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Brink of War. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:08]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Dana Bash, in for Ana Cabrera.

Russia and Ukraine on the brink of war and racing closer by the second. CNN has learned that U.S. officials are warning Ukraine's government that a full-scale Russian invasion is imminent.

Now, keep in mind the stakes, dire predictions of possibly tens of thousands of civilian casualties and millions of refugees. New satellite images that you're seeing there appear to show an escalation of readiness, as Russia adds troops, tents and field hospitals near Ukraine's border.

And a senior U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence says Russia is as ready as they can be for an invasion, with 80 percent -- that's 8-0 -- 80 percent of its forces in a -- quote -- "forward position," ready to go.

We have CNN correspondents all across the globe. And they're going to bring you the latest developments.

But I want to first start with Kylie Atwood at the State Department.

Kylie, this is your new reporting. Tell us more about what you're hearing.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Dana, there's a few things happening today.

First of all, we have learned that U.S. officials have shared that new assessment based on U.S. intelligence with Ukrainians that a full- scale invasion into Ukraine is imminent. Of course, we have heard the word imminent a lot in recent days and weeks, but there appears to be more of a sense of urgency.

We're also hearing just now from a senior Defense Department official, explaining that 80 percent of all of Russia's forces that are now amassed along Ukraine's borders are in forward positions. What this defense officials said that means is that they're ready to go at any time.

As soon as they're an order to cross into Ukraine, they are ready to go. This defense official explained that, in the past, we have heard the secretary of defense Lloyd Austin describe those Russian forces as uncoiling. But now those Russian forces are uncoiled.

They are ready to go in. This is a very dire assessment based on what the U.S. has learned just in really recent hours, frankly, here, saying that a full-scale invasion is likely. Now, of course, what this boils down to is the order from Russia, and this senior defense official, of course, pointing back to President Putin, saying that, as soon as he gives the order, it is the U.S. assessment that those Russian forces are ready to go.

BASH: Dire, indeed. Thank you so much for that, Kylie.

Now let's go to Matthew Chance in the capital of Ukraine.

Matthew, you have also been doing reporting there on the ground, talking to officials in and around the region. What are you hearing? And, specifically -- I know this is new news, as they say, from Kylie, but have you gotten any response to what Kylie is reporting?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have been talking to Ukrainian officials about that same warning from the United States to the Ukrainian government.

That warning came to Ukrainian officials, according to the Ukrainian source I spoke to, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, so over 36 hours ago. The Ukrainian source that I have spoken to about this said that, look, we haven't verified the intelligence assessments that the United States has passed on about that imminent invasion, full-scale invasion by Russian forces of Ukraine.

But there was an element of caution expressed by the Ukrainian source, saying that, look, only this month, we have been given several similar assessments like that and warnings by the United States that an attack may be imminent, and those attacks have failed to materialize.

The difference now, of course, is the context. We are in this much more tense situation after Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, recognized the independence, if you like, of two breakaway rebel states in Eastern Ukraine. That's really ratcheted up the tension in this country. And the whole nation now is bracing for some kind of follow-up attack, either by those rebels or elsewhere.

And so this latest U.S. intelligence assessment and the warning to the Ukrainian officials comes in that context. It's also notable that, from tonight -- maybe it gives us a picture of what kind of time frame you're looking at. From tonight, 12:00 local time here, midnight local time in Ukraine -- it's about four hours from now -- the Ukrainian president has urged the Ukrainian Parliament, he is calling on them to impose a state of emergency across the country.

Now, we don't know whether that's directly related to this U.S. intelligence warning to the Ukrainians. But it just paints a very vivid picture for us of the kind of tension and concern that we're seeing being felt tonight in the Ukrainian capital.

BASH: It certainly sounds like a capital bracing for an attack.

[13:05:01]

Matthew, thank you.

I want to go to the east of where you are. That's where Alex Marquardt is reporting from.

And, Alex, you're just miles from the separatist-held region of Donetsk. And you are -- have been on the ground there. Tell us what you're seeing. Tell us what you're hearing.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana, we're only about 12.5 miles away from that separatist-held enclave that Matthew was just talking about.

We have seen clear evidence today of this spike in violence, of shelling over the course of the past few weeks. But, Dana, for those of us in the east, the big question right now is, to what extent have Russian troops actually moved into those rebel-held territories?

