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Russian Military Ramps Up Attacks on Key Ukrainian Cities; Refugees Flee Ukraine as Russian Attacks Intensify; U.S. Imposing More Sanctions on Russia; U.N. Vote on Resolution Demanding Russia Withdraw from Ukraine; Oil Prices Surge Amid Global Supply Concerns; Growing List of Companies Cut Ties with Russia as War Rages. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 03, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This war was one man's choice and one man alone.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have one long line of people of all nationalities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Silence the guns now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want just peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I am Michael Holmes coming to you live from Lviv in Ukraine where of course we're following breaking news on the Russian invasion inching ever closer towards Ukraine's capital Kyiv.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Isa Soares in London. The U.S. president promises more sanctions on Russia as Vladimir Putin's economy suffers serious blows. We'll have the very latest for you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HOLMES: Eight days after the Russian military began its brutal siege, its march through Ukraine has been slower than expected, and there is growing fear that the Kremlin is about to intensify the onslaught. Minutes ago, Britain's defense ministry said major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol have been under siege, remain in Ukrainian hands, however. But some local leaders say their cities are already close to breaking point.

A few hours ago, a shell hit an oil depot in an air strike north of Kyiv. That's according to Ukraine state emergency service. And these satellite images from earlier this week show homes in the same city where that strike occurred, with fire damage and craters dotting the nearby fields. This is just one of the areas near the capital that is taking serious hits.

Now, on Wednesday, fighter jets screamed overhead before a jarring blast followed. This was on the northwestern edge of the capital. And just hours ago, images posted online show a large explosion southwest of Kyiv. And as for that long Russian convoy we've been reporting on trying to close in on Ukraine's seat of government, the Pentagon says it has stalled or continues to be stalled. The Ukrainian president meanwhile holed up in a bunker, he claims some Russian occupiers have given up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Our military, our border guards, our territorial defense, even ordinary farmers capture the Russian military every day. And all the captives say only one thing, they do not know why they are here. Despite the fact that there are dozens of times more of them, the morale of the enemy is constantly deteriorating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: However, Russian forces did finally take control of one key Ukrainian city, with the fall of Kherson, that's in the south of the country. Kherson marked in red on the map, we're about to show you, is strategically important for the Russian president. It is located near the Black Sea, just northwest of occupied Crimea. A former NATO commander says Vladimir Putin is eager to establish a long-wanted land corridor from Russia to the Crimean peninsula.

Now, it is unclear just how many lives have been lost in the conflict. The U.N. says at least 227 civilians have been killed so far. Ukraine's state emergency service had a much higher toll, more than 2,000 dead, but it later back tracked on that number. CNN, of course, cannot independently confirm any of those figures.

Something we do know however, 1 million people have fled Ukraine, in just one week, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Many of them trying to board trains like this one in Kharkiv, to reach neighboring countries.

For some perspective, the U.N. says it took three months for the 1 million refugees to leave Syria at the height of the war there in 2013. Here in Ukraine, it's taken just seven days to reach that total.

For more, I'm joined by James Elder, a spokesman for UNICEF who's here with me in Lviv, Ukraine. We're talking just before, and that number is so staggering, you had to ask your people about just how big it was.

JAMES ELDER, UNICEF SPOKESPERSON: Absolutely, Michael, and speed and swiftness and immense sorrow, it's unprecedented. We've never seen anything like it. A million people in seven days, that's half a million boys and girls, half a million children.

HOLMES: That was the other thing you said to me earlier, half of these are kids.

[04:05:00]

ELDER: Half of these are kids have been wrenched away from fathers who usually spent nights in bunkers, and just watched their world turned upside down. We are watching another nation, where children, there's no school, they're learning what conflict looks like. They're learning air raid signs, get out of my bed, flee to my bunker.

HOLMES: Yes, I was speaking to a mother the other day on air, it was talking about how she had to tell her children when the explosions are coming, lay down on the ground, open your mouth, cover your ears, telling a 5-year-old that. Can you imagine? Now you've been going back and forth to the border. What is latest you're hearing on there were issues there, what is it like?

ELDER: Much improved. It's taking a lot less time for people. People on foot are just getting through. There's backlog in cars, but they're in cars, not out in the freezing conditions. And again no, just every single person you speak to, just that trauma that they're dealing with. As you say, the kids in bunkers.

I spoke to a little girl two days ago who was 7 who said through her mom, that when she was in the bunker, she said there are rats. She her mother look, Sophia, yes, but there are no bombs. I mean, is just madness of what kids are starting to deal with. But there are parents who didn't want to leave, who decided the only place to be safe is out of their home country.

