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White House Announces New Sanctions on Russian Oligarchs; Kira Rudik, Ukrainian Parliament Member, Discusses Russian Invasion; James Elder, UNICEF Spokesman, Discusses Humanitarian Crisis in Ukraine Amid Russian Invasion. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 03, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: The president announcing new sanctions but also discussing how to, I guess, blunt the impact of these sanctions on the U.S.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, just a refresher on who it is that the president and the United States is sanctioning today. It's seven of these Russian oligarchs and their family members.

They are also adding Dmitry Peskov to that list. That is President Putin's spokesperson that you so often see on television defending him, talking about that. He is also being sanctioned.

One of those Russian oligarchs being added to this list today is the one who had that mega yacht that was seized by German authorities in recent days. His name is now on this list.

And when the president was talking about banning travel, that comes to the State Department. And they are imposing these visa restrictions on about 47 of these Russian oligarchs, their family members, their close associates as well/

And so those are the steps that President Biden was taking. They are highlighting that they are trying to squeeze Putin by squeezing his inner circle.

But I think what you were talking about there, Victor, when the president is talking about blunting the impact of sanctions, that is something we've also been discussing here at the White House, which is this idea of banning Russian oil imports here in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked by Jessica Dean just a short while ago and she said she was all for it, ban them immediately.

And the White House has been much cooler on the idea. They say it is on the table, and it's not something that they are prepared to announce yet.

And when we asked if they're moving closer to that idea, they said they don't have an assessment of it so far. Because of course, it's something they have to talk about in coordination behind the scenes. It's not something that they are announcing yet.

And the president there was saying that, really, the intent of the actions that the United States is taking against Russia is to maximize the pain that they feel.

But minimize the pain that allies and people here in the United States feel as a result of those sanctions.

Because obviously, one concern is that if you affect the energy market, and that it's going to drive gas prices up higher than they already are.

So that is where things stand today as President Biden is leading off this cabinet meeting by focusing on this Russian invasion of Ukraine.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Yes, just another example of the fallout from war, that it affects every corner of the globe in one way or another.

Alex, you're in Kyiv for us tonight.

I know you can't see the map that we're standing in front of. But the red signifies on here the -- how Russian troops are encroaching, basically, on the capital of Kyiv.

And so what's the feeling there on the ground?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: You know, the Russians have not done so well in the past week. This invasion has been under way for a week, and you know, they have now taken a significant city in the south, Kherson.

But they're not where they wanted to be when it comes to, say, the capital, Kyiv. There were some predictions that they would be able to take it in 24 to 48 hours.

So there was a sense that the Russians aren't doing well, that they're getting, you know, stiff resistance in the Ukrainians. And that is true.

But we are being cautioned by the Pentagon and others in NATO that there's so much more that the Russians still can do.

We heard from the Pentagon earlier today that they have now -- that Russian has now 90 percent of their preinvasion combat capabilities inside Ukraine.

But at the same time, this senior U.S. defense official said there's much, much more that they still have the ability to do.

We've been tracking very closely this convoy that has been making its way down from Belarus towards the capital of Kyiv, 40 miles long, very visible from space. We've seen it in satellite imagery. It has artillery. It has armored

vehicles. It has trucks. It has troops.

And so, there was -- there's a lot of concern about what that convoy is going to do, how it's going to help encircle the capital.

But we have also seen it come to a stop, according to, again, the Pentagon and other NATO allies.

They have faced some of that Ukrainian resistance. They have also had logistical problems. They haven't been able to fuel their vehicles. They haven't been able to feed their troops.

But again, the Pentagon cautioning that they could just be regrouping, reassessing, taking a break, and that that -- the mission of that convoy is far from over.

So, this is looking like it's not going to be a blitzkrieg. It's not going to go fast. That it is going to be a slow bleed.

Of course, President Biden is hoping that the longer this goes on, the more that President Putin is going to feel that pressure. And over time, that he's going to get pressure from people well beyond the Kremlin.

I think what's really interesting about these sanctions is, these are not necessarily people who are in Putin's inner circle. It goes well beyond that. It goes to people who have nothing to do with this invasion into Ukraine and their children.