President Putin, of course, calling them peacekeepers. The Kremlin is not convinced that they have gone in yet. We do have an indication from multiple sources, from NATO leaders from people familiar with U.S. intelligence, from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense that Russian troops and forces have started going into those two rebel-held enclaves.

But we do not have a full-throated confirmation. We do not -- we have not yet seen long columns of troops and weaponry in there just yet. That does remain to be seen.

But, Dana, we spent some time today just about a mile from that line of contact, where there has been so much fighting over the course of the past eight years. And we were shown around by a resident. We went into the field behind his house, and he showed us these 16 different craters from artillery shells that landed right next to his house. Some were as deep as I am tall.

It really showed the extent to which the shelling is random and is not highly targeted. This town was relatively empty at this point. This man told me that he doesn't plan on going anywhere, and, in fact, that he doesn't believe that an all-out war is going to happen. He does think that violence will continue, as he has seen over the past eight years, but not an all-out war.

Dana, it must be noted that President Putin not only recognized those two breakaway territories, but the oblasts, as they're known here, the provinces that they are in, which I am in one of them right now.

So, President Putin recognizing that this area where I am, much of the Donbass, as it's known, should be independent. So the fear now is that, soon, we could see Russian troops, not just in those separatist- held areas, but where I am in what is for now still held by Ukraine -- Dana.

BASH: Absolutely. And thank you for showing us those pictures. It's important. Even though, as you say, it seems to be random, it certainly feels that you are on the front lines, and it feels like it could be changing any minute now.

And now we want to go to Moscow. That's where Nic Robertson is.

And, Nic, I saw your reporting earlier talking about the comments coming out of the Russian government, and sort of what they mean. And given your years of experience in covering this region analyzing that, can you can you talk about what you're hearing from the Russian government and what it tells you right now?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: President Putin had a phone call this afternoon with President Erdogan of Turkey.

President Erdogan has been trying to sort of get himself involved in the current crisis as a mediator. But the -- his takeaway from the phone call was that President Putin was disappointed, that he's disappointed that the West hasn't listened to his security concerns.

And we heard from President Putin himself earlier in the day, saying that Russia's security concerns are non-negotiable. That seems to be the position that the Russian leadership is in. And when we heard from the Russian ambassador today speaking at the U.N., he was talking about those Russian forces that President Putin has now had authorized to go into the Donbass separatist region and potentially go into the rest of Ukraine.

They were originally talked about as peacekeepers. The ambassador said that the Russian forces were going in as cease-fire monitors. And, chillingly, he said that they were not going in softly, softly.

The indication seems to be that the Russian forces are going in ready for action, potentially willing to take action. When we talk about cease-fire monitors in the traditional way, they're often close to the front line. They will be monitoring how many shells go which way, how many go another way. They will be taking notes and they will be speaking to the respective leaders on either side, trying to negotiate and bring a calm to the situation.

What the Russian ambassador at the U.N. seems to imply is that the Russian forces will be going in there and actually escalating the situation. There have been so many claims from the separatist area -- separatist areas over the past 48, 72 hours, accusing Ukrainian forces of shelling into their areas.

The videos that have been produced are very unconvincing. And, certainly, the Ukrainian government denies what the what the Russians and the separatists are accusing them of.

[13:10:00]

So, what the Russian ambassador appears to be implying is that, when those Russian forces go in, these violations that they say are happening, that the Ukrainian authorities say are not happening, the Russian forces, he implies, will be not going softly, softly. That sounds like they will be firing back.

It certainly doesn't sound as if those Russian forces going into the separatist areas are going to be bringing the temperature down, rather, raising it with their own fire.

BASH: It's the playbook that the U.S. secretary of state keeps talking about, that the Russians, the Russian president in particular, setting up a pretext for war. And that's what you're describing playing out.

Nic, before I let you go, I want to ask you about what Kylie has been reporting, what Matthew has been reporting from sources. It's just the latest in this really fascinating strategy by the U.S. in particular, but also European allies, to be transparent, to talk about as much as they can.

And it seems to be part of the goal is to knock Putin off his game a bit. Is there any evidence that has happened?

ROBERTSON: I think there is some evidence. It does seem that he's surprised by the unity of NATO.

President -- one of President Macron's advisers has said, because President Macron met with President Putin round about two weeks ago, that Putin didn't seem like his former self, that there was a sense that he was not at his best, that he has been more isolated.

And I think the vision we have had of him over the past 48 hours, dressing down some of his senior officials, who look cowed by the way the president way -- by the way President Putin was addressing them, certainly not the way you would hope that leaders treat their officials, so that these officials could stand up and tell the leadership where they are getting things wrong.

