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Biden: U.S. Freezing Four More Major Russian Banks; Ukrainians Fleeing To Poland As Russia Invades; Zelensky: Worst Fighting In Southern Ukraine; Biden's Sanctions Restricting Russian Banks & Banning Technology Imports; Pentagon Orders Deployment of 7,000 Troops To Europe. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:48]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Erin Burnett is in Lviv, Ukraine.

Erin, we just heard from President Biden, announcing new sanctions. You are there. What are you seeing?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I'll tell you what we're learning right now just actually in this moment.

Here in Lviv, where I am, in western Ukraine, as you know, military bases near here were struck early this morning.

The city is saying at 11:00 p.m., about 90 minutes from now, they'll turn off the streetlights here, all building illuminations.

And they're also asking anyone who lives here to turn off the lights in their homes. They're making it very clear that this is for preventive measures.

I know just over the past, you know, two weeks, talking to you guys every day, there's a big tower behind me. It's a communications tower. It is not illuminated now. It's at the top of the tallest hill in the city. But that's what they're saying.

As you can see behind me -- I'm making sure you can see -- obviously, there's light in the city. All of that, we're told, is going to go off at 11:00 p.m. As I said, in about 90 minutes in a country that is very much on edge.

You have clashes going on right now in the east of this country, in the north of this country, in the south of this country as we speak.

It's night. Again, the fears of more potential strikes. Nobody knows what is next.

As you all know, it comes as President Biden called Vladimir Putin a bully for launching war here in Ukraine and Europe and for destroying peace in a place that held here since World War II.

After months of denials and lies, Putin invaded Ukraine by land, by air, and by sea. More than 100 missiles starting in the early morning hours.

President Biden, moments ago, issuing new, what he calls, severe sanctions against Russia, including family members of elites.

We don't know yet who they are. That's very important. And right now, not yet, against Putin himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. Now he and his country will bear the consequences.

We have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact of the United States and our allies.

This aggression cannot go unanswered. If it did, the consequences for America would be much worse.

America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs reports nearly 400 instances of shelling by Russian forces in Ukraine today.

Ukrainian officials said at least 40 have been killed. Most of them in the military. I must say, though, we're very much in the fog of war. No one knows the real numbers.

We do know Ukrainian are using subway stations as bomb shelters in Kharkiv in the east of this country.

They've been putting a run on ATMs for cash. It's the only place today, in fact, where we have seen any groups of people. You see a group, you know it's an ATM.

Clogging major roads to flee from the war that NATO's leader calls brutal and reckless and unprovoked.

I want to go now to CNN's Scott McLean.

When we talk about people fleeing, that is live on the Poland/Ukrainian border where Ukrainians are crossing.

Scott, one of the most powerful images today was seeing rows and rows of completely blocked highways of people leaving Kyiv and heading west. Many of them leaving the country, their own country for their safety.

Tell me what you're seeing.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Erin. Let me set the scene. We're in the town of Madika. It's not very big, maybe a few thousand people. It's a border town. There's been a steady stream of people coming out.

So this pathway you're seeing people come up is a pedestrian crossing. As you can see where it's illuminated, that's the actual border crossing.

What we've seen since we've been here for the last few hours is a lot of families coming out here.

And the reason why you don't see more people, Erin, is because we are told by many people that we have spoken to that there's a backlog on the other side.

People are having to wait six, seven, nine hours outdoors to cross the border. Again, they have children and it's right around freezing right now.

[14:35:03]

Let me show you what else we're seeing. There's a whole bunch of people in this area because they have to figure out where to go once they actually get here.

A lot of them are milling about with their suitcases trying to arrange taxis and trying to arrange a ride.

There's buses here, as well, taking people to nearby towns. That one is going to a city maybe less than an hour from here.

You also have -- sorry. Here is another family who just arrived here.

Do you speak English?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

MCLEAN: Where did you come from?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

MCLEAN: People are just trying to figure out where they're trying to go now.