President Biden, the European Union, the U.S. really putting the squeeze on all facets -- on all -- on much of the top echelon of Russian society.

But as you were just indicating, Alisyn, you know, people, top to bottom, are going to feel this squeeze.

[14:35:03]

The everyday Russians on the street, Russian civilians are also going to feel this. We've seen the ruble drop precipitously, the stock market crash, interest rates spiking.

So you know, just because these oligarchs are going to feel a bit of a pinch, there's going to be a lot of pain on the streets of Russia -- Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: General, if not to put planes in the sky, to enforce a no- fly zone, there was a member of the Ukrainian parliament on today who asked why not an Iron Dome similar to what Israel has funded by the U.S. that intercepts these attacks from the sky.

One, would that be effective against what we're seeing from the Russians? And, two, is there any time to enact a system like that?

BRIG. GEN. PETER ZWACK, U.S. ARMY, RETIRED: First, they have to -- Iron Dome needs to be brought in, an Israeli system.

They would -- to array something like that, that would have to come from the borders of the country, the free countries, will be the -- how I would say it, in western Ukraine.

They would need to be set up and in place. They are visible in places that would be relatively safe from Russian air power. Russians do have reach.

What I think is extremely important is that there are several hundred stingers that have been introduced that have been given to the Ukrainian military in the last few hours.

And I've got to believe there are also a lot of the ex-Soviet type of Samz (ph) there.

And those are going to be critical in the defense, in an urban fight, in areas where the Ukrainians actually have concentrations.

And so the Iron Dome is, I think, aspirational. It would take time. It would be a target.

But the stingers are in there that can get the low-flying airplanes, the Russian airplanes that are flying low, trying to hit concentrations.

One other thing I heard about that troop column. I want to try to visualize something, as an old intelligence soldier, just trying to -- I think whatever's going on in that convoy, those Russian troops are miserable.

They've been out there for four days now, inching. For sure now, you've got Ukrainian, whether small units, left-behind units, beginning of partisan small arms, low-caliber anti-tank, just the ability to chop up.

They're cold out there. Where are they sleeping? In their vehicles? This is a miserable scene.

Which, in my mind, leads to these stories we're beginning to hear where Russian troops in a number of places are flatly saying, no, why are we doing this?

That may trickle up to leadership. I don't know.

But what the wind-up on Kyiv is extraordinarily slow and extraordinarily disjointed, and clumsy, but still lethal.

Maybe that clumsiness makes it dangerous, because then they just start firing -- firing en masse and trying to bludgeon their way. And then it becomes an even more ghastly situation.

CAMEROTA: General, Kaitlan, Alex, thank you all very much for all the latest information.

All right, let's go back to Anderson Cooper there on the ground for us in Lviv.

Anderson?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Alisyn, the Ukraine's major cities are enduring a more ruthless shift as we have been showing in strategy by Vladimir Putin's forces.

New video shows the aftermath of horrific air strikes on residential areas north of Kyiv. Residential areas. Ukrainian emergency services now saying 33 people have died in this attack.

Joining me now from Kyiv, Ukrainian parliament member, Kira Rudik.

Kira, it's a week into the invasion. You've decided now, I know, to arm yourself and fight for the country.

First of all, how are you doing? What have you been seeing around you?

KIRA RUDIK, MEMBER, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT: Well, we have seen, first of all, lots of air strikes. And the amount of them has increased.

Yesterday, the day a strike and missile hit right near the house where I'm located right now. And the wave was so strong that I fall down the chair. And it was pretty unpleasant.

However, what makes me really glad is that we are still giving Putin a really good fight. As citizens of Kyiv, we are preparing for siege. We understand that his next step would probably be to siege the city.

And that's why we are creating the storage of the supplies, of food, of water, phone batteries, chargers, et cetera, so we would be able to fight him here if necessary.

[14:40:03]

And what we see right now is that every time that there's peaceful negotiation attempt, that means that will be more and more missiles going into Ukrainian cities.

Because when Putin says the word "peace," you need to arm yourself and march forward because it exactly means the opposite. It means war.

