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Massive Russian Convoy Heading Towards Kyiv; International Criminal Court to investigate Russian Invasion; Kharkiv Mayor: Rocket Attacks Kill at Least 9 People; Ukraine a Major Topic in President Biden's State of Union Address; Russian Economy Hit by Severe Sanctions from the West; Growing Number of Companies Cut Business Ties with Russia; Russian Teams Barred from Multiple International Sports. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 01, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

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OLENA GNES, UKRAINIAN CIVILIAN IN KYIV BOMB SHELTER: And now he says I want to have negotiations. So, after this negotiations if he say attack should I -- shouldn't believe in it.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Organizations around the world are on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring countries to help those like Olena Gnes in need with shelter, food, water, the basics of life. For more on how you can help just go to CNN.com/impact for more information.

Quick break here. When we come barks after Ukraine's second largest city is shelled yet again, the country's president accuses Russia of war crimes. Our breaking news coverage continues after the break.

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HOLMES: Welcome back, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes live in Lviv, Ukraine. Bitter fighting still underway all across this country as Ukrainians try to hold off a massive Russian invasion. New satellite images show a massive Russian convoy rolling towards the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The convoy reportedly stretching more than 40 miles or 65 kilometers.

We've also seen escalating attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine second largest city. Including a major explosion that happened just a short time ago. The blast, this is right in the center of Kharkiv.

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It destroyed a historic government building and officials say at least six people were hurt including one child. This comes just one day after Ukrainian and Russian officials met for negotiations at the border with Belarus to discuss a possible cease-fire. Obviously, no breakthroughs from what we're seeing but officials did indicate there could be more talks to come. Meanwhile, officials in the U.S. say a second wave of Russian troops

is likely on the way and they could overwhelm Ukraine's armed forces. Ukraine is welcoming a decision from the International Criminal Court, meanwhile, to investigate Russia's invasion. The ICC prosecutor says there is reason to believe, quote, both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have already been committed.

Ukraine's president accusing Russia of committing war crimes by bombing Kharkiv and attacking civilians. New video shows the siege of the city as it unfolded. CNN's Alex Marquardt has those details. But we do want to warn you his report contains some him graphic content.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The fighting in Kharkiv getting a little bit closer to home on Monday. This is video from one of five residential neighborhoods in Ukraine's second largest city. Two people can be seen running and then crawling as a hail of rockets rains down.

Across the city to the east more video shows a chaotic scene after a still smoking missile falls and is lodged in the street. Further north buildings come under fire from rocket strikes exploding over the apartment complex. From those apartments a man says the Russian world, you say, already right on my doorstep. Two bodies lie motionless on the floor. U.S. officials say the Russians have hit citizen targets in Monday's attacks in Kharkiv have all the hallmarks of Russian weaponry. Russia meanwhile has insisted throughout its invasion that it will avoid civilian areas. But people of Kharkiv probably seeing things very differently.

Alex Marquardt, CNN, Kyiv.

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HOLMES: Ukraine's crisis will feature prominently in President Biden's state of the union address later on Tuesday. He's expected to highlight his efforts to rally a global consensus in support of Ukraine and its battle for democracy.

CNN White House reporter Jasmine Wright joins me now live from Washington with details. What can we expect? A really important state of the union for the president.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Michael. This is going to be a critical speech from President Biden coming amid the back drop of an international crisis. And now just a few months ago officials thought that this would be a perfect platform for the president to launch a domestic reset, really focusing on the thing happening here in America. But of course, with the situation unfolding in the last months it is going to have to shift a bit to focusing on Ukraine. So, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki really on a Monday briefing, really previewed some of what President Biden will touch on. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president will lay out the efforts we are taking, he has taken, he has led on to rally the world to stand up for him and against Russian aggression democracy. He will talk about the steps we've taken to not only support the Ukrainian people with military and economic assistance. But also, the steps he's taken to build a global coalition imposing crippling financial sanctions on President Putin, his inner circle and the Russian economy. And he'll talk about the steps he's taking to mitigate the impact of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the global economy and the American people.

