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State Department Provides Update on Ukraine Crisis; Brink of War. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:33]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

The U.S. giving Ukraine a sobering warning, telling Ukrainian officials that a full-scale Russian invasion is imminent. And NATO military officials said NATO allies have gotten a similar assessment.

U.S. intelligence believes that a major city in Northeast Ukraine, Kharkiv, is of particular concern. But, so far, Ukrainians say there are no plans to evacuate.

BLACKWELL: And despite the mounting sanctions against Russia, Vladimir Putin continues to escalate this crisis.

Pentagon officials say that Russian military capabilities along Ukraine's border are near 100 percent of all forces. And the Pentagon has anticipated Putin would move into that area.

Any moment now, we can expect an update from the State Department.

But we're beginning this hour with CNN's Erin Burnett. She is live in Lviv, Ukraine.

Erin, let's start with what more we know about the U.S. warning of a full-scale Russian invasion.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Right.

So, Victor and Alisyn, what we understand is that this warning came from U.S. officials late Monday night, and that would be the early hours of the morning here in Ukraine that they got this warning. And the timing is significant, because, obviously, since then, the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, declared that there would be a state of emergency taking effect tonight.

So, obviously, he took some actions, although, as you say, steadfast, the real fortitude here showing, not evacuating Kharkiv, not going there at all, and also publicly saying there would be no war or no broad war at all in that time frame.

I will say, since that intelligence assessment was delivered, there was an announcement here, where we are in Lviv, that they would be doing emergency testing of their systems. And we saw that today. They were basically testing what would happen if the Internet was completely down, so that they would ordinarily do sirens, and you would watch on television to find out what to do.

Well, if the TV wasn't working, the Internet wasn't working, radio not working, they would literally have loudspeakers broadcasting out of police cars. And they did that across the city today. So we did see some of that.

But it all comes, as you point out, the Department of Defense in the U.S. says that you have got 80 percent of the Russian conventional field troops in forward position prepared to strike, and they -- some of them just a couple miles here from the border of Ukraine.

So, Matthew Chance is in Kyiv.

And, Matthew, I know you have been talking to sources, including some in the Ukrainian government. What are they telling you? And, also, what do you understand about the state of emergency and what it means as it takes effect tonight here?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in terms of the warnings that have been given by the United States to the Ukrainian government, we understand from our Ukrainian sources here that those warnings were passed on, on Tuesday, very early Tuesday morning, so over 36 hours ago.

The Ukrainian source that I spoke to said that the intelligence that had been communicated by the United States had not been verified by Ukrainian intelligence. And, of course, they pointed out that there have been several incidents like this or several times in the past month where the U.S. has passed on warnings of an imminent full-scale Russian attack which have never materialized.

That said, there is this state of emergency that has been called for by the Ukrainian president for midnight local time. That's just in three hours from now. There's some debate in Parliament at the moment to remove some of the clauses of that bill to impose a state of emergency, but, essentially, what it will mean is, first of all, tightened security outside key civil installations in the country, like government buildings and things like that.

Transportation hubs, railway stations, airports, they will have more security there as well. There will be a curfew imposed to stop people going out all night or going out until a certain time at night, obviously.

And reservists, we understand, people who will likely be called up for military service in the event of a conflict, they're being banned under this state of emergency from leaving the country to make sure nobody flees their duties and responsibilities if it does come to war.

Again, in three hours from now, the expectation, Erin, is that that state of emergency or something very close to it will be in force here.

BURNETT: Right, right. And even here in the west, we have seen a little bit more of a police presence. So we will see how that actually, as you point out, manifests itself and what change there is in sort of the physical posturing here.

[14:05:00]

Of course, this comes as the sanctions the U.S. has started, raise them more. They have indicated that that's just the beginning of a very sharp sword edge. And there are now some more sanctions being announced. We have got some breaking news on that front.

Phil Mattingly has that.

What have you learned, Phil?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The debate about how to punish President Putin for Russian aggression has been, what would happen with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?

Obviously, Germany moved yesterday to short-circuit the certification for that pipeline, essentially putting it on pause. It was a significant move, one Germans hadn't been publicly saying they were willing to do, although, privately, U.S. officials believed that they would take that pathway, should President Putin move into Ukraine.

Now the U.S. is following that up with their own sanctions. The president just announced that he has directed his team to sanction the corporate -- the holding company of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as well as corporate officers there.

That essentially lifts a national security waiver that had been put in place, allowing that pipeline to move forward. This has been the crux of a long-running kind of battle inside the administration in terms of whether to let that pipeline go forward, due to potential geopolitical risks of Germany's reliance on Russian natural resources.

The administration decided to put that waiver in place, even though President Biden opposed the pipeline, in order to keep relations with Germany intact. Obviously, everything has dramatically shifted over the course of the last 24 hours, the Germans taking the first action, now the U.S. following up with sanctions.