We keep asking all our international partners for the no-fly zone. We do understand that this is a hard thing to do.

But as a politician and member of parliament, I know that the rules are created by the people, and people can bend these rules.

Putin has no rules at all. He doesn't care if he's called a war criminal. He doesn't care if he uses a forbidden weaponry.

He doesn't really care what happens just in Kyiv when 63 people were killed just with one shot.

So, it's either lives will start figuring out what we have to do to be able to protect us from the sky, or there will be a very hard-fought brave Ukrainian army to find the troops on the ground back.

Because this is what we can do.

COOPER: Do you --

RUDIK: We don't expect anybody to fight on Ukrainian soil, but we expect some help from the air.

COOPER: Do you have any doubt that, even if Russian troops occupy Kyiv, that there would be a prolonged and sustained guerilla fight against an occupying army in the capital city?

RUDIK: Of course. We have called it resistance troops. We are getting ready. We know there are so many people who are right now in Kyiv who are getting ready exactly for this scenario.

We are not giving up our capital without fight. And we are not giving it up with the fight as well.

We're getting ready to oppose Russian troops because we have seen what they are capable of when we were fighting them for the last eight years on the east in Donbass.

So that's why I know Ukrainian men or women, that's why we are going to fight them.

COOPER: I want to get your reaction to what Ukrainian President Zelensky just said about Vladimir Putin.

I want to play this for our view and for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: It's not about, I want to talk with Putin. I think I have to talk with Putin. The world has to talk with Putin. Because there are no other ways to stop this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Do you agree that a direct dialogue with Putin is the only way to stop this?

RUDIK: No, I do not agree with that. I don't think that direct dialogue with Putin would lead to anywhere.

It's just an illusion that we all have that you can talk to the cheater, and he will change his mind.

He was very clear. He's rebuilding the Russian empire. He was very clear he's rebuilding the Soviet Union. So, what exactly are we going to tell him to change his mind?

I don't think that it could be one President Zelensky talking to Putin. It needs to be like a long table, the one that Putin loves so much, where all the nations of the world, the leaders of the nations, are sitting and he's sitting on the opposite side.

That, I call talk, because that could be a discussion that could at least make him respect the results.

Him talking to President Zelensky would not lead to any conclusion. It will be just another round of peaceful negotiations.

And though I support president right now in all his efforts, this, I don't think is a good idea.

COOPER: Kira Rudik, I appreciate your time. I wish you well.

Thank you.

RUDIK: Thank you so much for having me.

COOPER: Alisyn and Victor, there are so many people in all walks of life who are trying to fight this however they can. Those who can't take up arms are collecting supplies or making weapons to send to others.

I've never seen a country that is as unified as this one in the face of an invasion.

BLACKWELL: We've seen people, even if they don't have weapons, crowds will just stand in the street to try to block Russian vehicles from facilities.

Anderson Cooper, thank you.

[14:45:35]

CAMEROTA: So, a week ago, Ukrainians were going about their normal lives, but a million of them have now fled their homes and become refugees. The humanitarian crisis, next.

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BLACKWELL: One million Ukrainians have left their homes to find safety. That's today's estimate of how many people are in neighboring countries to escape the attacks of the Russian army. One million in one week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So difficult. I cannot tell you how difficult this feeling -- feelings that you lose your life, you know, and to not know what to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Hospitals, homes, schools have been destroyed by the ongoing missiles and artillery strikes and critical resources obliterated in what's being called the slow annihilation of Ukraine.

[14:50:07] The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Russia has bombed residential apartment buildings. It has bombed sacred burial grounds. It has shelled orphanages and orphanages and hospitals. Russia has spurred mass hunger and caused so many to flee their homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining me with more on the humanitarian crisis is James Elder, a spokesman for UNICEF.

James, thank you for being with me.

The estimate from your organization is that half of those -- half of the million -- caught up in this desperate wave are children.

When you see the video of holes in schools and the broken windows in apartment buildings, hospitals damaged, what goes through your mind?

JAMES ELDER, SPOKESMAN, UNICEF: The whole thing is harrowing, Charles (sic). Just listening to that lady cry as she spoke.

