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Russia Launches Large-Scale Military Invasion Of Ukraine; Explosions In Multiple Ukrainian Cities As Russia Invades; CNN Inside Subway Turned Bomb Shelter As Russia Attach Ukraine. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington D.C. You're watching special live CNN coverage. In just minutes, President Joe Biden will address the nation and the world. He does so as Ukraine is up against a full-scale Russian invasion on multiple fronts.

Those are air raid sirens and they're now near constant in Kyiv, overnight explosions in that capital city. Missiles, mortars, tanks, and Russian troops shattering the uneasy relative calm of the past few months. The initial wave of attacks, appear to be coming from all different directions.

And so far, it remains unclear if Ukrainian forces have actually been able to mount any sort of effective resistance. In Kharkiv, Ukraine second largest city, the subway terminal is now serving as a bomb shelter. CNN's Clarissa Ward was there earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And we're talking hundreds of people spread out throughout this entire subway station. There are just so many people and they have absolutely no sense of what is coming next. Do you have a car?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I have bad luck. I don't have thoughts that I can be safety in Ukraine, in any city.

WARD: And this is something we're hearing a lot, John, is his idea. People have a car, but where do they go?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: There are now no U.S. State Department personnel left in Ukraine. International condemnation of the attack has been swift and almost universal. Ukraine's president is calling Putin's new war and new Iron Curtain coming down. CNN is on the frontlines of this story across the globe. We're going to start with Erin Burnett, who's live in Lviv, Ukraine, which is west of the capital. And Erin, as you know, Russia attacked a military installation a short while ago. Tell us more.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR. OUTFRONT: Yes, absolutely. So, Jake, I will be saw obviously, as you know, what had seemed to be the unbelievable across this nation, lighting up the skies. You know, early this morning, we heard distant bombs and unmistakable sound in the distance. And here up to eight air sirens went off in those next hours. There were bombs across the country, including here in the west.

They actually went to one of them, a nearby based here that was the deputy of the division here. The regions that had been struck. So, we went there. You kind of go down a dirt road, past a whole lot of tanks, Russian Soviet era tanks that were coming out to go somewhere. And when we got there, an officer with the base told us, two rockets hit early this morning. It was a radio battalion command.

And you know, he believes their short-range missiles in Belarus, we obviously have no confirmation of those details at all. But this is what you're seeing across this country. Our Matthew Chance, you know, went to a bass, went seeing explosions and then was confronted with the fact that Russians had taken that base over.

And these are just some of the stories that we're seeing across this country. As you point out, Jake, so much right now, in the complete fog of war, knowing some of where the fighting is still happening as darkness has descended, not knowing who's mounting a defense or who's winning, or what's really coming in, so many unsubstantiated reports coming in every single moment. That is the confusion.

Some people here emotional saying to us, can you tell us what's going to happen? Can you tell us what's going to happen? We did not think this was going to happen. So, can you tell us just to complete void. And as you know, across this country, and here we have seen, the only place you saw big clumps of people was lined up at ATM machine. Some of them were empty, some as of a couple of hours ago did appear to still have cash in them.

Gas lines absolutely everywhere, some of them incredibly long. That is just the reality of what you are seeing in a country that has been suddenly and unbelievably changed. And one final thing, I'll point out. Behind me you can see the lit-up church, which you can't see is every night we've had a giant communications tower lit up behind us, that's the cellphone tower. It is not lit up tonight.

[12:05:00]

I want to go to Fred Pleitgen, who is on the other side of the country on the Russian side of the border. And Fred, you know, when we hear the defense department's say, a hundred Russian launched missiles. You hear them here saying, you know, two missiles landing on one base of obviously many struck. You saw literally tanks rolling in. Tell me what you saw?

