built into his strategic planning.
HOLMES: Terrific analysis, as always. Professor Matthew Schmidt, good to see you again. Thank you so much.
SCHMIDT: Sure, thanks.
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HOLMES: All right, I'm Michael Holmes, here in Lviv, Ukraine. I will be back with more at the top of the hour. For now, let's head back to Atlanta, where Lynda Kinkade has the day's other top stories.
KINKADE: Good to see you there. Fascinating interview there with the Lviv mayor as well, thanks so much for that.
Well, it's the final day of the Beijing Winter Olympics and the closing ceremony just hours away. We will look at what the history that's been made and who is currently leading the medal count. Coming up, a live report.
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KINKADE: Welcome back. We are just a few hours away from the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and this turned out to be a historic competition.
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KINKADE: Still to come, police in Canada insisting the occupation is over. But they're still trying to disperse protesters in the capital, Ottawa. Stay with us. We will have a report on that story when we come back.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) KINKADE: Welcome back.
Canadian police say they are ramping up tactics to try to end protests that have choked the area around parliament for several weeks. Ottawa police say they've arrested 170 people, including protest leaders.
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KINKADE: They've fired pepper spray and issued thousands of tickets and towed away dozens of trucks. Our Paula Newton has the latest.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: An historic day like no other on the streets of Canada's capital. I want you to have a look at some of the video here, as hundreds of police officers squared off with dozens of protesters.
Those protesters again, wanting those COVID-19 measures gone. They have been in the streets for more than three weeks, along with hundreds of cars and trucks. And they say they will not move.
These kinds of confrontations went on for hours as police stood their ground but also protesters as well, saying they will not leave. Police say there have been at least 100 arrests and 21 vehicles have been towed. They say they will stay day and night until they can, in their words, give the streets back to Ottawa's residents.
But they also say that this continues to be a complicated operation. Just one of those complications: the fact that some parents have brought their children to this protest. I want you to listen now to Ottawa's interim police chief.
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INTERIM POLICE CHIEF STEVE BELL, OTTAWA: Even through all the planning, it still shocks and surprises me that we are seeing children put in harm's way in the middle of a demonstration where a police operation is unfolding.
We will continue to look after their safety and security. But we implore all the parents who have kids in there, get the kids out of there. They do not need to be in the middle of this.
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NEWTON: Now as this operation continues, it comes at great cost to the residents of this city. The entire downtown core is essentially sealed off. There are about 100 checkpoints, where you have to explain why you are going into the downtown core.
And this will continue to go on for days, the police say. Some of the protesters have been arrested, some are waiting to make bail. Others have left town. The protesters themselves, some say that this protest was actually worth it, saying that they do believe that they have made their point about COVID-19 measures -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa. (END VIDEOTAPE)
KINKADE: The U.K. and parts of Northwest Europe are reeling in the aftermath of Storm Eunice. It battered Poland on Saturday with strong winds.
Here you can see a Boeing 787 struggling to land in Warsaw, though it was successful on its second attempt. Eunice started in the Central Atlantic, pummeling Ireland and the British Isles, moving across Europe.
Experts call the deadly system one of the worst they've seen in decades with record-breaking hurricane strength gusts. Now the U.K. is about to be hit by a third storm in a row, prompting a yellow alert.
That does it for this edition of CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Lynda Kinkade. "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS" is next and we will be back at the top they are with much more news. Stay with us.
