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Kherson Falls to Russia; Russian Forces Encircle Mariupol; Refugees Forced to Flee Ukraine; EU Issues New Sanctions; Wesley Clark is Interviewed about the Russian Attack. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 03, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:21]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Mariupol under siege. Russian forces closing in on another major Ukrainian city after taking control of Kherson.

Good morning. I'm Erica Hill in New York.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto, reporting from Lviv, Ukraine.

Right now, just a dire situation in Mariupol. The deputy mayor there told CNN they have no power, water, or heat as Russian forces surround the city.

In Kherson, the first major city to fall under Russian control, the mayor is now urging his people to follow orders from the Russian forces there. Citizens of that city tell our reporters it is, quote, a humanitarian disaster.

And new video this morning shows massive explosions in the capital city of Kyiv. A fireball erupting and lighting up the night sky.

And take a look at this. These are Russian military strikes that slammed into a school in Kharkiv. Officials say at least 34 civilians were killed yesterday as Russian forces pounded that city.

And this morning, new images of an oil depot on fire after the area was shelled. Russia intensifying its air war as new satellite images out of the northern city of Chernihiv show homes on fire, buildings demolished, large bomb craters.

All of this leading to an astronomical humanitarian crisis. At least one million Ukrainians, one million, have fled their country since the start of the invasion just seven days ago. The U.N. says more than 750 civilians have died.

This is what the Pentagon is saying what Russia intends, a slow annihilation of this country.

We're covering every angle of this breaking story as only CNN can. Our reporters and correspondents here throughout Ukraine, they're in Russia, they're in Belgium at NATO headquarters, as well as back home.

Let's begin this morning with CNN's senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt.

Alex, Kherson is the first major city in Ukraine to fall under Russian control. We're hearing from people on the ground there, a severe lack of food and medicine. What's the latest that officials there are saying, because they're saying the Russians have attempted at least to take over government control.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Right. They're saying that armed fighters have taken over the administration building. That's according to the mayor and another senior official from Kherson. And the mayor also saying that citizens should follow the orders of these fighters who are there. And this is all reminiscent of Crimea in 2014 when the so-called little green men took over that and annexed the peninsula.

So, what we're seeing is, you know, this city just north of the Crimean peninsula now appears to be under Russian control. The ministry of defense in the U.K. says that the situation still is quite unclear. But the mayor is saying that there are no Ukrainian forces that are in that city.

Now, the citizens who we have heard from, as you mentioned, Jim, they say that a humanitarian catastrophe is underway. They say that there is widespread looting by Russian troops. We've also seen video of residents of Kherson going up to these Russian troops and Russian vehicles, waving Ukrainian flags. Some of that fierce resistance from civilians that we have seen all across this country.

Now, why is Kherson so critical? Because it is in the south. It is near Odessa. So this is an indication that the Russians may be trying to move to the west, toward Odessa, which, of course, is that critical port city on the Black Sea.

At the same time, we are also hearing that Russian forces and pro- Russian separatist forces are trying to surround the other southern major city of Mariupol, which is on the Sea of Azov. That, if they took that, that would help President Putin create this land bridge that would connect Crimea with western Russia. So major moves by Russia on Ukraine's southern flank.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Seems to be the intent to take over the country, or much of it.

Alex Marquardt, in Kyiv, thanks so much.

Also this morning, the mayor of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, he's warning of a near humanitarian catastrophe there as well. This after more than 24 hours straight of shelling by Russian forces, including of civilian areas there.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now.

[09:05:00]

Barbara, we would like to talk about, and we have seen, tremendous defiance and resistance from Ukrainian forces. But when you look at the map, Russian forces are advancing, particularly in the southern part of the country. What is the Pentagon view of the progress of the Russian invasion?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are keeping a very sharp eye on this entire southern flank, as you say, Jim, because here seems to be the one area where the Russians are making clear progress. One of the big questions is, how are they doing that? One of the theories is, look at nearby Crimea. The Russians have been there since 2014. Very well established in that area. And they may have the supply lines, the capabilities in Crimea they can readily move not too far away to help support their troops that are engaging in this, you know, southern flank offensive, if you think of it that way.