Essentially, while the certification being put on hold was a very bad sign for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the idea that the U.S. is now going to put sanctions on the pipeline and corporate officers is more or less a death knell for that project. And when you put that into perspective, Erin, that is an $11 billion project that has been the cornerstone of what President Putin has been trying to do in terms of expanding the reach of Russian resources inside the European sphere.

That is now completely on ice. So you put that together with the initial tranche of sanctions the U.S. released yesterday, the E.U. released yesterday, U.K. released yesterday, and you're getting a better sense of the full scale of what's been put into place with, as you noted, U.S. officials making very clear they absolutely plan to ramp up in next rounds of sanctions, should President Putin move further.

BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Phil, very significant, right, Gazprom, the largest natural gas company in Russia.

And, as Phil points out, putting those sanctions, getting rid of that national security waiver on Gazprom is a step by the United States. And that pipeline was $11.5 billion.

Well, this comes as, I mentioned, the Department of Defense in the United States says that the position of Russian troops has gone from coiled -- I'm sorry -- as Secretary of Defense Austin said a few days ago, to uncoiled -- uncoiling, I'm sorry, to uncoiled. I'm sorry for my misspeak.

And they are now within two or three miles of the border in some cases.

So our Alex Marquardt is right there along the demarcation border line, where there has been shelling.

So, Alex, what are you seeing where you are tonight?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, we spent much of the day in a tiny little village called Taramchook (ph), which is right on that line of contact, where there has been so much fighting for the past eight years.

And that violence has spiked. We're seeing some of the biggest shelling in the past four years, which many fear the Russians could use as a pretext to invade Ukraine. This village was largely empty. But we were taken around by a resident who showed us that just last week over the course of two days, all these shells fell around his house.

In the field behind his house, there were 16 different craters. A farmhouse nearby had been hit. It just showed the extent to which this shelling coming from Russian-backed territory is indiscriminate and completely random.

Now, as we wait for the question of whether Russian troops will cross the border again into Ukraine, we are watching very closely the level of Russian troops that may already be inside these two breakaway Russia-backed territories, Luhansk and Donetsk.

We have gotten indications from people familiar with U.S. intelligence, from NATO leaders, from Ukraine's Defense Ministry that Russian troops already are there as well as some of their equipment. We have not yet seen a -- seen evidence of it on a large scale.

We haven't seen video, for example, of columns of troops and weaponry. But we do know that President Putin has said that peacekeepers, as he is calling them, will be going in there. The question now, Erin, is what happens to the territory that is around those breakaway republics, as they call themselves, right where I am standing in the Donbass, in what is known as the Donetsk oblast, because both those breakaway republics and President Putin claim that the territory that they have not yet taken is also part of those independent republics.

[14:10:07]

So, what you may soon see is President Putin claiming a justification for moving Russian troops into Ukrainian territory, again, right where I'm standing, which, of course, is Ukrainian territory -- Erin.

BURNETT: Right, absolutely. Alex Marquardt, thank you very much.

And, of course, this all coming as there's been cyberattacks again in this country today.

All right, we now have that briefing from the U.S. State Department. So let's listen into that.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

NED PRICE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: ... United kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

Our German allies yesterday took resolute action to ensure that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, what had been a prized $11 billion investment on the part of the Russian Federation, is suspended indefinitely.

And, as you have just seen, President Biden today authorized sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officeholders. We have now taken complementary action using our own authorities to ensure that Nord Stream 2 is off the table, just as we said it would be.

In lockstep with our allies, we are blocking from the global financial system two large banks that are connected to the Kremlin and Russian military, and Russian sovereign wealth can no longer trade on U.S. or European financial markets.

As you all know, we additionally sanctioned Russian elites, those elites who are in many ways complicit. This is the beginning of our response. If Putin escalates further, we will escalate further using additional sanctions and export controls, which we have yet to unveil, but are fully prepared to implement with allies and partners across the globe.

The sequence of events that Secretary Blinken laid out at the U.N. Security Council last week appears to be proceeding exactly as he laid out. We have seen false flags. We have seen provocations. We have seen theatrically staged meetings at the Kremlin. We have seen cyber operations, and the list goes on.

So where do we go from here? Moscow needs to demonstrate that it's serious about diplomacy. Russia's actions over the last 48 hours have, in fact, demonstrated the opposite. If Moscow's approach changes, we remain ready to engage. The United States and our allies and partners remain open to diplomacy. We are eager to engage to avert what would be a brutal and costly conflict.

But, as we have said, diplomacy cannot succeed unless Russia changes course. As we have said, we are prepared. We are prepared for any contingency going forward.

Matt.

QUESTION: Thanks.