President Putin appears to have painted himself into a corner because of his miscalculation or misjudgment that he wasn't going to be able to pressure NATO into backing down. And he is now in that -- he is now in that corner.

And it doesn't appear as if he plans to come out of the corner any other way than fighting. He has countered the rhetoric that he's hearing from the United States, calling out what is believed to be his plans. He's countered that by getting very angry on television with this narrative that -- this false narrative that Ukraine isn't really a country, that President Zelensky isn't really a leader, he has no legitimacy, and that Ukraine is really part of Russia.

All of these things don't withstand rational argument. They don't withstand historic scrutiny. That doesn't point to a leader who's best placed to make what are huge decisions that are going to reflect well on him in the future. Let's put it that way.

At the moment, it's not -- history is at the moment looking as if it will not reflect well on President Putin.

BASH: Yes, and he's giving us some interesting revisionist history about Stalin and Lenin, but that's for a different conversation.

Nic Robertson, Alex Marquardt, Matthew Chance, and Kylie Atwood, thank you so much. We are so lucky to have you all and your teams reporting from around the globe. Appreciate it. And, of course, we will be getting back to you throughout the hours and days ahead.

Much more on this escalating crisis is coming up after the break.

Plus, nearly two years after the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a former officer involved in the botched raid that killed her is facing trial. We're live with the latest from the court.

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[13:17:59]

BASH: And back to our breaking news.

The U.S. issued a new warning to Ukraine that a full-scale invasion by Russia is imminent.

I want to get straight to the White House, where CNN's chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, is.

So, Kaitlan, we have been hearing some version of an invasion is coming in days and hours, now imminent. How is this different?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I do think you're seeing officials on higher alert here, especially at the White House today, monitoring this latest intelligence that they have seen, what the Ukrainians are also hearing about the likelihood of this full-scale assault happening.

Of course, that, Dana, would follow President Biden saying yesterday that he believes the launch of the invasion has begun and that we are in that phase. And what we have not seen is what Secretary Blinken and other officials have said is kind of the worst-case scenario here, where there is a kind of full-scale assault, where they have talked about what exactly that would look like in detail, though officials have cautioned they don't know exactly what -- when the attack would happen, exactly what route President Putin would take.

But they have kind of been warning about all the possibilities here, all plausible scenarios. And given that we are hearing from senior defense officials saying that 80 percent of these Russian forces that have been amassed around -- in and around Ukraine are in a forward position, that's what puts them on a higher alert and makes this different than those warnings in the past.

And the U.S. believes that Russia has completed all of its preparations to conduct an invasion. And I think you have seen the language shift just maybe a little bit from officials, where they have said -- last week, the defense secretary was saying that Russia was uncoiling its forces, getting ready to strike. And now a senior defense official is telling reporters that they have uncoiled those forces. And so I think that is what puts them in the window where they are

monitoring this very closely to see what is going to happen, how President Putin is going to respond to those sanctions that President Biden imposed yesterday. And, of course, those are sanctions that he noted could increase if Putin himself also escalates his attacks and his actions further.

BASH: Kaitlan Collins, thank you so much for that reporting.

[13:20:00]

I want to now bring in retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, a CNN military analyst, who was the commanding general of Europe and the Seventh Army, and also Nigel Gould-Davies, who is a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He was also British ambassador to Belarus.

General Hertling, I want to start with you, since the news in the last few minutes has been about the military readiness of Russia. And just reading a little bit more, this is also reporting from our Ellie Kaufman.

He, meaning Putin, is near 100 percent of all forces that they anticipate to move in, and that Putin has a full range of capabilities already moved to the Ukrainian border, significant offensive military capability.

Can you put this into English, so to speak, into layman's terms, about what we should expect?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Danny, I'd start off by saying and reminding people -- and Ambassador Gould- Davies knows this because he was in Belarus as the ambassador -- but, today, the 23rd of February, is Red Army Day, Defender of the Fatherland Day, as they call it.

And it's a day of -- it's sort of the equivalent of our either Veterans Day or Memorial Day for Russian and Belarusian soldiers.

Getting to your question, though, we're talking about a massive amount of equipment, land, sea and air, that are poised on the borders of Ukraine, not just in the northern and eastern borders, as you have seen on the maps that everyone's been showing, but also the ships that are in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea have quite a few capabilities.

