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New Images Show Russian Troops Getting Close to Border; White House: Biden Agrees In Principle to Putin Summit; People from Separatist-Held Ukraine Evacuation; Ukraine's Economy Takes a Hit Amid Fears of Invasion; Fireworks, Ceremony and Festivities Close Out Winter Games; Hong Kong Struggling to Contain Fifth Wave of Virus. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired February 21, 2022 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes in Lviv, Ukraine. You're looking at a live picture there of the capital Kyiv.
All right, we'll you more now on our top story. World leaders are in a race against time to stave off war in Ukraine. New satellite images show Russian forces intensifying their movements near Ukraine's northeastern border.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden agreed in principle to a summit with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. But a Kremlin spokesman just said there are currently, quote, no concrete plans for such a meeting, but he didn't rule it out entirely either. CNN's Arlette Saenz with more from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The White House says President Biden has agreed in principle to a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it comes with one major caveat. It will only be held if Russia does not invade Ukraine. Now, this proposed summit was brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron who spoke with President Biden earlier on Sunday for 15 minutes.
It was later confirmed by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki who said Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would discuss the parameters of such a summit when they meet on February 24th.
Psaki added in a statement saying: President Biden accepted in principle a meeting with President Putin following that engagement, again, if an invasion hasn't happened. We are always ready for diplomacy, she said. We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war. And currently, Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on Ukraine very soon.
The White House has long said they are open to President Biden engaging with President Putin when it would be useful and if it could help avoid a war between Russia and Ukraine.
But the administration has also been clear-eyed about Russia's intentions. In recent days, stepping up their warnings about Russia's ability to attack Ukraine, including President Biden himself saying that he is convinced Putin has made that decision to launch an invasion.
So, while this proposal of a possible summit could mark a major breakthrough in those diplomatic talks, the administration is still being very clear-eyed and weary of Russian's intentions as they have seen military buildups around the border of Ukraine, but they have long insisted that they think that there is a diplomatic path available to avert such a crisis even if Russia is making some of these moves that suggest an attack could be imminent.
Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Ukraine's defense ministry says it has recorded dozens of cease-fire violations by those Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. A total of 74 just on Sunday night. The ministry said 68 of those were weapons prohibited under the Minsk agreements. Ukraine also says this video shows Russian-backed separatists launching fire against their own territory in an attempt to falsely accuse Ukraine's armed forces of an attack.
[04:35:00]
Now, leaders in separatist controlled eastern Ukraine are urging civilians to evacuate to Russia, claiming Ukrainian forces are planning an attack, something Ukraine has consistently denied and there is no evidence of.
Joining me now is CNN's national security editor Nick Paton Walsh again. Let's talk a little about Putin's options here as he's got everybody poised around the borders. What might -- what are his options?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's important for him that he doesn't actually have to do anything. I mean, the sort of notion that inevitably some sort of awful thing must occur. He could just pull everyone back and show the world that he's had the power to bring Eastern Europe to the brink and get everyone's attention again.
But they are saying you wouldn't put that much military force in position if you didn't intend to do something. So, could he for example decide to formally recognize the separatist republics and send peacekeepers, as he would call them, Russian troops in? Possibly but then you own that problem entirely and you possibly get sanctioned and you have Russian troops close up to Ukrainian troops and that could be a risk.
I don't know if we can pull up the map we were seeing earlier on of Ukraine. Do you try and form some kind of land bridge between the eastern part of the separatist areas, in red in that map, and Crimea down at the bottom? You could potentially make that very useful by allowing it to ferry goods from the Russian motherland down to the Kamchatka peninsula. That has a strategic benefit.
HOLMES: And stop Ukraine from doing that.
WALSH: Well, yes, absolutely. But also, then you have this thin strip of land that's very much at risk. So, the argument goes you would need to take more of Ukraine. Then the counter argument goes, you're putting yourself into possibly a decade-plus-long occupation of a huge swath of land that really probably doesn't want you to be there at all. And so, all the options really to some degree bad when it comes down to what sort of decision-making is being made and what that is informed by.
HOLMES: Yes, exactly. No good ones certainly. But you think about Putin, you've covered him. You've lived in Russia. He craves attention and he craves respect and he craves wanting to be seen as a major global player. He wants that sort of deference and he feels he hasn't been getting it. How much do you think that plays into it? I mean, ego?
WALSH: Yes, I mean, look, here we are discussing what does he want. His character, his decision making, who's telling him what. And I think that does certainly feed into some of the calculations here. And this is also a man who wants to restore Russia to its Soviet-era glory. He called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.