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WRIGHT: So that mitigation aspect that Psaki was talking about likely is about gas prices. As we know that is the one thing that President Biden pointed that Americans could feel in their pockets because of this crisis. But of course, this speech from President Biden happening in just a few hours will come a day after U.S. lawmakers were briefed in a classified briefing. And afterwards they came out and offered really grave warnings about the potential invasion really intensifying. And I want to read you one quote, one lawmaker said.

Progressing towards blatant siege. Really urging the Biden administration for more military assistance and for more sanctions to deter and punish Russia. And now White House officials, Michael, have been concerned over particularly over what they have seen in the last few days including intensifying violence and more civilian casualties. So, this will all be a part of President Biden's speech that he gives in a few hours. A defining moment of his presidency. The first State of the Union speech that he will have as president -- Michael.

HOLMES: All right, Jasmine, appreciate it. Jasmine Wright there in Washington for us.

Now social media footage has of course played a key role in CNN's coverage of the invasion of CNN.

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Ahead, we'll show you how our team verifies the accuracy of the content you see. We'll be right back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back. I'm Michael Holmes coming to you live from Ukraine. And Lviv is the city we're in in the west of the country. Now CNN has used social media footage in some of our reporting of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and our network goes to great lengths to ensure these images are real and they are accurate before we present them to our audience. CNN's Katie Polglase explains how the investigative team vets the material.

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KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCHER: Social media footage has played a key role in our coverage of Ukraine. If you're able to identify military movements and also possible attacks. But it's also really important that we understand the footage is real and accurate and current. And so, one of the ways that we've been doing this is by geo locating that footage. Here is an example of how our investigative team has been doing that.

POLGLASE (voice-over): It was an alarming scene, Russian helicopters flying suspiciously low over an area just a few kilometers outside of Ukraine's capital Kyiv with large dark plumes of smoke rising. The man filming said about 20 of them flew by. And at the time this video first started circulating on social media February 24th, it was not yet confirmed the Russians were anywhere near Kyiv. So, our investigative team began looking to verify it.

POLGLASE: So, the most important thing is to establish this footage is recent.

POLGLASE (voice-over): We use reverse image search engines to check the video had not been circulated before February 24. It had not. With that confirmed, we needed to establish the location. Social media post mentioned Hostomel Airport, 25 kilometers outside of Kyiv. So, we started there.

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Using Google Earth and Yandex maps, a Russian search engine equivalent, we zoomed in on the airport and began looking for possible locations.

POLGLASE: What we then wanted to do was to geo locate it. And to geo locate it, we did what's called a panorama. So, we created various screen reps from the footage that looks to be (INAUDIBLE). And we pulled up various different shots from the footage that showed us key identifiable structures. The main most notable one was this yellow building here and there's a small rooftop structure as well. You can also tell that there are some white houses and a gray structure here to the right.

Using these screen reps, we then went back to our Google Earth to find any situation, any location near the airport that matched that description and luckily, we found this. Here's the yellow structure and there's multiple White Houses and there's also a gray structure nearby as well. And because of that arrangement, because of the way they're situated, that had to be the location near the airport where this footage was filmed.

So, we know the date and we also know the location of that footage. Now with that verified, we were able to put that footage to use. And so, we sent this footage to CNN's Matthew Chance and shortly after he traveled to where we geo located on a map and he was then up live to CNN creating an iconic moment when he was at the airport with Russian soldiers interacting with him and identifying that they were already so close to the capital.

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HOLMES: Extraordinary, isn't it. And the lengths that we go to, to make sure it's right before you see it.

I'm Michael Holmes in Lviv, Ukraine. There will be much more ahead on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Let's go to my friend Isa Soares in London for that -- Isa.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Michael. And still to come right here on CNN, as Mr. Putin pushes further into Kyiv, the West rages economic war on Russia isolating the country from banking, to sports, to airlines. The economic fallout next with Anna Stewart.

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SOARES: The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to rattle stock markets right around the world with the volatility, as well as some uncertainty on the ground sending oil prices surging. On Monday, Brent crude closed above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2014. And in the coming weeks the national average price for gasoline is expected to hit $4 in the U.S. The price of diesel already hit that mark this weekend for the first time in nearly eight years.