As you know, I'm in Ukraine. And people are very willing to speak. But it's very hard to get a conversation where there aren't tears very quickly.

Everyone has been separated, fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, it is a sea of sorrow, a sea of stress.

Half a million children in a week is unprecedented in swiftness and scale.

And at a children's hospital today, in an ICU unit, there are children who cannot leave. There are children who are too tied to drips and so on.

This is an unmitigated disaster that will only end when the missiles stop and there's peace.

BLACKWELL: The families who can leave, they leave with whatever they can carry, right? You can't order a move. You're carrying whatever clothes, documents, food for the journey, the necessities.

When they get to Romania, when they get to Hungary, Poland, the rest, what is waiting for them there?

ELDER: Well, I think, on one hand, what's been good to see from those nations is open-heartedness, open hands.

And that's critical in terms of the trauma these children are going through, a nation of children, starting to understand what conflict looks like. It's awful. Also then, of course, major support organizations, like UNICEF. We're

fortunate our global supply hub is in Copenhagen. And 48 hours by truck, bang, we have got here emergency medical supplies, water, sanitation, child protection experts.

We're talking very specific things, too, here, Charles (sic), like obstetrics kids. Because moms are having babies in bunkers and so on. So an enormous amount of supplies.

But so long as this conflict continues from city to city, those needs of moms and dads and children are being outstripped by the demands.

BLACKWELL: James, it's Victor, by the way. You spoke with Charles a couple of minutes ago. It's fine. But my name is Victor.

So of the families you said that you saw at this children's hospital. Of course, there's poverty in Ukraine like there's in every other country.

And families with children, disproportionately, have more experience of poverty at a deeper level.

What about those families that cannot leave? What do you offer them?

ELDER: Victor, it's a great question. And I would be amiss to say we have an answer.

The big thing you are alluding to now is those families can't leave either because of income or they don't have passports. A lot of people don't have passports. Or they can't believe because they're stuck in areas of conflict.

It's something UNICEF called for in the first minute of this conflict, as we do in Afghanistan or to Syria.

We need humanitarian spaces to reach people and so people can get out, humanitarian corridors. And we need the most basics, heavy missiles and weaponry to stop so civilian areas aren't targeted.

We have children being killed in the last couple of days, children being injured. That will happen again, heaven forbid, overnight, if these bombardments continue.

Humanitarian corridors, as part of humanitarian law, are a very basic fundamental.

And organizations like UNICEF need to get to those children just to get them to a safer place, even if that safer place remains in Ukraine.

BLACKWELL: So you mentioned those humanitarian corridors. And a Ukrainian official tweeted that, of the topics on the table during talks today, they were able to come to an agreement to establish those humanitarian corridors where evacuees, refugees, can leave safely.

We had an official or analyst at the top of the show who said, "Don't trust Putin as far as you can throw him."

Do you trust that, even after these are set up, that your people who are there helping the Ukrainians who are escaping the violence will be safe?

[14:55:09]

ELDER: I trust my United Nations and UNICEF security officials. I trust when they do their assessments and say, we go in, we get these emergency medical supplies or water across these lines of conflict.

Those people I trust. And I've been able to for many years in many places. I simply have to.

Those political decisions are just so far out of our reach as humanitarians.

Humanitarians need safe spaces to work as well. And I have faith in those security people. And once they say it's time to go in, then we have to go in.

As you and your viewers have seen, we have children holed up in bunkers, little girls who are in bunkers with rats, and children who aren't in bunkers as well, who don't have the safety of a bunker.

So when our security say their assessment is we can go in, that's what we'll do.

BLACKWELL: It's awful. I mean, they're in train stations, in basements that they're calling bomb shelters, but really aren't fortified to protect them.

James Elder, with UNICEF, thank you so much.

Now if you are looking for ways to help the humanitarian efforts, go to CNN.com/impact.

CAMEROTA: So officials are warning that Putin is shifting his strategy and now launching more direct attacks on key Ukrainian cities and targeting civilian areas. We're live in Ukraine with the latest.

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