And one thing that is really stood out to me from your reporting, is that those tanks had dirt on the treads, that they were prepared to go in the hard way? And they didn't have to go in the hard way. They could just get on the road and go right in. Tell us what you're saying?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Erin. You're absolutely, right. We did see those tanks roll. And we saw a lot of other mechanized infantry vehicles are rolling as well. It's really something that's been an ongoing thing as we've been standing here at the final checkpoint. Before you actually get into Ukraine, I'm going to get out of your way a little bit.

And I'm going to show you, that's the checkpoint right there. And once you pass that checkpoint, what happens is that you are on - you're essentially right moving towards the town of Kharkiv, which is, of course the second largest town in Ukraine. But also, is one town where there is a lot of fighting going on.

I can hear right now as we're speaking, Erin, there are actually more mechanized infantry vehicles coming our way right now. You're going to be able to see them in one second. There, you might see that I'm not sure, it's a little bit dark here. But you can see already infantry fighting vehicles from Russia already rolling in towards Ukraine once again.

This is something that we've seen happening the entire day. We've been here for hours already. And those columns just kept coming through and kept rolling towards the city of Kharkiv. The other thing, you're also talking, Erin, about those rockets that were being launched, of course, your position on the receiving end of some of them, a lot of them were actually also launched from right near here as well.

We ourselves saw salvos of rockets, some of them short range, some of the medium range, launch from not very far from here at all, also towards the direction of Ukraine. As you can really feel how the Russian Federation is accelerating this offensive. This invasion certainly moving a lot of military hardware, main battle tanks, mechanized howitzers, self-propelled howitzers, infantry fighting vehicles, like the ones that you saw just there, and of course, also soldiers as well, towards Ukraine. Erin and Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Fred. Please stay safe. I want to go now to Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine, and the one that is closest to the Russian border of all the major cities in that country where we find Clarissa Ward. Clarissa, tell us what you're experiencing.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Jake, I just wanted to start out by saying how surreal it was earlier on in the day. We were actually watching Fred Pleitgen on the other side of the border. He's about 30 miles away from me. And he would say, every time that those rockets would launch, and then 30 seconds later, we would actually hear them landing in the distance. Just to give you a sense of how close we are now. And that is why so many people here are desperately afraid.

They have now announced a curfew is in place from 8pm to 6am. I'm sorry, 10pm to 6am. Sorry, forgive me. And I don't know if you saw our shot last night, Jake. But before this square behind me completely lit up, cars, people life. Now you can see there is nothing but inky-inky pitch-black darkness. And it is very eerie. I must say indeed, you don't hear hardly any cars. We did hear a couple of Ukrainian military vehicles pass a while back.

We've been out all day, in the subway, which is now a sort of de facto bomb shelter. Hundreds of people have been pouring in all day long as that - as those strikes have been raining down. They have sought shelter, deep underground, we saw people there with their children, their pets. And what they didn't have, Jake, was any sense of where they're going next.

Where is safe now in Ukraine or what the plan is for them. There weren't places that we sought to go to the bathroom. People had just whatever food or snacks they had brought with them. It's clearly not a sustainable situation for them to be down there for hours or days on end. And yet, you understand why, in the madness of this situation and a madness that I think people here did not believe would happen until they actually saw President Putin issued the order and heard those strikes coming down for so long.

They thought there's no way this could happen. Because there's one man told me, we're brothers, Russia is our brother. But how would you ever treat your brother this way? And so, there's a real reckoning that's going on now, I think in people's minds, not just with the most pressing fear and how to deal with the situation in terms of the security. But in terms of the anger, and the outrage and the despair and the lack of comprehension as to how on earth this is actually happening and why it's happening.

[12:10:00]

I asked one woman, do you think President Putin is crazy? He said he's not crazy, he's sick, he's sick. And I thought it was so interesting that even in the midst of all of this, with a Russian invasion playing out across this country, people here are not cowed in terms of speaking out. I can't tell you everyone was saying the same thing. We don't want them here. We didn't ask them to be here. We have no quarrel with them. We seek no conflict with them. And tremendous bravery from the people of Kharkiv.

