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Ukrainians Shelter in Subway; Global Markets Plunge After Attack; Nina Khrushcheva is Interviewed about the Russian Invasion. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST Survive and Ukrainian forces to survive. Ukrainians have said they'll do their own fighting, but they need support.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: General, we know that the U.S. government, President Biden had been speaking with President Zelensky and Ukrainian officials overnight. I'm just curious, give us your perspective as to what's happening in terms of any communication at all between U.S. military officials and their Russian counterparts, in closed channels.

CLARK: Well, I would suspect that upon orders of the National Command Authority, General Milley is trying to reach out to the Russians but I don't think he's going to have much impact. I mean this is Putin's operation. I suspect the Russian generals have been cautious. They are militarily trained. I'm looking at the pace and tempo of the attack. It's -- it is powerful. It's far reaching. It's moving, but it's not moving quite at the speed it could move.

They're still -- they're still feeling their way through. They've got some significant logistics problems with all those Russians forces out there. But I don't think a call from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Russians is going to be very persuasive at this point.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: I was told by a senior U.S. official that -- and, by the way, these reports are still coming in, that the current U.S. assessment is that Ukrainian forces are putting up fairly good resistance. We'll continue to watch that, because, as General Clark well knows, the Russian forces arrayed around this country, formidable.

General Clark, please stand by. We have our Clarissa Ward still in a subway station in the

northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where civilians there sheltering from Russian bombardment, artillery barrage.

Clarissa, we were with you earlier. What have you seen in the last half hour since we spoke?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Honestly, Jim, I've never really seen a situation like this. This feels to me like scenes from World War II and the blitz. There are just hundreds and hundreds of people who are hunkered down here with absolutely no sense of what tomorrow will bring. Frankly, of what the rest of today will bring.

And I want to introduce you, we've been talking to Oksana (ph) here, who is with her two children.

Oksana, what are your children's names?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Yaroslav (ph).

WARD: Your name is Yaroslav. How old are you, Yaroslav?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am nine years old.

WARD: Are you scared?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So-so.

WARD: So-so. You're a very brave boy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

WARD: And you have a daughter here as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes, she's named Kate (ph). And she's six.

WARD: Is she OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she wants to sleep --

WARD: She wants to sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because we wake -- woke up in 5:00.

WARD: 5:00 a.m. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Because we heard some --

WARD: Explosions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, explosions.

WARD: What was your reaction?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was scare. It was scary, of course. We had many -- some bookcase, yes.

WARD: Suitcases?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Suitcases, yes. And --

WARD: You came here.

How long have you been here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not so long. I think two or three hours. We came, two parents of my husband, and after we came here.

WARD: And what will you do now? Will you stay here tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I think yes. Yes.

WARD: Do you have food? Do you have everything you need? This is what you have?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some -- yes. And water. That's all.

WARD: You seem remarkably strong given how scary the situation is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We -- we try be brave, because we have children and we don't want to show them that we are scared.

WARD: What do you think -- why would President Putin do this? Do you understand?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he don't want our president be in -- be our president.

WARD: He doesn't want President Zelensky to be in power?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes. Yes. I think --

WARD: Did you ever believe that this could happen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No. No. It's impossible. I don't believe now that this happened with us really.

WARD: OK. Oksana, Yaroslav, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I know how difficult the time it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will (ph).

WARD: And, you know, Jim, Oksana and her family are incredibly strong. And you see a lot of strength and resilience down here. You also see a lot of desperation, a lot of tears, a lot of people holding hands, a lot of people holding each other and just waiting to see what comes next, where they go from here, and what their place, if any, is going to be in this new Ukraine.

Jim.

[09:35:05] SCIUTTO: Clarissa Ward there in a subway station where people are sheltering from the ongoing bombardment. And, Bianna, one thing that is clear from this, as we've observed it, in the last really less than 24 hours, is that anywhere is a potential target in this city, whether intended or not intended.

I've been told leading up to this that Russian -- Russia's air capabilities are enormous, their missile capabilities are enormous, that their targets were infrastructure, military sites, et cetera, not necessarily civilian sites. But the U.S. view of Russian targeting is not confident.