Honestly, Erin, many people we've spoken to -- let me take you around the other way. You can see there seems to a lot more volume of people coming in.

A lot of people we have spoken to, Erin, frankly, they don't know exactly where they're going to go. They're trying to figure out a hotel. They're trying to figure out some kind of accommodation.

Other people are trying to get to Warsaw to try to get to the airport, as well.

We know that the Polish government has set up these sorts of welcome centers up-and-down the border. We're not exactly sure where the welcome center is in this area. It's not well advertised.

What you don't see in this area is any kind of organized aid. You don't see UNHCR. You don't see police. You don't see really any helpers try to assist people, which is really remarkable.

Sorry, I'll get out of the way. People are trying to get on the bus as it's going to the town nearby.

Again, it's a bit chaotic in this area, frankly, Erin.

Again, it breaks your heart to see children, especially, you know, having to wait in the cold and not knowing where they're going.

Most of the people we have spoken to, as well, they don't think they'll be gone for long or perhaps they're hopeful they're not gone for long.

You know, maybe they think they'll be gone for a week or so. Then they'll be able to go back.

There's also been a remarkable, well, maybe not remarkable, but a surprising number of people going the other way, back into Ukraine.

I spoke to one woman earlier today who is a Ukrainian living here in Poland. Not too far from the border.

She went back in because she said she simply could not stay home. She just wanted to do something. So she ended up ferrying people to train stations to try to assist them in getting out.

Another woman actually is a Ukrainian living in London. About a week ago, she went to visit her mother, thinking there's no way there's going to be an attack.

Obviously, well she was very wrong. Now she was fleeing today with her child and, also, with her mother, as well.

Virtually, everyone we have spoken to is united in the fact that they did not see this coming.

Many Ukrainians simply thought it was a bluff by Vladimir Putin. Perhaps there would be some military action going on in the east of the country.

But it seems like nobody expected what we're seeing here today in terms of the bombing and shelling and the things you're seeing inside of the country -- Erin?

BURNETT: Yes. That's what we've seen here, as well. People heard the intelligence. They knew the intelligence. They simply did not believe that such an incomprehensible and counter-factual thing could happen. Yet here we are. Thank you very much, Scott.

I want to go to Nick Paton Walsh. He is in southern Ukraine. That's where President Zelensky said some of the worst fighting is going on.

Nick, it's one of the things, as we're talking about it, sometimes it's near people on our team. Sometimes it isn't. But the fighting is happening. It's happening as we speak.

What are you seeing? What do you understand is happening near where you are?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, I'm in the Black Sea coast. It's had an awful day, frankly.

We didn't see as we came into this vital city of Kherson, we heard quite a lot of explosions.

And some gunfire toward a key bridge that the Russians possibly have pushed over to get on to this, the Kyiv essentially, sort of northern side of the Dnieper River that runs through Ukraine.

They pushed out this morning, it seems, from Crimea, which has for the last eight years, been held illegally by Russia after the annexation in 2014.

They appeared to have got to the other side of the bridge here near this town where I'm standing, Kherson. Then an extensive fire fight occurred for control of a bridge.

When we got here, we heard the gunfire and the violence, it seemed, on this side of the river, essentially, about eight kilometers east in this town city, on its outskirts.

The question we're asking ourselves now, obviously, is some of their ambitions to cross the bridge and moving on?

President Zelensky seemed to think their goals from taking this part of territory and the hydroelectric power station. But we also learned they have fallen in their hands. And a further area to the east, as well.

[14:40:08]

But they may be trying to move eastward toward essentially the separatist areas on the outer Azov Sea coast. That's unclear.

What we don't know is whether Kherson is potentially a target for the advancing forces or they're essentially moving on through.

It's eerie here, frankly, shut down. A lot of the lights are off. It's very quiet.

As of now, unclear if that's a lull or what we're going to see next or if it's essentially a route for the Russian forces heading west to where we were this morning out in Odessa, Ukraine's third-largest city -- Erin?

