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Russia Peddling Propaganda, Disinformation as It Attacks Ukraine; Russia Unleashes More Attacks, Airstrikes on Ukraine; Stocks Bouncing Back After Ending Low Following Biden Remarks, Ukraine Crisis. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 25, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Even as Russia bombards Ukraine with the full weight of its military, it continues to peddle propaganda and flat-out lies about its intentions and its targets. But as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

So, take a look at how Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is describing what's unfolding, side by side, with what we're actually seeing on the ground in Kyiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: No strikes on civilian infrastructure. There are no strikes on the personnel of the Ukrainian Army in their dormitories or other places, not connected to the military facilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we should be used to it now, the Russian foreign minister lies. He was talking about no desire by Russia to invade Ukraine right up to the final moment. Of course, Russia is in the midst of invading Ukraine.

Joining us now to discuss all of this, CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kimberly Dozier. And, Kim, one of the latest developments just in the last hour is some discussion of talks, Volodymyr Zelensky pleading really for the chance to Russia to avoid the loss of lives here. Russia saying it might be open to talks but that Ukraine would have to agree to demilitarize and be a neutral state.

But I want to read to you what President Putin just said on Russian national T.V. about his Ukrainian counterparts. He said, and he was appealing to Ukrainian soldiers basically to take up arms against their own government, take power into your own hands, it looks like it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that have settled in Kyiv and taken hostage the entire Ukrainian people.

[10:35:05] Are those the words of a Russian president that's genuinely willing to negotiate?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: This sounds like more of what the State Department had called kabuki theatre, Russian attempts to make it look like they are open to a diplomatic resolution but unless it is coupled with an agreement to stop their military campaign, this is just another way to buy time while they keep letting their forces accomplish their mission on the ground and, hopefully, from their perspective, take out the leadership in Kyiv.

Now, there was also an offer to go to Minsk for talks, but from the perspective of the Ukrainian people on the ground, they are seeing new heroes made every day in the sacrifices in places like the deaths of the Ukrainian soldiers at Snake Island. They're not going to accept this.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Those soldiers at Snake Island lost their lives and there's audio of them responding to a warning to surrender to a Russian battleship and their response was F you. And they bravely lost their lives in that battle.

And It should be noted though for all the times that Russian officials, including, as you just heard, Vladimir Putin, refers to Ukraine being run by Nazis, the Ukrainian democratically elected president is, in fact, Jewish. But what we've heard from him, Kim, over the past few hours is frustration, that in help in the form of more sanctions and more support from the west is not coming soon enough. What do you make of that and how is that transpiring to everyday Ukrainians who are now hiding from bombs?

DOZIER: Well, he can see the Russian forces making progress on the ground and knows that, unless he gets something like a NATO air cap over Kyiv, he's likely to have to go into hiding. Many of his people are going to be killed. And in the meantime, this is giving Russia time to the latest diplomatic statement is posturing to allies like China that could keep Moscow afloat economically during these times, saying, look, we are actually trying to offer a diplomatic way out.

Meanwhile, Zelensky knows the clock is running against him and his people, and with every passing day, this is going to become a bloody insurgent ground war and a lot of people are going to lose their lives.

SCIUTTO: Kimberly Dozier, thanks so much.

DOZIER: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, President Biden touting tough new sanctions against Russia, but are they tough enough? Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse weighs in after the break.

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[10:40:00] SCIUTTO: Right now, Ukraine's foreign minister is accusing Russia of committing war crimes following an alleged attack on a kindergarten and an orphanage. Officials say at least 51 children were affected by this. CNN has not yet verified the alleged attacks.

Moments ago, I spoke with Republican Senator Ben Sasse about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and what more can, should the U.S. do to respond.

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SCIUTTO: I want to begin with the situation here in Ukraine. The sanctions applied by the Biden administration clearly no longer deterrent, Russia's onslaught continues. What should the U.S. and its allies do right now today to help defend Ukraine? I'm told by sources that U.S. intelligence believes Kyiv could fall within days.

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): Yes. We need more intel, more defense spending and weapons, more and faster sanctions and more clarity about who the oligarch corrupt jackasses are who are propping up Putin's failed regime, so at the intel level.

First of all, let's praise the U.S. Intelligence Community for having done really good work to take away any fake moral veneer, the liar, Putin, was going to put over his plan to invade a peaceful neighbor that wasn't threatening him. And so the U.S. Intelligence Community has done really good work to date. There's a lot more to do. We should be supplying tactical information on the intelligence level to the Ukrainian troops and to the Ukrainian resistance so they can kill invading Russians.

We need to get lots more weapons to the Ukrainians both today in the military and we need to be preplanning for how we arm a resistance in the future and we need a lot more urgency around the sanctions. I appreciate that the president upgraded some of the sanctions yesterday, but this stuff is going to take weeks and months. It needs to be a lot more urgent.

We shouldn't be holding back on getting SWIFT on to the table today. There's no way to turn up to 11 later. Putin is not going to be deterred. We've got to make sure his cronies feel the pressure so that they can look back at him and say, what the hell are you doing? These corrupt mobsters, they don't have any desire to live in the hell hole Moscow that Putin wants to create. They want to live in London and other places. And they need to be (INAUDIBLE) out of those places.