So, the concern is, if they intend to target one building that might be arguably a military target, do they miss in effect? And that's the concern and clearly Ukrainian -- Ukrainians there, like we saw with Clarissa, taking the threat very seriously.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, Jim, you're offering the military perspective. I just have to say, for our viewers, in the United States in particular, who up until a few weeks ago, a few days ago had never heard of the city of Kharkiv, now know that it is a thriving metropolitan urban area. And as we just heard from that mother, what resonates is the humanity, that every parent, every mother across the world understands, and that is that you don't want your child to sense any fear.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: And that is what we heard from her in that exchange with Clarissa, that she's able to keep a smile on her face to protect her children. It is just a surreal situation.

Obviously, we will continue to be covering this throughout the day, throughout the hour. Up next, Russia's attack on Ukraine, of course, has roiled global markets. The Dow down more than 800 points.

Lots more straight ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:25]

SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN. We are learning that three military facilities here in the Lviv region of western Ukraine have been attacked. This according to the governor of the Lviv region. This includes a military base just a few miles from where we are right now. And the importance of that is that we now know that Russia's attacks, its barrage on this country, extend the full length of it, from the east in Kharkiv, where we've been, to the south, to the north outside Kyiv where we saw a gunfight underway, all the way here in the west. This is an attack across Ukraine by Russian forces, surrounding Ukraine on three sides. We'll continue to bring you updates like that as we get them.

Meanwhile, look at these new images coming in to CNN a short time ago. This shows the area where a Russian helicopter was shot down and widespread damage as well from the shelling. This is near the capital Kyiv.

This morning, Ukraine says that more than 40 soldiers and at least ten civilians have be killed in the fighting. This is fog of war time. Those numbers are going to change quickly. We'll bring them to you as we have them.

Take a look at this as well. A telling sign of just how frightening this is for the people of Ukraine, and understandably so. Hundreds of cars lining up headed in one single direction, that is out, as the people here flee to the west.

President Putin says that this is a peacekeeping operation for Ukraine. Those people don't believe it.

Listen to what the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his dire plea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, Ukraine (through translator): We are issuing arms, defensive weapons, to all those capable of defending our sovereignty. Each citizen of Ukraine will decide the future of our people. Anyone with military experience who is able to join the defense of Ukraine must report to stations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: They are calling, Bianna, on average citizens to join the military in fighting back against Russian forces. It is quite a plea from a president there who you can sense in his voice, could you not, Bianna, the threat he feels to his country.

GOLODRYGA: And he has bent over backwards the past few weeks reiterating calm throughout the country, saying that war is not going to happen. Clearly things changed significantly over the last 24 to 48 hours. We heard that speech, that impassioned speech, from President Zelensky yesterday, delivered in both Ukrainian and Russian, to the Russian people, saying that we are not the people depicted on your state television. Clearly, none of that could keep an invasion from taking place.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Meantime, Jim, as you know, this invasion has global markets plummeting right new. The Dow down over 800 points this morning as we look at the board there. World leaders are vowing punishing sanctions against Putin for his aggression.

And CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to discuss.

Leading into this, so much of the focus has been on oil prices, right, and that in particular.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: We're seeing a sell-off across the board.

ROMANS: Across the board. I mean and you're going to feel this. Around the world people will feel this in the global inflation story. You'll feel this at the grocery store, at the gas station, and in your retirement accounts. I mean you look at today, the Nasdaq nearing a correction -- or, actually, a bear market, and the S&P 500 deeper into correction. That means big losses for those major markets.

And you look at the oil market. You saw oil prices just surge here. Right now we're looking at oil prices, $104 for brent, just approaching $100 for WTI crude.

[09:45:04]

And those prices continue to go -- could continue to go higher because, look, Russia is a huge oil producer. There will be a lot of pressure on other oil producers, I am sure, from western leaders who are going to be asking for them to open up the taps, open up the spigot, so that you can try to keep the flow of oil going here.

Even things like commodities, like wheat. In Paris, at one point, wheat futures, granted were up -- were up -- Bianna, were up 15 percent. I mean this is -- this is food. Food and energy. And all of this could have been avoided, of course. I mean this is because of Russian aggression, seen as something incredibly destabilizing for the rest of the world.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, both Russia and Ukraine, we should note, a producer of commodities like wheat.

ROMANS: Absolutely.

GOLODRYGA: And it just goes to show that the markets, as we know, do not like volatility, and there's just no sense of where this will head next and when it will end.

ROMANS: There's really no playbook for it here when you look at futures -- or when you look at the markets here. There's no playbook for it because in the vast post World War II, right, world, we haven't seen this. We haven't seen war in Europe like this affecting such big commodity producers. And right in the heart of Europe essentially here. So, you saw the German DAX down 5 percent -- more than 5 percent at its worst point here. So really hitting markets around the world.