Mariupol is a place where the U.S. also watching so carefully about the disaster unfolding there. Earlier this morning, CNN talked to the deputy mayor and got his views about what is happening on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY MAYOR SERGEI ORLOV, MARIUPOL, UKRAINE: Their style of war is to make humanitarian increases. For example, we do not have electricity in whole city. We do not have water supply. We do not have sanitary system. And we do not have heating. Only natural gas supplyment is left. And it continues for one day and a half.

So, we have continuous shelling for 26 hours. Twenty-six hours they are destroying our city. So, from all the weapons, from artillery, from airplane, bombing, from tactical rockets, from multiple launch rocket system. So situation is very bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Twenty-six hours of continuous shelling by Russian forces. This is now what is of such dire and immediate concern. The Russian tactic perhaps switching here to heavier weapons, heavier bombardment, continuous bombardment. And the concern that this is going to start happening, if it's not already, in other parts of Ukraine. The Russians going for the most dire, dark, heavy-handed combat tactics that they have. A lot of concern about how long the Ukrainian people will be able to hold out.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, with no apparent concern for civilian lives and possible intent to create terror among civilians.

Barbara Starr, at the Pentagon, thank you. To that point, we do have some disturbing, new videos coming in from

the streets of Ukraine. This from the city of Chernihiv, just to the northeast of the capital Kyiv. This is dash cam -- camera capturing massive explosions.

Have a watch.

To be clear, that's a civilian area. We do know an oil depot, bridges, factories have also been destroyed by that bombardment in the city.

And then in Kyiv, the capital, new video shows the damage from a powerful blast. This one near the central railway station. Remember, that's a place a lot of folks trying to flee the country have been using to get out. The explosion hit the Povnicha (ph) train station just 700 feet from Kyiv's main central station. Video, which we should note has been verified by CNN geolocation timing shows the damaged platform there. Ukrainian officials say that thousands of women and children were being evacuated from that station when that strike occurred. A major heating pipeline also damaged in the attack.

Well, the train station attack underscores what is an increasingly perilous journey for refugees as they flee in droves from Ukraine for safety. The U.N. says that just one week since the start of the invasion, more than a million people have left this country. For perspective, it took three months for 1 million Syrians to leave that country in 2013. Just one week, a million people.

CNN's Scott McLean joins me now.

Scott, so most of these folks trying to go east. They're trying to go to Poland, to Hungary, to the Czech Republic. I wonder, are those countries prepared to receive and are they willing to receive all these people?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Willing, yes. It is difficult to imagine any country on earth, though, being able to absorb this kind of influx so, so quickly. I mean we're talking about a million people, and, as you said, they're only going, by and large, to a handful of countries. So, Czech Republic, for instance, doesn't even border Ukraine, and it's just declared a state of emergency in order to deal with the influx. The other problem is they don't know how many more they will be and how long they will stay. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees says that there could be millions more if the fighting doesn't actually stop.

If there's good news, and, trust me, there is not much, is that it seems like it's getting much, much easier for people to get out of the country.

[09:10:04]

We're not seeing the long line-ups at borders that we were seeing early on. I mean it might still take you a couple of hours to get through by car, but if you're going by foot, probably not nearly as long. And so that is undoubtedly good news. At the train station here in Lviv, as well, things are also getting

more streamlined, though, obviously, there's still a steady stream of people. It is by and large women and children. Most of the foreigners, from what we could tell, have been cleared out already.

I did spot one man in line yesterday and he caught my eye, obviously, because there are so few of them, and I asked him why he was there. He's a Ukrainian citizen, of fighting age, and he wasn't there to try to get on the train, he was there just to spend a little bit more time with his wife and daughter that he was leaving behind just to really soak up every last moment. And they had an emotional moment. He walked them right up to the door of the train. I mean it's emotional, obviously, because he doesn't know when he's going to see them again.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCLEAN: Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is war. And for me it's better that they will be safe. And that's why I have another feeling because I have to understand that they are in safety.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It is very difficult. I don't feel any emotions. I hope I will come back. I don't think it is going to be for a long time. I think everything is going to be fine. We will win, I believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: And that chant that you heard there at the end in Ukrainian says, glory to Ukraine, glory to heroes. That man, by the way, this morning his plan was to go and enlist in the military, just this morning. He's planning to stay in Lviv and then be deployed from here.