And one more point I would just make, that I think is so important for our viewers to remember. This is not a frontline position. This is not, we're not next to the Donbass area where that eight-year war has been going on. This is a city of 1.4 million. It is a vibrant metropolis, full of young people, young professionals, lots of foreign students we saw as well from overseas, who were in that bomb shelter. And none of them have seen anything like this in their lifetime.

The last time Kharkiv saw anything close to this was in the II World War. And I will say as well, those scenes in the subway, it felt like what we've seen from the II World War and images from the Blitz and people going into the subways to take cover and take shelter. And so now, it's dark. We wait to see.

There's been more strikes. It's a little bit quieter now. And everyone fearing the worst. The ground invasion. They've come across that border, but how close are they going to come to this city? Will they encircle it? Will they lay siege to it? Will they try to come through it? We simply have no idea yet, Jake?

TAPPER: And Clarissa Ward, let me just ask you. I know, it's difficult to get any sort of assessment of this especially, so relatively soon, in an incursion and invasion like this, but you talk about armaments coming down. Do we have any idea of the destruction that has been rained upon just Kharkiv itself, or the surrounding area where in terms of casualties, in terms of buildings destroyed?

WARD: So, the city of Kharkiv, and like the center especially, has been largely, OK, from what we understand. There was a strike that hit next to an apartment block about 40 kilometers, so 25 miles or so, outside of here. And we are hearing that there was at least one or two civilian casualties. And there have been images being shared by some Turkish journalists who were able to travel there.

And clearly a very distressing situation because these are civilians. Our understanding is that most of these targets are reportedly military installations. But the fear is that as the fight gets closer, and as Ukrainian forces defend themselves, that it could quickly become much uglier. And right now, I think, though, you have that sense, Jake, of that sort of fog of war, where you're right in the middle of it

And people are just walking around in sort of a daze. No one knows exactly what's happening. No one knows, you know, coming back to this idea of where is the safe place to go? Normally, in conflicts that I've covered, you have a kind of sense of, OK, this is going to be the safe place. This is going to be the fallback city or town that we go to. But in this case, because you're seeing this bombardment throughout the entire country, it's like you heard from that woman. Yes, I have a car, but where would I go?

TAPPER: Exactly, Clarissa Ward, in Kharkiv. We're going to stay with a lot of our correspondents on the ground in Ukraine. But I do want to take a moment and go to Kaitlan Collins, our senior White House correspondent at the White House right now. Kaitlan, we're expecting President Biden to come out. I'm not sure if the time has been updated. Originally, we were told 12:30pm Eastern. What are we expecting? When are we expecting him?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It appears that time may be shifting, Jake, because the reporters including myself, who are going into the room, normally would be getting gathered right now to go in there. We're a little bit delayed. So, we're waiting to see when exactly it is that we're going to hear from President Biden. But we do know he will be speaking to us from the East Room in the White House, laying out the consequences for the actions that President Putin took last night attacking Ukraine, which the White House, Jake, has promised will be severe. They have said that for weeks and compiled this list of sanctions in coordination with allies, saying that if Russia did go into Ukraine in the way that we have seen them do, that they will impose the sanctions. And I think what people are waiting to see is exactly what the specifics are. Because we know that they've said they would target financial institutions.

They said that that was coming earlier this week. When they talked about what they did after he recognized those two breakaway regions as independent. We know that there are export controls being discussed. There are things on the table.

But of course, the bigger question that is looming over this is, whether or not it is something that could in any way, deter Putin because that is what the White House has been talking about saying that they have saved these sanctions for a measure like this, so they could respond in full force. And clearly, of course, that hasn't deterred him from taking the actions that he did last night.