HOLMES: You're dealing a lot to with -- and we've talked about it -- a million refugees, that is mind boggling in eight days. The IDPs, there are a lot of them. What's happening with their situation?

ELDER: There really are. I mean, there's a lot of reception centers and refugees here where we are in Lviv. The local community is pretty staggering. I see families at the train stations saying look, you've been here for 12 hours, do you want a bed? The communities rally around, the volunteers are immense. But there's a lot of people also who don't have anywhere to go. I've spoken to a lot of people in Kyiv who have had to leave bunkers, there's just too many people for their children and they've tried to go to farmland. Then they're in farmland and there is an attack. So, in a conflict like this, they're out of options. And the only option is that they just pray the conflict stops.

HOLMES: What do you call on nations to do to help alleviate the situation? Is enough being done in. ELDER: Tolerance and fiscal support, unfortunately for an operation

like this, when you're talking about trauma of kids, emergency healthcare, women having babies in bunkers, emergency sanitation and so on, it needs funds. Countries have to back their words with fiscal support. And tolerance, these people don't want to leave. We know that migrants bring value and bring culture into a place that they want to go at least when they get across the border. Make sure there is a welcome and some supplies for them.

HOLMES: You were also telling me earlier, that you're more effective here in Lviv than perhaps Kyiv. Speak to that, the difficulty of operating in a war zone. How can you be as effective as you can be, given the limitations that war brings?

ELDER: It is a great question. One of these United Nations and UNICEF keep pushing to all authorities, we have to have humanitarian space open. And that's not the case when you've got civilians being hit. We know children are being killed. We know children are being injured. We know that we got good reports on hospitals and schools that are in the line of fire. That has to stop. Until that stops, it's extremely difficult that UNICEF can promise to go between those lines of fire. But that's our job. We've got to reach children wherever they are.

HOLMES: I also wonder, I mean, there are already some shortages. I was reading the other day one of the main storage places for insulin in this country is cut off. I mean, that's going to be a problem. What other shortages do you worry about in terms of medical supplies, food?

ELDER: Absolutely. We worry about water. Water in the east. When water gets hit, Ukrainians, they're hardy, they go to the river. If it is frozen, it is a problem. Water it everything. Because it's also about disease. Medicines, as you rightly point out, we've seen shortages. And for sure people when they leave with what they've got, they run out of money. Very hard for food. So, it's across the board. And again, you know, stop the missiles and solve the problems.

HOLMES: Yes, and we talked about the IDPs, there's a lot of them, the staggering number of people who have actually crossed borders, a million in eight days. But how much worse can it get?

ELDER: Oh, Michael, much worse. We are seeing incredibly, incredulously more people every day. So, 100,000, 150,000 a day. People don't want to leave. They're making that decision, husbands and wives are embracing and ripping apart, fathers are sitting down trying to explain to their 7-year-old this is why you're going to a country you never heard of. This is why dad is staying. None of them want to do it to a person. They want to stay, they're teachers, physios, mechanics, but they feel the only way to keep the kids safe is to go and they are still going.

HOLMES: Yes, and there will be time later to talk about this. What you're mentioning there, it is going to be a massive brain drain for this country too. That's not the immediate concern, but that going forward could well be. Got to leave it there. James Elder with UNICEF, great to have you here. Thanks for all the work that you're doing. Important, important work. ELDER: Thanks very much, Michael.

HOLMES: All right, well, America's top diplomat will soon be on his way to Brussels to meet with NATO allies, this as the Biden administration rolls out more sanctions punishing Russia for invading Ukraine.

President Joe Biden will convene his cabinet in the coming hours for a meeting that is expected to largely be about this crisis, of course. He says, quote, it is clear Russia is targeting Ukrainian civilians, but says it is too early to call them war crimes.

[04:10:02]

White House reporter Kevin Liptak joins me now from Washington to talk about this. So, Kevin, what are these new sanctions the U.S. is going to implement? Fill us in.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Michael, so these are sanctions both on Russia and very importantly on Belarus, which has been Russia's ally in this conflict, of course, allowing Russian forces to mass on their border with Ukraine and enter Ukraine from there.

Now, on Russia, the U.S. has sanctioned mostly sectors related to the defense industry. So, companies that are producing aircraft, vehicles, weapons, systems that manage warfare. And now most interestingly I think are the sanctions that the U.S. has applied on the energy sector. The U.S. is banning export into Russia of equipment that would be used for extraction of oil and gas.