And so, I think for this moment as it plays out, he's getting the attention he wants. It's all about him. He's being asked to meet President Joe Biden by the French president. They're doing the no concrete plans yet response. Which again suggests they're using that meeting as some of extra potential moment for bargaining. And so, I think it does feed into certainly Russia as a key global player again.
That's not reflected in its GDP or the condition necessarily the country itself is in, but still Putin has always managed to geopolitically punch massively above their sort of economic weight. So, yes, it's down to him, it seems. And frankly whether he takes Russia in this extraordinarily perilous direction, invading a neighbor so full of people who have deep familial relationships to Russia, or decides diplomacy is the way forward.
HOLMES: Yes, and it's hard to look at Ukraine and just say the people feel this or the people feel that. There are different people and different viewpoint. But there seems to be an overriding theme that the Ukrainians don't want this. Does Putin feel he can come in, take Ukraine and all of a sudden everybody is proud to be a Russian? I mean, that doesn't work that way. Everybody I've spoken to certainly -- that's just not (INAUDIBLE).
WALSH: Changed so much. And there's been eight years of war. It's important to remember this is not just something that started because we turned up here or because the U.S. administration decided to pay excess attention to it. This has been on -- I mean in 2004 I attended the first protests in central Kyiv where they were then wrestling with does Russia continue to have excess weight over our political system and run the government by proxy or do, we have a new pro EU leaning leader. And the pro EU movement won. It swung back and forth again and again.
But then there were some who said, look, well this accession or the forced separating of these eastern areas, essentially all the people who voted pro-Russia parties are gone into separatist areas. And so, that essentially cast Ukraine's body politic in a pro-Western direction pretty much permanently. And so, yes, this is not going to be an easy situation at all for any Russian-invading force. That may be the miscalculation the Kremlin are making. They may think it may be like Crimea, had only been out of Russian control, or Soviet control for a matter of decades before it went back to Russia. That was a different situation.
You were there, you know. So, I think it will be awful, frankly, and that hopefully is something that is getting through to decision maker -- the decision maker in the Kremlin.
[04:40:00]
HOLMES: It's been great to have you here today. You're going to be heading off again. Getting in from Poland yesterday, you're going to be off elsewhere today. Great to have you with us for some analysis, appreciate it. Nick Paton Walsh there, our international security editor.
All right, now the Ukrainian economy is taking a hit amid the ongoing crisis on its border. The size of the impact and what might happen if Russia invades. That's after the break.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My heart is worried about Ukraine. I don't want another war. I don't want struggles. Ukraine went through this many times and there's no need for this now. So, I support all Ukraine who come together, also here to send a message to Washington, to Biden, and everybody else, you need to do something more radical to stop all this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: All right, you're looking now at a scene from Sunday in Washington, D.C., where several pro-Ukrainian groups gathered to show solidarity for Ukrainian and petition the Biden administration to enact sanctions against Russia. Earlier I spoke to Timothy, a former minister of economic development and trade-in Ukraine. And I asked him about the damage done to Ukraine's economy so far and what might be to come. Here's what he told me.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TYMOFIY MYLOVANOV, PRESIDENT, KYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: Even if there is none, there is already a lot of damage. Access to capital markets, capitalization of the companies, logistical problems, insurance costs going up. The GDP forecast a couple of weeks ago was revised down by about 1 percent. And there are estimates produced by our analysts of Kyiv School of Economics and others, that a blockade, let's say, if there is a blockade of the ports, that could hurt us between 0.5 percent to 3 percent GDP per months.
[04:45:00]
This is just without any kinetic action, without an invasion. If there is kinetic action, that depends, because it's really hard to assess the specific scenarios.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Now meanwhile, the Biden administration has repeatedly vowed that Russia will face swift and severe sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine. On Capitol Hill, U.S. lawmakers still debating how far sanctions should go. Here's one point of view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): There's no secret here that we're talking about sanctions on the military, all of their issues of exported military supplies, all of the imports, but things they need for the military. Heavy sanctions on Putin and the oligarchs and the military leaders. Those are personal sanctions, tying up their money wherever it may be around the world. Also looking at the issue of Russian energy exports, oil and gas, all of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden has a pretty busy week ahead unsurprisingly. He's going to be discussing the Ukraine crisis with G7 leaders during a virtual meeting on Thursday. Sanctions on Russia, of course, will be one talking point. As Germany's foreign minister has said his country is ready to implement them. Mr. Biden also hosting an event to discuss the state of the American economy, that includes securing supply chains and creating better-paying jobs.
All right. U.S. stocks slid again on Friday as investors worry about developments in Eastern Europe and the threat of Russian invasion of Ukraine. This followed a steep sell-off on Thursday leading to the Dow's worst day of the year. This is how futures are looking at the moment. Global markets were mostly stable in spite of the volatility on Wall Street. The U.S. stock market will be closed today, Monday, for the Presidents Day holiday.