[12:15:00]

And so, just to know this morning, President Biden met with his national security council in the Oval Office. Then he was on a virtual call with the G7 leaders, these other industrialized nations talking to them about what this response is going to look like. But we are still waiting to hear from President Biden himself on the consequences for what they want to do, which they have said would be decisive for what President Putin did last night, Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins, thank you so much. Let's go to Matthew Chance now, who's in the capital of Ukraine, a city that the Russians call Kiyev, and the Ukrainians call Kyiv? Matthew, tell us about your encounter earlier today with Russian soldiers?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it was - I mean, frankly, Jake, absolutely extraordinary. We got up this morning after getting just few hours' sleep, after that heavy night of Russian airstrikes on the city. And we got the team together, decided to move out to one of the places where we knew that some of the airstrikes had taken place. And that we'd heard Russian forces had been deployed in helicopters in a few hours before.

And where there is supposed to have been a big pitch battle between Russian forces that were sent there in helicopters. It's an airbase just outside of Kyiv. And there was meant to be a battle underway. And so, we sort of headed towards there in a sort of paced way to try and see how close we get to get some witnesses.

As we got there, we got to the gates of the actual airport. And, you know, a soldier stopped their car and said, what are you doing? And it was in broken Russian, I speak quite bad Russian, and I was speaking to him. And I was like, look, we're from CNN. Can we do a quick live shot? And he was like, no, it's too dangerous. I said, look, just one, just one live. He said, fine, fine.

And then before we went on the air, I said, look, tell me, who is the - who's in control here? Is it the Ukrainians, or is it the Russians? And he said, what do you mean? And I said, you know, who's in control? The Ukrainians or the Russians. He said, it's the Russians. And I said, where are the Russians? And he said, we are the Russians. And just at that moment, I realized, I looked down at his insignia.

And I realized that we encountered a whole contingent of Russian special forces, airborne troops that had been sent to that airport in the hours before, and who had just fought a pitched battle with Ukrainian military forces to secure that airport. And they were totally in control. I mean, it's not the line we've been getting from the Ukraine officials.

They've been saying, oh, there was a counter offensive other way. We're taking the airport back. But that wasn't the situation at all. The Russians that we spoke to there, were totally in control of that airport. There was a brief firefight, so that we didn't see what they were shooting at. But we took cover, which is when I went live and did that that report on CNN a few hours ago.

But it just underlines, how close Russian special forces, Russian troops have been deployed to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. It was about 15 miles away from the city center. And it's not just that one location, we understand there are several contingents of Russian airborne special forces that have been deployed in key areas around the Ukrainian capital, securing an airhead, sort of airborne bridge. So, supplies and troops and armor can be potentially flown in.

And there's only one reason why you'd want to do that, of course, which is to expand your footprint in Ukrainian capital, possibly take it over. And so, I've spoken to Ukrainian officials about this. And they now say, they are convinced that the Russian strategy is to invade Kyiv, is to take Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital and to replace the Ukrainian political leadership. That's what Ukrainian officials are concerned. Vladimir Putin is planning for them right now. Jake?

TAPPER: Yes. And in fact, Matthew, yesterday we were reporting, you were reporting that the U.S. government had warned the Ukrainian government that their intelligence suggested that it was a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that the Russians were planning, not just into the southeast corner the Donbass region where there are those two independent or at least Putin called them independent republics.

Thank you so much, Matthew, stay safe. And to everyone on the frontlines, please stay safe. We're on top of all the breaking news, as Russia persists in its invasion of a sovereign country Ukraine. President Biden, we're expecting him to speak just minutes from now. We'll take that live, of course. Stay with us. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's live coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I want to give you an idea of what exactly is going on right now. And I want to bring in retired General James Clapper, who was the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama. General Clapper, one of the things I want to show is, first of all, let's put up the map of the Donbass region. This is the southeast corner of Ukraine. Not that one. The other map. The one of just of Donbass.