Now, when you talk to U.S. officials a few weeks ago, any kind of sanctions on the energy industry were considered almost off the table completely, just given what the effect that might be on the global oil markets, on gas prices potentially here in the United States. Now you're seeing the U.S. inching sort of towards that direction and we talked to President Biden at the White House today. He was asked whether he was considering a ban on Russian oil imports and he said nothing is off the table. So, that's very interesting and it is a change from the U.S. stance, even from a week ago.

And now we're also told that the U.S. Treasury is developing additional lists of oligarchs to potentially sanction. And you heard President Biden in his State of the Union Address say that he wanted to go after what he called the ill begotten gains of these oligarchs. Things like their yachts, things like luxury apartments, things like private jets.

And we heard from the Justice Department today, they're forming a task force that would look to seize these assets in the United States. Find them and then seize them. They're calling it the "KleptoCapture" task force and it kind of brings together elements of the U.S. law enforcement community to go after those assets.

Now the big question of course is whether any of this can change the course of events in Ukraine. You are starting to hear some pessimism, even as U.S. officials say that the Russian advances have slowed, potentially stalled somewhat. We talked to one U.S. official tonight who said they expect the slow annihilation of the Ukrainian military in the days ahead. And you heard President Biden, of course, say that Russia is now targeting Ukrainian civilians. He stopped short of calling it a war crime, but certainly here in Washington, the picture of the next coming days is not a bright one -- Michael.

HOLMES: Yes, yes, absolutely. Kevin Liptak in Washington. Thanks for the update, Kevin. We'll be checking in with you.

Meanwhile, I'm Michael Holmes in Lviv. We will have much more ahead on the war here in Ukraine. But first, let's go to Isa Soares in London. Over to you, my friend.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Michael. Stock trading remains closed in Moscow, the global oil prices continue to surge. We'll have much more on the economic impact of the Russian invasion in a live report just ahead.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: We've seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs, which are banned under the Geneva Convention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: That is the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas- Greenfield, speaking at the United Nations yesterday, accusing Russia of war crimes. Putin's forces inch ever closer to Kyiv, the U.N. General Assembly voted on a resolution demanding he withdraw from Ukraine. Only four countries out of the 181 voting nations voted against, North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea and surprisingly Russia. A handful of nations abstained including China, Iran and Cuba, all of which are reliable Russian allies, of course.

Now to a flurry of diplomatic activity in Europe. Our next steps really for Ukraine, the European Commission president is meeting with Romania's president in Bucharest. This as human assists convene in Brussels to discuss how to help Ukrainian refugees. U.N. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will soon be joining them for talks. He travels to Brussels in the coming hours.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins me now live from Brussels. Good morning to you, Natasha. I want to start this hour if I may on the refugees, the plight of the refugees. We have heard from the U.N. about a million people have fled Ukraine. What is the EU doing to try to protect Ukrainian refugees?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN REPORTER: Well, they're meeting today the justice and home affairs ministers to discuss implementing a temporary protection directive throughout the entire European Union. Which would essentially grant these refugees fleeing Ukraine immediate protection inside the European Union. It would give them residence for up to three years. It would allow them to access the labor markets and education and essentially their kind of red tape that would prevent refugees from moving into the European Union and quickly getting settled there.

Now this directive is typically implemented when a refugee crisis puts an undue burden on the individual member states within the EU. As so, what this will allow them to do and they're hoping to implement this in the coming days, is kind of get all of the EU member states on the same page about expediting these refugees arrivals and getting them settled as quickly as possible.

Now we know the refugee situation is quickly escalating. And it's exponentially increasing every single day. Almost a million refugees have already fled the war. And it is putting a burden as I said on these EU member states. So, they're hoping in the next several days they're able to implement this directive. But it remains to be seen, of course, how fast this is going to be able to be implemented because the situation is just getting worse and worse every day.

[04:20:03]

Hundreds of thousands of people entering Poland, Hungary, and the system is really getting overburdened. So, in the coming hours, we expect to hear more about how this is going to be implemented. Of course, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be here in Brussels meeting with EU foreign ministers, meeting with NATO allies in the coming days. And so, they will also be discussing increased humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, as well as increased lethal weapon deliveries to that country as they fend off Russia.

SHUBERT: And I know you'll bring us the very latest, Natasha, when we hear from Secretary Blinken in the coming days. Natasha Bertrand for us in Brussels. Thanks very much, Natasha.