I have a question about the Houthi sanctions, but it's largely semantics, so I will leave it until later.

On Nord Stream 2, you guys had been saying for months, indeed, for over a year, since the waivers were first granted, that, in fact, this gave you additional leverage, withholding the sanctions did, and it would serve as a deterrent.

Clearly, it didn't -- it didn't provide you with any leverage at all that we can tell, because of what you just said in your opening statement about the invasion beginning.

So how do you explain to people why you didn't impose these sanctions earlier?

PRICE: So, Matt, it's important, and let's just rewind the tape, and remember what has happened in recent hours.

Yesterday, within a short time frame of the Russian invasion beginning, Germany took decisive, resolute action to take Nord Stream 2 off the table. Today, we followed with our own complementary authorities, using the powers and capabilities that we have.

We have always said in the context of Nord Stream 2, in the context of the steps that we are taking with partners and allies around the world, that one of the most important tools we have in our arsenal is transatlantic unity.

The fact that Germany acted so quickly, so decisively is in many ways a product of the coordination, of the consultation we have done now with two successive German governments. Of course, it started with Chancellor Merkel and her government, and, in more recent months, we have had concerted discussions with Chancellor Scholz and his government.

The fact that we are acting in unison immediately to take these steps that essentially remove Nord Stream 2 the equation, that is a byproduct, that is a result of the work that we have done together with the German government over the course of these last several months, over the course of the last year. [14:15:10]

QUESTION: So, it sounds to me -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that your argument is that if you had imposed the sanctions earlier, the Germans wouldn't have suspended -- done what -- the Germans wouldn't have done what they did yesterday, or it would have been a much bigger lift to get them to do that.

PRICE: We -- what we have said, and our -- what -- our strategy has been predicated on the knowledge that transatlantic unity is the most powerful instrument we have.

QUESTION: That's fine. But I don't -- but the pipeline has already been built, OK?

Now, whether it gets turned on or not is another -- is another question.

(CROSSTALK)

PRICE: Well, right. So, you...

QUESTION: So, you presumably you had more leverage -- and I don't understand why you don't think that you would have had more leverage -- if it hadn't been -- if these sanctions had been imposed before the pipeline was finished.

PRICE: So, Matt, you also raise a good point.

The pipeline, when this administration came into office, was more than 90 percent complete. We have imposed sanctions under PEESA on a number of targets associated with this pipeline, persons and entities.

But the fact is that, had we sanctioned Nord Stream 2 AG, had we sanctioned its corporate office holders, it is far from clear that that would have kept the pipeline from going into operation.

What the Germans did yesterday was to ensure that the pipeline is no longer part of the equation.

QUESTION: Right.

PRICE: So, by acting together with the Germans how we did, when we did, and the way in which we did, we have ensured that this is an $11 billion prize investment that is now a hunk of steel sitting at the bottom of the sea.

QUESTION: All right, well, I don't think you can prove -- and the converse can't be proven either, but you just don't know if imposing the sanctions earlier would have had more of a deterrent effect or any deterrent effect.

(CROSSTALK)

PRICE: Well, if we would have made it a sunk cost many, many months ago for the Russian Federation, I don't think that would have had much deterrent capability.

QUESTION: Well, it hasn't anyway, so I will...

PRICE: Simon.

QUESTION: Yes, the secretary obviously said yesterday he had canceled his meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov.

But you guys remain open to diplomacy. So what exactly would you want to see from Russia in order to reschedule that meeting, in order to resume some kind of diplomacy, diplomatic talks between you?

And just an additional one? You have sort of -- this is the last -- or this is part of the first tranche of sanctions, the Nord Stream 2 sanctions that just came out. Is that the end of the first tranche, or is there more coming in that? And can you say whether more sanctions actions will be taken if Russia doesn't escalate further from where it is now?

PRICE: The question you ask is what we would like to see.

Let me tell you, let me start by answering that question by letting you know what we no longer will engage in. And that is the pretense of diplomacy. You heard the secretary use that phrase yesterday, and that is what we have seen.

This is and has been, in some ways, diplomatic Kabuki theater on the part of the Russians, making statements that they are committed to a diplomatic path, while their actions suggest exactly the opposite. That is not an environment in which diplomacy can achieve the results that it needs to achieve.

Our goal here, even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is beginning, is to avert the worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario that we have warned about for some time now. And we have gone into great detail in terms of what that could look like, electronic warfare, the -- a fuller-scale invasion, an attack on major urban centers, including Kyiv, a city of 2.9 million people, horrific human rights abuses, atrocities, potential war crimes.

These are all things that, even as the invasion is beginning, we are going to do everything that we reasonably can to prevent from happening. And so that's why, together with our allies and partners, we absolutely remain open to diplomacy, but only if Moscow is serious.