GOLODRYGA: An unfortunate new normal perhaps in Europe and around the world in terms of the financial implications.

ROMANS: We'll see what the sanctions are. The next level of sanctions will be critical here.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

Christine Romans, thank you so much.

And still ahead, Ukraine's message to the world as Russia invades, tell everyone what Vladimir Putin is doing. Does Putin have any backing for his actions? We'll discuss that with an expert up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:16]

SCIUTTO: Right now the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, facing widespread condemnation around the globe for invading a peaceful Ukraine. World leaders slamming his false pretext for this attack, describing the invasion as, quote, barbaric, unprovoked, without a credible excuse.

GOLODRYGA: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling on people inside Russia to fight Putin's disinformation campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, Ukraine (through translator): Anyone who has relatives in Russia, I'm sure you do, those who have friends, who know journalists, bloggers in Russia, please appeal to them. They must always talk about this. Then Russia will know the truth. It is important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Joining us right now to discuss is Nina Khrushcheva. She is a professor of international affairs at The New School and the great daughter of former Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Nina, great to have your perspective on, especially this morning.

Can you tell our viewers what Russians, for the most part, are bearing witness to when they watch state media, which is so heavily controlled by Kremlin propaganda?

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, THE NEW SCHOOL: Well, and it is -- thank you, Bianna.

It was until just a week ago, most Russians, like even analysts -- not even analysts were thinking that he -- that Putin (INAUDIBLE) people were going to go -- he's not going to go that far.

So, for all of us, it just became a total shock as the continuation, sort of a sequel of George Orwell 1984. Because it's really absolutely surreal.

But not all media outlets are speaking about this. For example, Dosh (ph) TV, Iran (ph) TV, which you know very well, has run the whole night and the whole morning and is still running the special coverage of it, and the coverage is not just as the Russian officials declared that today is the war (ph) now (INAUDIBLE) information that is provided -- that is not provided by the Russian side. So now every outlet is supposed to use whatever information is being provided.

So Dosh TV so far has done an actual set (ph). (INAUDIBLE) has done a very good job trying to show the other side, trying to show what the conflict is. People are trying to protest as well. There have been petitions and so

on. But they've been often arrested almost immediately.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, as we know, the trial continues of the leader of the opposition, who is poisoned, in fact, by Putin's government, as you well know.

It's a remarkable time in that we have Americans, both members of the right-wing media, but also a former president, former secretary of state, who have been, in effect, praising Putin throughout this. And we know that those clips get played broadly, widely on Russian television.

What is the impact of those? So, the amplifying of American voices who amplifying Putin's voice.

KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, in some way (INAUDIBLE) when Trump yesterday said it was brilliant to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk republic given -- republic, given the self (INAUDIBLE) republic. Even the Russian TV, although they were playing it (ph) (INAUDIBLE) there was a lot of sort of sarcasm and mockery about this. They're like, oh, see, that's what Trump is saying and kind of using it for propaganda purposes, but not necessarily with a great respect because Trump really is a very important propaganda tool for the Russians but not necessarily there a respected one.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Nina, even experienced Russian and Kremlin watchers, like yourself and many others, didn't expect things to turn the way they did, to see this full-on invasion of a sovereign country.

[09:55:04]

Given that, what worries you most about what to expect next?

KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, what worries me most is that the Russians say they are not -- the Kremlin says it's not (INAUDIBLE) occupying, they just want to emansify (ph). I don't know how you say that. (INAUDIBLE) claiming to be (INAUDIBLE) or some such. That suggests to me that Putin's idea, and I hope I'm wrong, but maybe not, that idea to, you know, Alexander Soldanitzen (ph), if you remember the great writer who turned a (INAUDIBLE) nationalist, he had this idea that we (INAUDIBLE) republic, (INAUDIBLE) Russian, they were Russian Ukraine (ph), would become one. And it does seem that Putin now wants to implement that sort of (INAUDIBLE), the dream of the great Panslavk (ph) empire.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KHRUSHCHEVA: And that worries me the most.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

GOLODRYGA: Well, we already know that thousands of troops are in neighboring Belarus and have entered Ukraine via Belarus already in the past 24 hours. Scary times indeed. Nina Khrushcheva, thank you, as always.

KHRUSHCHEVA: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We are live across the country, across the region.

CNN's breaking news coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)