BURNETT: All right, Nick, thank you very much.

You can see how dark it is. He's talking about the loss of light. That's what we'll be seeing that here in just over an hour. All of the lights will go off. They're asking everyone to turn them off at home as well.

So when you say, how much Russian forces are in the country, what are they doing, how many tanks, where is the fighting?

The person with the best eyes on the ground on this is Frederick Pleitgen, because he's live on the Russian side of the border near the city of Belgorod.

Fred, I want to the give everyone a sense here, Fred, you've been watching the convoys for days. Then you watched them file through.

You have a sense of the scale and the scope and how long it continued and how many have been coming in from where you are. You've seen artillery rockets from Russia being fired into Ukraine throughout as the convoys went.

What are you seeing right now?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, essentially, what we've been seeing and continue to see, at the last border crossing toward Ukraine, toward the city of Kharkiv, the Kharkiv frontline, you said it correctly, a steady stream of Russian forces moving across there.

It's quite interesting because some of them are armored convoys. You have a lot of fighting vehicles going across. Of course, the very important for the Russian campaign.

But then, also, larger vehicles, as well. We saw main battle tanks.

One interesting thing we thought, the main battle tanks, we saw them go past us, their tracks were full of mud. They must have been dug in some position close to where we were. And they had come out and took the main road into Kharkiv.

That seems to have possibly indicate maybe the Russians made some headway in Kharkiv and moving the front line further into Ukrainian territory.

Then we also saw some pretty heavy Howitzers, as well. They can cause a lot of damage. Those shells are very heavy.

And especially if they're used in civilian areas. That, obviously, would be something that would be completely devastating. We did see a lot of those.

But one of the things that stood out is the fact we saw those artillery rockets being fired from the position that we were at. It happened at various occasions throughout the day that salvos were fired.

Those artillery rockets have a pretty long range. They're not necessarily the most accurate weapons that the Russians have. They can do a lot of damage and they are certainly feared, as well.

So from our vantage point, what we can see, Erin, the offensive is extremely large scale. We've seen Russian troops go in there pretty much throughout the entire day. It's out in a large area.

And it certainly shows absolutely no signs of slowing down -- Erin?

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Fred.

Just an incredible sense of scale, as he said. No signs of slowing down and still just coming in more and more and more into this country.

If you need to ask yourself, is it over? Is this all he's going to do? You have your answer. The answer is no. They're here.

President Biden just imposed additional sanctions on Russia in response, as they said they would do. They have ramped them up in his restricting the country's banks, banning technology exports.

Let's go to our chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, Biden also said there's going to be new sanctions targeting Russian elites with close ties to Vladimir Putin. He said we'll learn more in the coming days.

Obviously, it's a key part of the sanctions plan. We don't yet have more details yet, do we?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they have released the name was of the Russian elites. This is coming from the Treasury Department, of course, in charge of the sanctions.

It will -- basically, the main extent of these sanctions that President Biden announced today that the White House has been talking about, for some time now, are going after Russian banks, going after Russian elites, and adding more of them to the sanctions list.

Also, going after technology exports. These will affect things like Russia's military capabilities when it comes to things like lasers, sensors, semiconductor chips.

Those are the nature of the sanctions they're going after Russia with.

What President Biden was talking about there, when he was laying out the consequences he said Russia is going to bear, is they will take some time to take effect.

They're not as immediate, as you could see other measures go into effect. So it will take time.

President Biden was arguing he does believe, over time, it will weaken Russia and these sanctions will be effective.

[14:44:59]

One argument he did make, which is notable, given what White House aids and top national security officials have been saying for several weeks, is he didn't believe the sanctions were going to stop Putin from going forward to do what he did.

We've talked about them being a deterrence, as the White House felt they wanted to wait until Putin actually went in and attacked Ukraine to put these sanctions in place, as they're doing today.

Erin, one other thing we should note the Treasury Department announced is they'll be sanctioning a list of individuals from Belarus, including the defense minister, which is notable, for helping Ukraine or helping Russia with the invasion into Ukraine.

