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Ukraine's Capital Under Attack; Whitney Shefte is Interviewed about the Russian Attack; Biden Hits Russia with Sanctions; Active Shelling in Kherson. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 25, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:04]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Air raid sirens this morning in Kyiv as Russian forces close in on the Ukrainian capital. This morning we are hearing reports of fighting in the northern outskirts of the city, and sources tell CNN that U.S. intel officials are concerned that Kyiv could fall into Russian control within days.

Joining us now is CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, welcome to the program. Thanks for coming on with us this morning.

In the more than 24 hours since Russia's invasion began, what is your impression of their military approach thus far?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Bianna, good morning.

The military approach the Russians have taken is actually quite, you know, in many ways impressive, but it's not surprising. It was very clear from the very beginning that what the Russians wanted to do was go after Kyiv.

Their main thing is to, in essence, decapitate the Ukrainian government and make sure that they can control this major metropolitan area. As you know, it is the largest city in Ukraine, and it has symbolic and cultural importance from a Russian and a Ukrainian point of view.

So, this is why Kyiv is so important from the Russian perspective, and that's why it's a military objective for them as well.

GOLODRYGA: We've heard cruise missile blasts overnight in Kyiv. What are you seeing in terms of what military capabilities Russia is exercising at this point? Are they holding back on their potential strength?

LEIGHTON: They actually are. But it's very interesting that you mentioned it because, you know, every time that weapons are actually exploded in this -- you know, in any civilian setting, it's pretty impressive because what you end up with, you know, if you look at Kyiv right here, you've got several things, you've got the major district, the Obolon district, which they're very close to right now, the Antonov Airport, which we believe they've taken, and, of course, the rest of the city is right here.

So, the actual things that people will see there would include something like this, you know, where you see an explosion from an apartment building. This was taken last night. And it shows the impact that these missiles can actually have in these areas. It's a lot of flame and fury, and it's very dangerous. And, of course, many people can lose their lives in situations like this.

The kind of missiles that they have include the Iskander missile. This is a picture of one, the Iskander-K. The Iskander-M is a short-range ballistic missile system. And the is the one that they would have used, Bianna. It's road mobile, has a range of 310 miles. So it doesn't have to be in Ukraine to do damage in Ukraine.

It, you know, it has -- it's very, you know, fairly heavy payload with -- at over 900 pounds and it's got very high explosive submunitions. So, these kinds of things become really, really important. But the targeting can go either way. And according to some reports that we've received, this is a Russian airfield in the Rostov area. And that airfield was targeted by the Ukrainians. It is the home of MiG-29 fighter interceptors. And the MiG-29s are based at this location. And if this is actually what the Ukrainians have been able to do, it shows that this war can go in many different directions. But even with tactical victories, potentially like this one, maybe, the overall strategy seems to favor the Russians at this point in time.

GOLODRYGA: Well, I want to ask you about the Ukrainian capabilities because we have been warned going into this invasion that this is not the same Ukrainian army that we saw in 2014, that they're better trained, better equipped. Are you surprised by their actions over the past 24 hours, and how even though they far are inferior to Russia's capabilities seem to be fighting back?

LEIGHTON: Well, it's very interesting. You know, you look at the numbers here, and when you compare the number of people in the Ukrainian armed forces, a little less than 220,000, 840,000 in Russia, you know, it's pretty obvious that the preponderance of forces on the Russian side,.

[09:35:12]

And when you look at the reserves, the same things, I mean almost a million more on the Russian side. But you also look at the hardware and the equipment.

So, no matter how well trained the Ukrainians are, the Russians still have a preponderance in terms of helicopters, combat aircraft, and other types of military measures. And so what that basically means is that no matter how hard you try, if you don't have the numbers, it becomes very, very difficult to win the ultimate battle. GOLODRYGA: But as we've been reporting, Ukrainians would not be going

down without a fight or welcoming in the Russians with open arms. Clearly the battle and the fighting continues.

Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Still ahead, people are fleeing Ukraine as Russia goes on the attack. We'll speak to a video journalist on the ground with what she's hearing from citizens there.

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[09:40:44]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: With Kyiv under siege, many civilians are taking refuge in air raid shelters amid concerns that Russia could take Ukraine's capital within days. Russian forces are now advancing closer to the center of that city where western officials expect Putin to try and take over the government, the elected government, and install a puppet government that is friendly to Russia.

Joining me now from the capital is Whitney Shefte. She's a video journalist for "The Washington Post."

And, Whitney, I wonder if you could give us a sense of, frankly, the danger there in the capital right now.