They're mostly surface combatant ships, but a lot of landing ships too to do something like a an amphibious assault, much like we would have seen in the opening scene of the movie "Saving Private Ryan."

But it is going to be much more kinetic, much more catastrophic and horrific than we have ever seen in modern warfare, with this amount of force going in. It's a combination of ground maneuver forces like tanks and BMPs, mixed with the preliminary rounds of artillery and ballistic missile barrages. But we're going to add to that this time. Much like Russia did in

Chechnya and Georgia, they will use cyber activities, Spetsnaz. There's anticipated parachute drops into key facilities like airfields in major cities.

So you're going to see the potential for the use of the whole spectrum of the Russian army and military in these kinds of attack, if they use it.

My personal opinion, last thing I will say is, they don't have enough to do what they think they're going to do. They are going to be able to do limited attacks into Ukraine, but they are certainly not going to take down or are overwhelm the entire country.

BASH: And, Dr. Gould-Davies, first, I just want you to pick up on what the general just said about the importance in -- when it comes to Russian history of this day.

But, even more broadly, can you put this in historical context, the significance of a Russia invasion, the kind that the general just described, assuming that that comes to pass?

NIGEL GOULD-DAVIES, FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO BELARUS: Well, one immediate historical context to put it in would be all developments in Europe since 1945.

This would mark the most -- by some way, the most serious large-scale violence on the whole continent since the end of the Second World War, with fateful and unpredictable consequences that I'm sure Putin himself has not thought through.

So this is a fundamental turning point, not only for Russian foreign policy or for Ukraine's security, but the security of the entire European continent, because it will produce consequences that create a direct threat to NATO and E.U. member states and the future of the Western alliance.

So the stakes could hardly be higher at this point.

BASH: You talk about NATO member states.

General Hertling, as somebody who was the commanding general of Europe, I want to ask you about the U.S. troop movement in the Baltic region. What does that mean tactically and when it comes to the geopolitical situation there?

HERTLING: Well, there are 28 NATO members within the European continent, Dana.

And what you're talking about is, if you just have a glance at a map and see, what are the ones that border Russia, or Belarus, in this case? And what we're talking about primarily are, in the south, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, and, in the north, it would be Poland borders Belarus and also the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

[13:25:00]

When I was commander in Europe, and since then, there has been multiple training opportunities and exercise engagements with all of those countries. So, when you're hearing about U.S. forces or NATO forces moving around, this is something that is practiced regularly.

But the ones that are, I think, at the most -- the most threatened nations are Poland -- or feel they are the most threatened are Poland, Romania and the three Baltic nations. They have under -- been under the thumb of Russia in the past, and they never want to go back.

That's why they rushed to join NATO when they were liberated. All of those states received freedom from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

BASH: Yes. It's totally understandable, especially when you look at that map.

We just have a few seconds left. But, Dr. Gould-Davies, I want to ask you.

You heard reporting earlier about President Macron of France talking about, in his conversations with Vladimir Putin, there was a change, from his perspective, in how Putin was acting. The president of Finland, who knows Vladimir Putin well, told me over the weekend the same thing, that, when they have spoken, he -- Putin seems different.

As somebody who is an expert on Russia, what does that tell you?

GOULD-DAVIES: Yes, I mean, go back to 2014, and after a phone call with President Putin, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly said that Putin lives in a different world, detached from reality.

And I think the situation has become far worse now. It's clear that a strange kind of psychological toxic brew of misconceptions and resentments is stoking his attitudes towards Ukraine. He's dangerously detached from reality.

And this is a really worrying thing to have in mind, because it's not only that Russia globally is isolated in this. It's that Putin is isolated from his own population on this. A war will not be popular, either among the population or even among most of the elites.

And yet it's his policy that's driving this. And he has made many miscalculations on Ukraine before. He seems to learn nothing, but forget nothing. And there are analysts in the West who say, well, it wouldn't be rational for Putin to do this or that.

But it's not we who are in his shoes. It's he who is in his shoes. And we need to understand just how different and how distorted his perceptions of Ukraine are now. So we face very worrying times.

BASH: Toxic brew of misconceptions, I think that's what you said. That is worrying, indeed.

Thank you so much to both of you, General Hertling and Nigel Gould- Davies. Appreciate it.

And he's the only officer -- former officer, I should say -- charged in the botched police raid that killed Breonna Taylor. Today, his trial begins.

We're going to go to Louisville, Kentucky, next.

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