Last night, as the attack was happening, we know there were reports on the ground of the Russian forces coming in from the border with Belarus.

Now they have a list of individuals, I believe it's about 24 of them who are now also being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The larger scale of this, of course, is what the sanctions will actually do.

The question has been, how effective can they be in deterring someone like Putin, who seems dead set on doing what he wants to do and rebuilding the Soviet Empire, as President Biden said, is his main goal.

That's something President Biden talked about just a few moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: The threat of the sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of the sanctions are two different things.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: They're two different things. We're going to -- he's going to begin to see the effect of the sanctions.

COLLINS: And what will that do -- how will it change his mindset here, given he's --

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: It will weaken his country. He'll have to make a very, very difficult choice as to whether to continue to move toward being a second-rate power or, in fact, respond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: There, President Biden saying what he believed would happen to Russia if he continued to move forward with this.

One chilling thing he said also, Erin, is he believes President Putin has his sights are set much higher than just Ukraine, saying he's intent on rebuilding the Soviet Empire.

And raising questions where Putin can go from where he started last night.

BURNETT: Kaitlan, thank you very much.

And joining me now are CNN national security analyst Steve Hall. Of course, you know him, the former chief of Russian operations for CIA. And Ambassador Ivo Daalder. He is the former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Thank you very much to both of you for your time.

Steve Hall, where do you think we are in this are right now in the context of, another night, the city is going to be dark across this country? As I said, we're about an hour from that. Formerly, we saw it in the south.

And convoys that just seem to be unrelenting still crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine.

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Erin, I guess, a day or so ago, we had the luxury of wondering whether or not he was -- Putin, that is -- was just going to go into the Donbass under these strange artificial circumstances that Putin himself created and stop there.

That's clearly not going to happen. It's clearly much bigger than that.

And so we're beyond the part now where we say, well, are these threats of sanctions going to actually have an impact on Vladimir Putin? Clearly, they haven't.

And that was sort of what is going on, I think, in the press conference today. You had a lot of people asking, OK, now what?

It's clear Putin will go in and take, at the very least, the entire country of Ukraine. I suppose it's not clear whether he'll try to hold it like he has Crimea, just annexed it.

Or try to install some sort of public government, which is, in my view, probably more likely because it's perhaps less troublesome for Putin.

But there's a bigger question that now is laid at the world's doorstep. Which is, what do we do with a country that has simply flaunted the entire international system of rule of law?

And I think the answer is, well, we have to somehow contain them and make them, as the president said, a pariah state.

But where we are now is certainly very different from where we were 24, 48 hours ago.

And of course, you all on the ground in Ukraine know that much better than we do back here.

BURNETT: Ambassador, let me ask you about what the president said he did think was important. You know, that putting more supplies to NATO, more troops to bolster NATO. Making it clear U.S. troops will not fight Russia in Ukraine.

The NATO thing is great. It's only relevant if Putin goes beyond Ukraine, right? I suppose you can view it as a deterrent.

But it seemed like what the president was saying there was very clearly he felt that Vladimir Putin did intend to go farther than Ukraine.

I think that's sobering for anyone hearing it around the world. Is that what you heard?

IVO DAALDER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Yes, I think that is a risk that is clearly present now.

The massive scale of this invasion that you've all been observing and reporting on just demonstrates that this is not about a little part of Ukraine, and it really isn't about Ukraine.

It is about trying to figure out how to remake the current system of European security.

And it is our goal -- I think, as Steve rightly says, the need now is to focus on containing, containing and, ultimately, through containment, affect internal change in Russia.

[14:50:08]

It's the only way we won the Cold War. It's how we need to fight this new fight. Which is not for weeks or months. It will be years.

And the key components of that are the sanctions the president announced. I agree with those who say the more, the better, the quicker.

The second component is to support the Ukrainians as best they can, not only to people who are crossing the border, but the Ukrainian forces fighting inside.