SCIUTTO: You know, I saw one of these tearful good-byes on the street here this morning in Lviv. I saw a man saying good-bye to his family in tears as well. And you have to imagine it's being duplicated many hundreds, thousands of times over.

Scott McLean, thanks so much.

MCLEAN: You bet.

SCIUTTO: Well, the European Union is slamming new sanctions against Belarus for its involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. And many other nations taking steps to make Russian oligarchs, these are the very wealthy Russians, very often close to Vladimir Putin, feel the pain of this invasion directly. In France, authorities have seized a yacht owned by Igor Sechin. He is the CEO of the Russian oil company Rosneft. In Germany, officials have seized a $600 million yacht belonging to a billionaire linked to Vladimir Putin.

All of this as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed to Brussels this hour to meet with EU officials and NATO allies. CNN's Natasha Bertrand is live in Brussels at the EU headquarters

there.

What are they discussing? Is it more economic sanctions? Are they discussing further military support to Ukraine? Do we expect announcements from these meetings?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, it's a little of both, Jim. It's economic penalties and, of course, it's more lethal assistance to Ukraine to try to fend off this Russian onslaught here. But the EU is taking pretty significant steps, especially in recent days, to try to hold these oligarchs accountable and hold them -- you know, look after their -- the fact that they've been sanctioned, kind of enforce that. And what they've done is they've actually seized two Russian yachts that are owned by major oligarchs that includes the Amore Vero, which is owned by Igor Sechin, who's the CEO of Rosneft. He's a very, very close Putin ally. It's worth about $120 million. And that was seized by France. And then also seized by Germany is a yacht owned by Alisher Usmanov, who's a Putin-linked billionaire as well, worth about $600 million. So, the EU has really stepped up here to try to seize these assets by these oligarchs. Something that President Biden, of course, said in recent days would be a priority for the United States as well.

The Justice Department actually just announced an initiative called klepto-capture, in which they would try to hunt down these assets owned by these Russian oligarchs to try to essentially pressure them into putting pressure in turn on the Kremlin to reassess their decisions here, and to reassess their strategies when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

But what we expect to see from Antony Blinken was, when he's here in Brussels, is more coordination with EU foreign ministers, with NATO allies in terms of, how do we get this equipment into Ukraine given the contested air space? How is that going to be coordinated? There are so many member states now within the EU that want to send help, that want to send humanitarian assistance and more lethal equipment, including anti-tank missiles and stinger missiles that are anti-air defense systems.

And the question now is, how is that all going to get into the country given how difficult it is right now in terms of, you know, the war that we're seeing on the ground?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, remarkable the U.S. says that they have been able to get hundreds of stinger missiles in just in the last several days to the Ukrainian military.

Natasha Bertrand, there at EU headquarters in Brussels, thanks very much.

Folks, this is what a war looks like in Europe. Refugees, attacks on cities, civilian deaths.

[09:15:01]

That's what we're witnessing here.

Coming up, I'm going to speak to the former NATO commander, General Wesley Clark, about Russian's strategy. Can they win? What will the cost be? Is there a way for Ukraine to fight back?

Plus, Putin doubles down on just an insane justification for war, claiming that he is fighting Nazis here. But Ukrainian Jews who survived the Holocaust themselves have a message for him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Putin, I hope you die! Leave us alone, you bastard! We want peace! It hurts!

CROWD: We want peace!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[09:20:09]

SCIUTTO: This morning, Russia's slower than expected advance, as well as its heavy losses here in Ukraine, is forcing a strategic shift by Russia. A NATO military official tells CNN that Russian forces are now apparently less focused on encircling Ukrainian cities and instead concentrating on just getting in, forcing their way in.

HILL: U.S. and other western officials also warning Russia will increasingly hit civilian targets and that Russia is also seeking a slow annihilation of the Ukrainian military.

Joining us now to discuss, retired Army General Wesley Clark, who, of course, is also former NATO supreme allied commander.

General, good to see you, as always.

I want to pick up on that new reporting about this shift in tactic from the Russians. That it's less about taking over and more about getting in.