We are not going to engage in this pretense with them, during which they draw out the process, suggest one thing, do another, ready their preparations, move their forces closer to the border, develop and refine their plans, as they give the world a head-fake that they are actually committed to the diplomatic path.

[14:20:12]

Now, there are a number of ways that Moscow could indicate that it is serious. It essentially boils down to de-escalation. That would be the most concrete, the clearest indication that diplomacy has the potential to bear fruit, that diplomacy has the potential to save lives.

That is the kind of diplomacy we are interested in. That is also not the kind of diplomacy that we have seen any indication as of yet that Moscow is interested in.

(INAUDIBLE)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) reports that the U.S. informed the Ukrainian governor ...

CAMEROTA: OK, we have been listening there to Ned Price, spokesman at the State Department, talking about where we are at this hour with the Russian aggression into Ukraine, announcing that they're also sanctioning the corporate offices of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Back with us, we have Erin Burnett in Ukraine. We also have CNN's Katie Bo Lillis.

Katie Bo, tell us about your reporting on all of this.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Right. Yes.

Of course, we have just seen the secretary -- sorry -- the State Department spokesman come out and say, we are not seeing any efforts from Russia to engage in credible diplomacy and, in fact, are continuing to see them build up their military forces on the border of Ukraine, this just as we have been able to report this morning that the U.S. has issued another warning to the Ukrainian government just in the past two days, warning that they believe a Russian attack on Ukraine is imminent.

Now, Ukrainian officials say that they haven't yet been able to verify this intelligence. And it's important to note that these sources tell us, of course, that the United States has made similar warnings to Ukraine before now, but no question that we're seeing a real ramp-up in urgency from Washington and from U.S. officials -- U.S. officials overseas, really concerned that this invasion could be coming imminently.

BLACKWELL: Erin, we heard Ned there repeat what we heard from the secretary, that the U.S. is no longer going to be engaged in what they call the pretense of diplomacy, and then characterized it as diplomatic Kabuki theater.

Talks off for now. But, of course, as we heard from the president yesterday, at the end of his remarks, the last words he said, "I am hoping that diplomacy is still available."

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely.

And you heard the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, say, OK, diplomacy is not working, it's over, but we will do whatever we can to prevent an all-out assault and all the human suffering that would entail.

In that back-and-forth there that Ned Price was having with a reporter, one interesting thing, and the reporter was really pushing on whether they should have done sanctions earlier. And, obviously, nobody knows what would have been different if things were done differently in the past.

But it is worth emphasizing that they now have a huge decision to make. If they really believe invasion is this imminent -- and, by the way, their warnings of that are taking a psychological toll in this country. And that's hugely significant. There are big things they can do.

They point out the banks that they sanctioned yesterday, there are banks in Russia that are 10 times bigger than the banks the U.S. sanctioned. A bank like SberBank, for example, pretty much every single Russian comes into contact with.

Sanctioning those banks could have a huge impact across Russia and on regular Russians. So they have a big decision to make about whether they want to take those next big steps and do that, even the sovereign debt freeze. Yes, it's important. It's something the U.S. and the U.K. can do. More than 90 percent of Russia's debt is held by Russians, right?

So it's important, but they can really escalate it big time and they have a big decision to make that, if imminent means imminent, what are they going to do?

BLACKWELL: Erin Burnett with some crucial context from Lviv.

Katie Bo Lillis with a great reporting from Washington, thank you, Bo.

CAMEROTA: A senior U.S. defense official says that Russia is as ready as they can be to invade Ukraine, so we will go live to the Pentagon next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:30]

BLACKWELL: Pentagon officials now say that Russian military capabilities along Ukraine's border are near 100 percent of all forces.

Satellite images show growing concentrations of Russian armor and field hospitals, shelters close to the border. Some of the equipment has come as closest 24 miles to Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Barbara Starr joins us now with the latest from the Pentagon.

What's happening there, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest from the Pentagon is that some of these Russian forces you're talking about, depending on the units involved, are extremely close to the border, really within just a very short distance, perhaps driving distance of significantly less than an hour to the border in several cases. So they are watching all of that. They believe the Russian forces now

as ready as they can be. That's the word from a senior defense official, that preparations are virtually complete, and a lot of concern about this because what they're watching for right now are the indicators of essentially a go move by the Russians. And what would the Russians be waiting for?

Well, they're going to need a good weather window. Those heavy Russian vehicles that we see so much of, they don't want them to get bogged down in the mud if it's raining. They want to keep them moving. So they're going to need good weather. They're going to want cover of darkness. Of course, it is dark there at this hour, so a lot of concern that these factors are all beginning to coalesce.

The Pentagon watching this very carefully, still warning Americans to get out of Ukraine. And the Pentagon will have some military decisions to make.