Whether that is now to counter the invasion or, afterwards, to counter an occupation through an insurgency just to raise the cost for Russia.

And this finally, this really important issue of bolstering NATO and all of NATO.

I'm particularly concerned, if you look at the map and realize that Belarus and Russia are now a single military command zone.

There's a 60-kilometer border between Belarus and Kaliningrad, which, if the Russians were to take that -- of course, that means attacking Polish and/or Lithuanian territory.

But if they take that, you would cut off three Baltic States from the land corridor to NATO. That's what we need to prevent.

I think hopefully tomorrow, when the NATO summit or a virtual summit gets together, there's an agreement to deploy significant forces and significant tens of thousands of troops in this part of the region to prevent that.

BURNETT: Steve, today, I went to one of the military installations near Lviv here that was hit.

And one of the officers in the woods down a dirt road, they're not talking to the media, allowing the media on to the military installations.

But they did come out and speak to me. And they said they were hit by two rockets and they believe they came from Belarus.

Now I don't know whether they did or didn't. But we know a lot of things did come from Belarus. Belarus says it wasn't their soldiers but they are one with Russia.

Is it, at this point, essentially Belarus and Russia is just one place, is that a border with any distinction?

HALL: Certainly, in the context of Ukraine, and I would argue that probably not.

I mean, Lukashenko is essentially a lapdog of Putin on a very short leash. The Russian military can do pretty much whatever it wants and Lukashenko and the Belarusians won't do anything. And that's very useful for Putin.

But I think you also have to remember there's a price that the Belarusians pay. And there's certainly a price that the Russians will pay.

By taking this course of action, by going to war and invading a neighboring country, and then having the sanction that it will come down on Russia, Putin has essentially condemned Russia to be essentially a third-world country with nuclear weapons, sort of like maybe Pakistan or something like that.

If it works as it seems it's going to, because of the unity in the West, Russia will not have a lot of whole lot options beyond perhaps these military ones, which are not going to go that much further, I don't think.

BURNETT: It's interesting to see where it goes. I've been to Iran during the height of their sanctions. It does completely diminish a country from greatness. But it's unclear whether these will go anywhere near in that direction.

Thank you both so very much. I appreciate it. Steve Hall and Ambassador Ivo Daalder, thanks so much. So now let's send things back to you, Alisyn and Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Erin, thank you for that context.

[14:53:32]

President Biden just announced that thousands of additional U.S. troops will head to Europe to defend NATO territory. But he doubled down on his promise to not send troops into Ukraine. We've got new details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:58:27]

CAMEROTA: As Russian troops move into Ukraine, the Pentagon is deploying 7,000 U.S. troops to Europe and moving U.S. military assets further east.

That includes sending six F-35 fighter jets into the NATO nations of Estonia, Lithuania and Romania.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in retired Lieutenant Colonel Cedric Leighton for more. He's a CNN military analyst and former member of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

Colonel, there have been reports of and explosions heard across the country far beyond the Donbass region.

What's your assessment of the situation now?

LT. COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So, Victor, let's take a look at those explosions because what we see here are quite a few different areas.

And when you see the geographic diversity of all of these areas, where there's been an explosion, either from a missile or from a bomb or from a rocket or artillery shell that was sent by the Russians, it's basically covering the entire country.

And that is really quite significant because the Russians always believe that artillery was kind of their god of war. This is the pure demonstration of that very fact.

And you see just by the sheer number of explosions that they intended to do this by blanketing the whole country.

CAMEROTA: Colonel, what are you seeing in the airspace above Ukraine?

LEIGHTON: So, Alisyn, that's also something very interesting.

So let's first go to the restricted airspace area.

[14:59:49]

These are the airports, the main airports in Ukraine. And they handle a lot of traffic, particularly in Kyiv and in Lviv and also Odessa. Those are basically the three main areas. Also followed by Kharkiv.

But what happened here, when the Russians came in, they decided that they needed to blanket the airspace and block it off to all traffic.