In any case, the southeast corner of Ukraine, you see the shaded area there, that's where the separatists control, the Russian backed separatists' control of that region. That entire region is what Vladimir Putin suggested were independent states and that is what is prompted this entire invasion, their justification. There you see right there, the one-third in the yellow shading, that is controlled by separatists but it's the entirety of the Donbass region that he has declared independence states.

[12:15:00]

And General Clapper, I just want to show, that little corner compared to the entirety of Ukraine where we have all the explosions. Can we put up the map with all the explosions? This is indicative of the fact, that they're not going just after the Donbass region as a lot of people suspected Putin would. They are going after the entirety of Ukraine.

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, I think that was the objective in the first place. Even if they had been initially the Donbass region is his real goal, is all of Ukraine. And we're seeing that the nature of the attack today bears that out. So, I was struck by the real - lack of a real provocation. And perhaps, our dining out the false flag attempts, helped that where Putin decided, I'm not going to bow, it doesn't matter. Because the overall objective is all of Ukraine.

TAPPER: So, let me bring in right now the former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute. He's also a retired U.S. army lieutenant general, and president of Cambridge Global, and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center. Ambassador Lute, Russia has moved very quickly, more quickly than a lot of people thought, in fewer than 24 hours. What do you expect to see in the coming day and days? What do you think is Putin's next military move?

LT. GEN. DOUGLAS LUTE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, you're right. This is war in Europe. This is a large scale, a war of choice. And it's quite clear that because of that scale, that President Putin's objective is regime change. This is not the incremental attack that many imagined. As you've already displayed, we've got assaults from the north out of Belarus from the east.

And also, importantly, from the south, where it appears that his main effort might be to connect mainland Russia, all the way across the southern border, along the shores of the Black Sea to Moldova, where there's another Russian military presence. So, this is significant. It is country wide. And it's going to have nearly immediate spillover effects.

TAPPER: So, NATO, which is of course an alliance of 30 member countries, that does not include Ukraine. NATO has stepped up its defensive posture today. That's what they call it, the defensive posture, giving commanders the ability to activate a NATO Response Force and move forward into NATO allied countries such as, for example, Poland. How significant is that stuff?

LUTE: Well, if the NATO Response Force is actually activated, it'd be the first time since 2014, that we've done so, in the aftermath of Putin's last attack on Ukraine. In 2014, when I was the U.S. ambassador under the Obama administration, NATO took steps to bolster its presence in the east of the alliance, but this is just very modest presence.

But in the depth of the alliance, it created this 40,000 troops strong air, sea and land response force. And this is a response force now that NATO is swinging into action, not in an offensive way, but in as a defensive measure. And as a further measure of deterrence to remind President Putin that NATO stands to defend every inch of NATO territory.

TAPPER: CNN is also reporting that the Biden administration is considering moving more U.S. troops already in Europe further east, staying in the NATO allied countries, not going into Ukraine, but moving them closer to Ukraine. How much more do you expect to see the U.S. ramped up assistance to NATO allies? Do you think that we will eventually see more U.S. troops sent from the U.S. abroad?

LUTE: I would expect so. So far, the American forces that have been activated and dispatched to Europe, are actually the American contribution of the NATO Response Force. But as the NATO Response Force itself assembles, I would expect further national, U.S. national contributions.

For example, again, after 2014, we began for the first time in a generation to pre-position heavy equipment, heavy U.S. equipment in the depth of the alliance, which promotes a rapid response from troops in the United States. So, one step we might expect in the future is for American troops to be flown in and married up with a preposition heavy equipment.

TAPPER: As I noted, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. How capable is Ukrainian military of defending its citizens against an onslaught from Russia?

LUTE: It's not able to adequately defend the country today. The Russian capabilities simply will overwhelm the Ukrainian defensive forces. Now, the Ukrainian defense will exactly price. There will be Russian casualties. They will lose aircraft. They will lose armored vehicles and so forth. But the Ukrainian simply cannot stop the Russian assault. What's more telling down the road, however, will be that the Ukrainian populace will fight.