President Biden is under criticism from some Republican Senators for his handling of the Russia/Ukraine crisis. Earlier CNN senior political analysts Ron Brownstein said that the U.S. president has been a reliable partner for Western allies.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: For the most part this has the Biden that he promised the voters. Steady, firm and very capable at holding together the Western alliance. I think that is the biggest surprise of this entire, you know, unfortunate and dangerous episode. Which is that despite the reliance of Western Europe on Russian energy supplies, Biden and the Western European have been really shoulder to shoulder in sending an unmistakable signal to Putin about the consequences if he invades Ukraine.
I mean, you contrast this obviously with all of the conflict between the previous President, Donald Trump and NATO, his efforts to shake down Ukraine over, you know, pressuring them to create and manufacturing narrative about Biden.
And so, we don't know how this is going to end and it may still end in a very unfortunate way. But so far, I think from a pretty broad range of commentators from left to right Biden has got -- has received high marks for the way he has held together the Western alliance in the face of this threat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Senior political analyst Ron Brownstein there speaking earlier. He noted that there is still a small window for diplomacy even as the U.S. considers that variety of sanctions.
All right, I'm Michael Holmes in Lviv Ukraine. We will have more on the crisis in the Russia/Ukraine crisis coming up on "EARLY START" in about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Rosemary Church is back with more on CNN NEWSROOM ahead. Stay with CNN.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Fireworks lit up Beijing Sunday as the Olympic host city said farewell to the 2022 winter games. Spectators danced, sang and cheered in the birds nest stadium for the closing ceremony.
After 16 days of competition, Norway finished atop the medal table with a record number of gold. The country's 16 gold medals are the most ever won at a single winter games. Germany came in second with 12. And China with nine gold edged out the U.S., Sweden and the Netherlands all with eight.
Well, England is making plans to throw out all isolation requirements for those testing positive for the virus. The Prime Minister's office says an announcement is expected this week, rolling back all restrictions.
Australia has fully reopened its borders to vaccinated travelers, making for some emotional reunions for families who had been apart since the pandemic began.
And Hong Kong is ramping up testing, trying to contain the spread of the region's fifth wave of the virus. Hospitals are stretched to the limit with reports of people stuck outside in the rain due to a lack of hospital beds.
So, let's turn to Kristie Lu Stout. She joins us now live from Hong Kong with more on all of this. Good to see you, Kristie. So, police are now being mobilized to help with the growing outbreak in Hong Kong. What are they doing exactly?
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the situation here is getting so desperate, Rosemary, that Hong Kong is reportedly mobilizing its police force to help contain this growing outbreak of COVID-19. The "South China Morning Post" citing sources is saying that Hong Kong police will work to help with the anticipated mass testing of the population here. Right now, Hong Kong government authorities are considering mandatory mass testing of all 7.4 million residents of Hong Kong.
Now, this development comes shortly after the Chinese President Xi Jinping made that very direct message pointed at the Hong Kong government urging Hong Kong authorities to take the main responsibility to control and stabilize the growing outbreak here. And the numbers keep rising.
[04:55:00]
We just heard from the health authorities within the last hour, and Hong Kong today has reported 7,500 new daily cases of COVID-19 and 13 new deaths from the virus. Mainland Chinese authorities have been pledging help. Help has arrived in the form of expertise in testing, in treatment, as well as building more quarantine capacity.
In fact, right now mainland Chinese teams on the ground here in Hong Kong are constructing two new isolation and treatment centers, one in Pen East Bay, that's that corner in Hong Kong near Hong Kong Disneyland and the other at the Kai Tak Cruise terminal. These isolation centers together will be able to provide 10,000 new isolation beds.
But when you talk to public health experts here in the territory, they say it's not enough, and they point to numbers that suggest that the daily number of cases here in Hong Kong will jump from today's number of over 7,000 to over 28,000 daily new cases by March. So those beds that they're building, those isolation centers that you're looking at your screen right now, they're being built right now, are simply not enough -- Rosemary.
CHURCH: Unbelievable. Kristie Lu Stout joining us live from Hong Kong. Many thanks.
Well, a 23-year-old won a bumpy and crashed in Daytona 500 in Florida Sunday. Austin Cindric narrowly edged out Bubba Wallace to claim his first-ever NASCAR cup series victory. The race was filled with red flags and multiple crashes, but Cindric was able to steer his way through and earn the checkered flag. Well done.
And thank you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. Be sure to connect with me on twitter@RosemaryCNN. "EARLY START" is coming up next. You're watching CNN. Have a great day. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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