Now, another oil giant is cutting ties with Russia. Shell says it plans to exit with its equity partnership with Gazprom. That follows an announcement from BP they will offload, if you remember, is nearly 20 percent shareholding in Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft.

And as a growing list of companies cut business ties with Russia, crushing Western sanctions of course slamming the country's economy. President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the sanctions calling it the West, quote, an empire of lies.

Meanwhile, the entertainment industry is also taking action following Russia's invasion. CNN's sister company Warner Brothers says it will be pausing the release of the film "The Batman" in Russia over the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Netflix says it doesn't plan to add state run channels through its Russian service because of the unfolding situation. And Disney is pausing the release of the theatrical films in Russia. Hollywood's largest movie studio cited a, quote, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis.

CNN's Anna Stewart is joining me now in London to talk more about Russia's economic turmoil. And really this is very widespread. It's from airlines to banks to financials. Give us a sense of what you're seeing, how quickly this is escalating for Russia economically.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well, you can actually see it on the streets. Because you're already seeing huge outside banks. People want to withdraw their savings. Yesterday the ruble crashed by more than 30 percent against the dollar. Its value has practically halved since the beginning of the year. So, life for all Russians of all walks of life has gotten more expensive. As you say, with airlines that were circulating increasingly isolated, because the number of airlines particularly in Europe, have canceled all flights to Moscow and Russia in retaliation has closed their air space in about 38 different nations.

So, it's not just the people, everyday people, it's also the oligarchs feeling the pinch here. Of course, loads of them have been now sanctioned by the EU, by the U.S., by the U.K. and other Western allies. And more were added to the EU's list yesterday. So, on that list now the president spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, also Igor Sechin, who is the CEO of the big giant there. Mikhail Fridman was a very interesting one. The founder of Alfa Group, also the chairman of the biggest private bank in Russia, which has been sanctioned. Added to the list yesterday he publicly called for an end to the bloodshed. He was born in Ukraine. His family is in Ukraine. The pressure on President Putin now looking at people are feeling the economic pinch is huge.

SOARES: It really is about isolating Russia, isolating Putin making Russia an international outcast. Talk to us a bit more about the corporate side of things because interesting how quickly companies now stepping up here.

STEWART: They really are. And you mentioned lots of the energy giants who decided to shed assets, cut ties and so on. Some companies are being forced by sanctions to do this. Some are choosing to do it on themselves or it's a combination of pressure from the government and their boards.

Very interesting when we're looking at Russian state media and what social media giants are doing to restrict what can be seen in terms of misinformation. Because this battle is being fought both in Ukraine but also in the spaces of the economy and misinformation. So, restricting some of that is really critical.

SOARES: The down side, of course, is that Russians at home won't be able to see what is happening --

STEWART: The fear of retaliations.

SOARES: -- on the ground in Ukraine and that's the reality that we want them to see. Anna Stewart, appreciate it. Thank you very much, Anna.

Well, the sports world is also cracking down on Russia. We've just learned the country has been stripped of hosting the men's volleyball world championship scheduled for August as well as September. World tech Bondo has also stripped the Russian president of an honorary black belt given to him in 2013.

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The International Olympic committee recommends both Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned from all international sports.

Some organizations are doing just that. Both FIFA and UEFA have suspended the Russian national football team and professional clubs from competition saying they stand in full solidarity with Ukraine. Russian and Belarusian athletes have also been suspended from competing with International Ice Hockey Federation, World Rugby and the International Skating Union. All of those groups condemning the violence in Ukraine brought on, of course, by Russia.

A shipment of Starlink user terminals has arrived in Ukraine. The small antennas allow customers to access SpaceX's satellite-based internet service providing a backstop for Ukrainians who are seeing their service disturbed by the ongoing Russian invasion. The country had the Vice Prime Minister to think really after he tweeted to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, it's CEO. It took less than a day to reply and confirmed the service was up and running. He also says more terminals are on their way.

Thank you very much for joining us here on CNN. I'm Isa Soares in London. Our breaking news coverage of the Russian invasion in Ukraine continues on "NEW DAY" with Brianna Keilar and John Berman. You are watching CNN.

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