What does that change on the ground for the Ukrainians?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That means that the forces are going to be fed in from the south. They're going to occupy cities where they can. They're going to turn those cities over to what you would consider traitors among the Ukrainians. These are Ukrainians who would have previously been, let's say, politically aligned with Russia. And they're going to continue to move their forces north. They're going to seek to destroy the Ukrainian forces either in the field or attempt to track them in the cities and then annihilate them there when they run short and out of ammunition.

Right now, the battlefield is relatively open. There are big spaces where there are no Russian forces. As the Ukrainians told us in advance, they said, well, they don't have enough forces to occupy the whole country. Not immediately. But, as they continue to reinforce Russian forces, pin (ph) Ukrainian forces in the cities, then eventually this Ukrainian defensive force is going to be ground down. And that looks like to be the strategy for force on force.

Meanwhile, what they're doing is putting the humanitarian pressure on the (INAUDIBLE) and they're going to call on Zelensky to surrender.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

General Clark, the U.S. has gotten in hundreds of stinger missiles, antiaircraft missiles in the last couple of days. We saw Germany pledge 2,700 additional man pads as they're known, shoulder-fired missiles.

Are -- is the U.S., is NATO and the west getting enough weapons in? Are these weapons that are getting in making a difference? If not, what more needs to come in?

CLARK: Well, certainly the weapons will make a difference when they get in. Some of the first shipments have arrived. There's lots more on the way. There are staging grounds. There's lots of development going on of how to get these weapons in. But, of course, the Russians ultimately will try to choke off these resupply lines.

And at that point, it will close down. And as it closes down, the humanitarian crisis will escalate in the cities. So, Putin's failed his effort to run what we call a kudamon (ph) and seize the cities first off, put in his stooge puppet leader and declare Ukraine as his. So he's got a slower strangulation strategy.

NATO is going to have to work it day by day to sustain the Ukrainian forces as best we can in field. They've got to fight. They've got to split their forces, John. They can't all just defend cities and be isolated in cities. They've got to defend the cities with the less mobile forces, the less well-trained forces, the reserve forces. They've got to constitute mobile reserves and they've got to strike the Russian forces when they maneuver in the field or when they try to mass against a city. Got to cut the Russian supply lines as they go deeper into Ukraine.

So this battle is a long way from over, provided we can continue to provide replenishment to the weapons to the Ukrainians.

HILL: In terms of those replenishments, just give us a sense if you could too as to how the Ukrainian military is actually holding up on the ground there, given the picture that you're painting, given what the last six days or so have been like, how are they doing? Do they have, in terms of manpower even, do they have what they need?

CLARK: Well, they're doing -- they're doing brilliantly against a superior force. That's the answer. I think the Russians have been totally shocked at how well the Ukrainians have done.

In 2014, there were maybe 10,000 well trained Ukrainian troops. They had demobilized their force. They were a member of Partnership for Peace. They had sent a couple of brigades to work with the United States in Afghanistan. So they learned our tactics. They wanted to be part of NATO even then. So, in the succeeding eight years, more and more have been trained, western trained methodologies set in.

[09:25:06]

And, of course, they're totally motivated to protect their homeland against the Russian invaders.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CLARK: So, on a man for man basis, one Ukrainian defender worth two, three, four Russian soldiers at this point. They're protecting their forces. They're doing the best they can. But this is also mobile warfare. And so the Ukrainians have not practiced maneuvering these large forces, command and control over large areas and they don't have the air support that they need to be able to support the maneuver of these forces.

SCIUTTO: General Clark, before you go, I think the question on a lot of people's minds watching right now is, can Ukraine do this? Can they hold back the Russian invasion?

CLARK: It's -- it is possible provided they get sufficient support in soon enough and they blunt the Russian offensive. It's not impossible, but it's going to be very painful for the civilian population.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CLARK: So, time is of the essence. The battle is hanging in the balance right now. Traffic ability in the north around Kyiv, very tough. The Russians will increase their pressure with heavy artillery on the cities in the north. In the south, the Russians are going to maneuver. The Ukrainians have got to have the means to maneuver against those Russian forces and not be isolated in city after city.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CLARK: And that means coming in from the west, it's going to be tough. And, Jim, that's NATO's problem, to get those resupplies in.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

HILL: General Wesley Clark, always appreciate your insight and your expertise. Thanks for being with us this morning.

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