WHITNEY SHEFTE, VIDEO JOURNALIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": You know, it's really surreal at the moment because I was just out on the street and just two days ago it was full of people, it was bustling, and now there's almost no one on the street and -- at least in the center of the city.

But, you know, we are hearing booms in the distance intermittently, especially throughout the night we tend to hear those. See lots of people going into shelters like you mentioned. So -- and we hear that the Russians are advancing on the city. So there definitely is a lot of fear here and a lot of uncertainty about what will come.

SCIUTTO: You did a story a couple of weeks ago for "The Post" that looked at how people there were preparing for a Russian invasion. And I wonder, is it your sense that they were prepared for this, that they had any sense of what was to come?

SHEFTE: You know, I think on the surface it felt like people really weren't preparing. They seemed very calm and they didn't think that this was -- what they were telling us was that they didn't feel like this was going to happen. But, you know, when you really start to talk to people, they did have fears and they were preparing more than they were letting on. They were packing go bags and preparing documents.

You know, we spoke to this one woman who was pretty upset because her 14-year-old son came home and had so many questions about, you know, what do we do if war comes? And I think it's something that maybe a lot of adults weren't really addressing with each other. But something that children that age are -- you know, don't hide their fears about these sorts of things.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SHEFTE: So, you know, she was working on a plan with her -- with her son about how they would leave together.

SCIUTTO: You've also spent time in recent weeks with Ukrainian military. And I wonder, as you are with them, were they prepared, were they scared, did they feel that they would soon be overwhelmed?

SHEFTE: You know, that team, the battalion, the group that we spent time with in the east, they were incredibly resilient, tough, just kept telling us that they were -- they were ready. I think that they probably, at that point, were dealing with a lot of sort of idle time because that -- where they were located, they were not seeing a lot of shelling.

And pretty soon after we left, we got messages that the shelling had started where they -- where they were and where we were with them. But I think that idle time can certainly creep into your mind a little bit and begin to create some fear. But they said that they were ready and, you know, were willing to do everything they could to defend Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: I'd love to know if you hear from any of the soldiers that you were with to see what their situation is now.

But before we go, it's CNN's reporting that the U.S. intelligence view, as Russian troops get closer to and perhaps some already inside the capital Kyiv, that it could fall within days. And I wonder, as you speak to people there, do they share that pessimism, right, or do they believe that they, that the military, can successfully fight back?

SHEFTE: You know, the people that we've talked to, I think, they probably -- a little bit optimistic and a little bit pessimistic. I think a lot of people are taking up arms. We've heard that the government is giving civilians arms and people are telling us that they will go out and fight, even if they don't even have much in the way of training.

But people are also really, really afraid of this and afraid of what life might be like under Russian occupation. And everyone that we've spoken with, they don't want this. You know, they see themselves as firmly Ukrainian.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

[09:45:02]

SHEFTE: You know, they know that they have historical ties with Russia, but they are Ukrainian and they are afraid.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes, they don't want this -- I've spoken to Ukrainians as well, and they're just amazed to be at war with people, a country that they see as friends.

Whitney Shefte, thanks so much for joining us and please be safe.

SHEFTE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Bianna, back to you.

GOLODRYGA: It's as perplexing for us to watch as for her -- to hear from her and her analysis there and perspective, what has changed in the course of 24 to 48 hours.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Bustling streets and restaurants and now people on the run as refugees. Unbelievable.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Well, still ahead, the U.S. Treasury Department slapping sanctions against 24 Belarusian individuals, and entities, including the defense minister for supporting Russia's invasion into Ukraine. What that means for the markets straight ahead.

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[09:50:23]

GOLODRYGA: New this morning, the Kremlin is vowing to retaliate against sanctions announced by the U.S. and its allies. President Biden imposed a wave of harsh new sanctions yesterday, targeting Russian financial institutions, elites, and also some officials in Belarus who have supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

CNN's Christine Romans joins me now.

The president had also couched this in warning Americans that it may be hurting for them as well, specifically at the pump. What can we expect?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I think you can expect the Russians to be fine with global inflation at this point because that hurts the unity of the west, right? And I think you can probably watch the board rooms are very concerned about cyberattacks and the like. So, we'll see what kind of Russian response there is officially, but we know there was a Kremlin bulletin just an hour or so ago that said Putin and President Xi of China say the use of sanctions to achieve, quote/unquote, selfish goals of individual countries are unacceptable. These are the sanctions that we heard from yesterday.