You are looking there at Russian anti-war protesters chanting their support for an elderly woman who was arrested in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. She is one of at least 350 demonstrators detained for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. A local monitoring group says more than 7,600 protesters have been detained in Russia since the conflict began. Anti-war rallies included about 1,200 students, faculty as well as staff members of Russia's top foreign service university who published an open letter against the war.

Adding to the anger among everyday Russians will be of course the growing economic turmoil triggered by severe Western sanctions. Seven Russian banks have now been removed from SWIFT the international banking messaging system of course. And JPMorgan now warns those sanctions by the West sharply increased the chance of a Russian default.

We are also seeing the price of oil continue to surge as we have seen the last few days, which means increased pressure on gasoline prices. Since Monday the price of crude has spiked more than 15 percent.

CNN's Anna Stewart is keeping an eye on it all and she joins me now here to discuss all the developments. Let's start, Anna, with what JPMorgan is saying, not just the default, they're talking about default, but we can be looking at more than default, were looking at depression here, economic depression for Russia.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: In terms on default, both on sovereign debt and corporate that is really no surprise as a result both of sanctions but also the fact that Russia really wants to keep capital in the country. We've seen that with capital controls. We're seeing that with the stock market being closed. Russia has essentially drawn up the drawbridge for financial connections with the world.

In terms of the economy, yes, we're looking at a really dire consequence of sanctions here. Whether that is looking at the ruble, which has lost half of its value since the beginning of the year, that will make imports more expensive, or all the companies frankly that are pulling out overnight. H&M the just latest one to say they're going to stop all their sales, few other shops.

Everyday life, just the general products and services that you expect to be able to use, Apple Pay, being able to buy Nike shoes, connections with the West are being severed. And you've got big shipping giants as well who say they will no longer take any cargo that isn't food, medicine or humanitarian aid. So that will really impact imports across the board.

And look at your screen if you're just joining us, that's where producers are bring that graphic up begin again. Really the corporate, really gives you a sense of how much that will impact Russia. But also, it's -- I know that oil and gas isn't sanctioned, Anna, but already we're seeing a lot of companies, oil companies leaving, reconsidering whether they do any investment in Russia at this point.

STEWART: Exactly, and that list that you're seeing there is getting longer and longer every day. We're struggling to keeping up with the number of corporates pulling out. Some of the first were the energy companies, BP, Shell, Equinor all canceling various projects, all pulling out of the country and that's not helping oil prices. And if we show you those, we are looking at once again another day of multi- year record highs. I believe Brent at $118 a barrel.

What is fascinating is that is despite the fact that oil and gas in Russia is not currently subject to sanctions. But it almost being self-sanctioned because buyers don't want Russian oil right now. It's trading at an $18 discount to Brent. And that's as a result of tankers feeling unsafe to ship through the Black Sea. And it's due to all the big corporates pulling out and the fear that sanctions could be to come and President Biden hinted it's on the table.

SOARES: He has hinted. And I know you'll keep an eye on that for us. Anna Stewart there, thanks very much, Anna.

Now coming up, the Russian attacks are ramping up, but Ukrainians remain defiant. We'll take you to Lviv, next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: When history of this era is written, Ukraine will have left Russia weaker, and the rest of the world stronger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is speaking in Moscow. We are monitoring that. We will bring you any noteworthy comments out of that as soon as we get them. We are following it for you.

I'm Michael Holmes live in Lviv, Ukraine. And we continue to follow the breaking news of Russia's intensifying attacks as its invasion of Ukraine stretches into an eighth day. Russian forces inching closer to the capital Kyiv. Satellite images showing destruction about 50 miles or 80 kilometers away now. New explosions rocking the Ukrainian capital overnight. The sky over southwestern Kyiv lighting up earlier on.

Good U.S. officials warn Moscow is shifting to a new strategy of what they call slow annihilation that could see more civilians targeted. But Ukrainians remain defiant, protesters in Mariupol blocking a Russian military convoy on Tuesday. The lead vehicle was able to inch forward until the protesters eventually moved out of the way. We continue to see that kind of resistance despite the increasingly fierce Russian attacks. But as Matthew Chance reports, the onslaught is taking an ever-growing toll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russia's assault on Ukraine continues without mercy. This is what's left of a university in Kharkiv, the country's second city. Amid the pounding of civilian air raids.

In the port city of Mariupol, also the scene of heavy shelling, local officials say hundreds of casualties are now feared.