SCIUTTO: The mob boss, as you know, to use your analogy, as Putin himself, should the U.S. sanction him, his family members and the various other people that he hides his billions in wealth with?

[10:45:00]

SASSE: Absolutely. And we should. In addition to sanctioning him, we should have massive information operation. He does lying all the time. We should do truth telling. The Russian people need to understand how much money Putin and his buddies have stolen from them. Our enemy is not the Russian people. It's the corruption at the top of the regime that is invading a peaceful neighbor. Putin is evil, and he has will and he has weapons and there's no freedom for the American people to believe we can just look the other way and pretend this isn't happening. Appeasement never works with a jackass like Putin.

SCIUTTO: Are there any circumstance under which you would support sending U.S. forces to help defend Ukraine?

SASSE: I think it's pretty clear there aren't going to be any U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine. There's lots of mistakes that we as a nation have made over the course of the last 20 years. Obviously, you can go back to the Budapest memo, where we told the Ukrainians, hey, give away your nukes and we'll help get, we, the U.S., and Europe, and even China, frankly, said we'll help guarantee your territorial sovereignty.

There were a lot of mistakes made long ago where our word wasn't kept. But if we just want to focus it on the last seven or eight years since 2014 when Putin shot down a civilian airliner, and when he took Crimea and then that had the predicate of 2008, Georgian invasion, 2004, poisoning of his political opponents, then afterwards, 2016, meddling in the U.S. election, 2020, poisoning Navalny.

Putin is a bad guy, but what we need to do now is recognize that we, as a nation, failed after 2014 to adequately arm the Ukrainians. We failed after Putin amassed 150,000 troops on their border not only in the east and in the southeast but the north, in Belarus. We can't continue to make that mistake. We have to help up arm the Ukrainian people to the teeth, and that includes tactical intelligence. But we need to get them more weapons and more ammo.

SCIUTTO: You, as I do, pay a lot of attention to China. What, having failed to deter Russia from Ukraine, what does the U.S. have to do today to deter China from any designs it may have on invading Taiwan?

SASSE: Yes. So, that's the 2030 geopolitical existential question and, frankly, that's one of the reasons we can't ignore Ukraine. A lot of Nebraskans who might have more isolationist tendencies say to me, hey, you've been telling us for a long time the number one geopolitical threat we face is the CCP. The number two threat we face is the CCP. Number three threat we face is an expansionistic Communist Chinese Party. Therefore, shouldn't we just ignore Putin is doing? The answer is definitely not, because Xi green lit this invasion.

Russia, as you know, has 11 time zones and they were able to move their military from the far east to Belarus so they could invade from the north because Xi wants to see the U.S. humiliated, he wants to see Europe destabilized, he wants to push and prod at what a cyber hybrid war looks like and see whether or not the U.S. and the west have will, because he's using Russia as a scout team offense for his plans to seize Taiwan.

We need to demonstrate not only to Putin but we need demonstrate to Xi that there's stuff we believe in and that right now, that means putting our money where our mouth is and having President Biden send up an emergency defense supplemental so that we can adequately arm the Ukrainians. SCIUTTO: You might call it an axis of disruption between China and Russia today.

Before we go, given your presence on the Judiciary Committee, if I could ask you now that we have the news of the expected nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court, is that a nominee you could support?

SASSE: Well, I had just gotten word President Biden made the decision to nominate Judge Jackson and I look forward to meeting with her in person. The Judiciary Committee is not covered itself in glory, historically. A bunch of grandstanders like to scream and yell for cameras. She's a serious woman and I'd like to sit down with Judge Jackson and have a conversation in my office and I look forward to that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Thank so much there to Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and we'll be right back.

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[10:50:00]

GOLODRYGA: Wall Street bouncing back after reacting to President Biden's remarks yesterday and the latest developments in Ukraine.

CNN's Matt Egan joins me now. A lot of volatility, we know this happens in times of conflict. We don't see a resolution anytime soon. So, what can investors expect?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Well, Bianna, I think that the mood of the financial markets has really improved significantly from just 24 hours ago. I mean, investors remain on edge, but some of those initial fears have faded away. The Dow is trading something like 1,400 points above the lows of yesterday, as we speak, up 475 points, 1.4 percent, highs of the day right now. The Nasdaq was nearly in a bear market yesterday. It is backed away from that. Oil prices, they've also calmed down. Brent, the world benchmark, hit $105 a barrel yesterday. Today, it's around $98. Gas prices, they move with the lag to oil. So, gas are prices still going up. The national average, $3.57 a gallon, that's seven-year high, up three cents in a day.

[10:55:00]

Put it all together, I think markets are definitely calmer but this is a very fluid situation, especially heading into a weekend. So, we need to keep an eye on this volatility.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, perhaps the market liking to hear the coordinated sanctions that we heard from the president yesterday. Matt, thank you, as always.

EGAN: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: And thank you so much for joining us today. Jim, I caught the throat bug there. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York.

SCIUTTO: Please, please send cough drops and honey. I'm Jim Sciutto In Lviv, Ukraine, trying to keep my voice.

CNN's special coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues At This Hour after a quick break.

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