And there are more than just these. You've got sanctions from the EU. You've got sanctions from the U.K. So, you can see sort of this vice grip financially, especially around the oligarchs and the inner circle of Putin that is starting to tighten.

GOLODRYGA: Interesting that China is now involved because many had speculated that Russia would, in fact, turn to China, right, in -- to compensate for these sanctions. But China, if these sanctions are imposed, they could impact China then if they violate them.

ROMANS: Absolutely. One thing about China that I think is interesting here is that a lot of people will be watching to see whether China then fills the void for the export controls, whether China fills the void for, you know, being the market for wheat and for grain that comes from Russia and Ukraine and what kind of role China takes on that front to blunt the effects of these -- of these.

And next week there's an OPEC Plus meeting. I think near term the most important thing to watch here is the oil price. Stocks are all over the place, right? Really, you know, just vulnerable to every headline. But, oil. Let's watch oil. You still have oil here near $100 a barrel.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And I know you'll continue watching that volatility for us throughout the day and the days ahead.

ROMANS: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Christine Romans, thank you, as always.

ROMANS: Buckle up, everybody.

GOLODRYGA: We do have breaking news and more shelling activity in southern Ukraine we want to take you to right now. Our Nick Paton Walsh is in Kherson.

Nick, what are you seeing and what are you hearing on the ground there?

NICK PATON WALSH, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Well, to give you the context of where we are, we've been hearing shelling coming from the Russian side, whistling over our heads and landing. I would say about five to ten shells landing over in that direction. You can see some of the smoke still emerging there.

You can also see the bridge that both sides are fighting over. It goes over the Dnieper River. The Russians are on that side of it. And the Ukrainians are here.

Now, when we visited the scene of the intense fighting yesterday, called by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the worst and the most serious in Ukraine yesterday, it had calmed, and Ukrainians had clearly pushed the Russians back on to the other side. And we've been hearing all the way through the day heavy explosions, most likely from this direction, multiple rocket landings.

But as we came down here close to sunset, shells began to whiz over our heads and impact on this side. We think we saw smoke emerging from an impact which would have landed in a residential area. We didn't go quite to see what had happened in the place because of the extent of local concerns around here. You can see -- and we've seen this consistently, people driving down this road, realizing what's ahead, or what's beginning to start again at the bridge here and turning around again, including ambulance, in fact, that tried to head towards that area.

But I think what is clear to see here is that this fight for this bridge, which would essentially give Russian forces who are in Crimea, where they control route across the Dnieper River towards the main part, the European bordering part of Ukraine and Kyiv, they're beginning, it seems, their fight again to try and cross over that bridge.

GOLODRYGA: And this after you described a heavy night of fighting last night. I'm curious what you have seen this morning, aside from that car that just drove by, it does seem to be pretty deserted. Have you seen -- have you seen other residents? There's another one that just passed you. But what have you seen on the ground there?

WALSH: Yes. Yes, there's actually one to talk to us here.

(Speaking in foreign language).

I'm asking if he lives here.

(Speaking in foreign language).

Do you live here?

(Speaking in foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in foreign language).

WALSH: (Speaking in foreign language).

He's not local and obviously not particularly pleased at all.

GOLODRYGA: (Speaking in foreign language). Are they Russians?

WALSH: But that sums up, I think, people's nervousness.

Yes, no, they're Ukrainian on this side of the river.

GOLODRYGA: OK.

WALSH: The Russian I speak to them is often quite prevalently used in this part of the world.

GOLODRYGA: Right.

WALSH: And, unfortunately, particularly right now, I don't speak Ukrainian.

[09:55:01]

But the issue here, we see so often, people very nervous, just want to get about their business.

On the bridge yesterday, what we saw -- sorry, the bridge today what we saw was civilian traffic continuing, despite the fact they were driving past corpses of soldiers lying still on the bridge. So much of this born out of necessity, people's desperate need to do things.

And, in fact, we heard from civilians who crossed that bridge and on the other side they've seen the Russians in hiding. So, quite clearly, Russian forces on the other side of that river kind of biding their time, possibly as still nightfall, which is certainly within the next hour or so, this part of town quieter, but it's going to get louder, I think, in the hours ahead.

GOLODRYGA: Experiencing a heavy loss from that fighting last night as we heard from President Zelensky.

Nick Paton Walsh, please stay safe and keep us posted if any developments happen in the coming hour. We appreciate it.

And still ahead, we are live on the ground in Ukraine, where air raid sirens are sounding in major cities as Russian forces advance. We're told the capital city of Kyiv could fall in a matter of days. Live team coverage continues straight ahead.

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