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Ukrainians Preparing For Further Russian Invasion; On Frontlines As Odessa Residents Prepare For Russian Invasion; Soon, Blinken To Speak About Meetings With NATO And E.U. On Ukraine Conflict; Murat Sahin, UNICEF Representative in Ukraine, Discusses The Fight To Protect Ukrainian Children. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired March 04, 2022 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Still ahead, bracing for an invasion. CNN is live in the southern port city of Odessa along the Black Sea. And we'll show you how Ukrainians there are preparing for Russian troops. Stay with us for all the breaking news.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: But let me show you what we've got happening here. Ordinary locals in a human chain passing down these sandbags.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[13:35:17]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I'm Anderson Cooper in Lviv, Ukraine.
We're seeing more scenes of civilians being targeted. Civilians being killed. Not just the shelling that hits residential buildings in Kherson in the south, where Russian troops are roaming the streets.
One local resident tells CNN that civilians are being subjected to violence and being detained. We've even seen video days before of an individual being detained at gunpoint and taken away.
In the southern town of Odessa, people are hoping to avoid that same fate, banding together, building barriers ahead of what they believe is an imminent invasion.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is there.
Nick, talk about what you've been seeing on the ground there.
WALSH: Yes, Anderson, down on the shores of Odessa, the third-largest city in Ukraine, a vital port that Russia would have to take to have leverage over Ukraine's economy. We've seen people gathering down at the yacht club, filling up sandbags, forming a human chain, passing those onto trucks that are bound for the city center here to put barricades up.
The likes of which they haven't seen since the 1940s when they fended off the Nazis here.
That actual act of solidarity amongst pretty young locals, all united in the idea they did not want to live in Russia, that was interrupted by an air raid siren.
Two Ukrainian ships patrolling the coast near us. Everybody scattered. They are on edge.
Tonight, we've heard the occasional thud or bang. It sounded like outgoing artillery fire possibly. Rare, though. Frankly, we haven't heard that since the first nights of the invasion here.
Rest of the Black Sea coast, a depressing picture, frankly. Specifically in the eastern town of Kherson. It sits just above Crimea. We've seen Russian troops in the streets looting over the past days.
Today, the kind of narrative that we've seen Moscow put together, a false narrative, I should add, to try to justify their presence began to take shape.
During the night, locals sent videos showing a convoy of civilians seemed to pour into the city. And this morning, aid trucks turned up in the city center.
More video has emerged of locals approaching those people handing out aid from inside those trucks.
A cameraman on the side of the Russian troops, part of what Ukrainian officials warned would be the movie that Russia would try and make.
Showing them as the humanitarian aid worker coming in to fix a crisis that we all really know is of Russia's making because it invaded Kherson and now occupies it.
This a taste of what we have to see to come down the road.
Russia in Crimea 2014, Donbass, 2015, created this false narrative of local people welcoming in their troops and humanitarian aid being there to fill the gap of the humanitarian catastrophe.
This is what Russia's forces created in Kherson now. The images they're showing. They're trying to create this sort of fake movie to suggest they are assuaging that problem.
Also important to point out, the town of Mikolai, between Kherson and where I'm standing in Odessa, that's under pretty fierce attack during the last 24 hours as well.
Clear Russia is seeing momentum here. But quite to what long-term gain with such popular local hostility, hard to tell -- Anderson?
ANDERSON: The idea of destroying residential neighborhoods from air and then sending in a truck with bread and filming it and then putting it on Russian state television is sickening.
Nick Paton Walsh, I appreciate your report today.
[13:38:46]
We're standing by for Secretary Blinken to speak after some key NATO meetings. Stay with us for that. We'll bring that to you live.
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[13:43:42]
CABRERA: At any moment now, we should hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He is in Brussels for high-stakes meetings with NATO allies and E.U. leaders.
This comes as the NATO secretary-general said today that they have seen reports that Russia is using cluster bombs and other weapons which violate international law.
I want to bring in CNN reporter, Natasha Bertrand, in Brussels now.
What has the U.S. said about this, Natasha?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN REPORTER: Well, Ana, they've essentially said they cannot confirm it.
That while NATO has come out and said -- the secretary-general of NATO has come out and said that they have evidence that Russia has actually been using these cluster munitions and potentially thermobaric weapons.
The United States continues to say that they do not know for sure and don't have evidence yet whether those munitions are being used or whether those weapons are inside Ukraine at this moment.
They are stopping short of accusing Russia of war crimes right now.
Notably the State Department issued an urgent measure to U.S. embassies across Europe, urging them to undo a retweet of the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, which had tweeted earlier today that Russia's attack on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine constituted a war crime.
Our Kylie Atwood obtained that message that was sent out urgently from the State Department.
Clearly, there's a signal here that the U.S. is trying to send that they are not quite accusing Russia of committing these war crimes just yet.
[13:45:09] They are still trying to conduct diplomacy and don't necessarily feel like, until they have all of the strongest evidence available to them, that it would be useful to use that kind of language.
But all the signs that we have gotten today here at NATO is that the U.S. and NATO believe the situation on the ground is going to get worse.
And that Russia has begun to use much heavier, much more deadly weapons against civilian targets inside Ukraine.
Remember that President Biden earlier this week in his State of the Union address did acknowledge and did accuse Russia of indiscriminately targeting civilians in their attacks in Ukraine.
While they are using that strong language and they are accusing Russia are targeting the civilian population there, they are not, so far, using that language of war crimes.
Although, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. did say directly to the Russians, do not commit war crimes, your leaders are lying to you and you will be held accountable if you do use these weapons -- Ana?
CABRERA: We'll be listening for the message from the secretary of state following the meetings, which, again, should happen any moment now.
Natasha Bertrand, thank you for your reporting.
Hundreds of thousands of children are now refugees. And there are still so many children inside Ukraine trying to stay safe. Up next, the fight to protect the youngest victims in this war.
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[13:50:52]
CABRERA: We want to bring your attention to some of the youngest victims in this war in Ukraine.
But I have to warn you, this video is hard to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SCREAMING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: You heard a woman shrieking there. Translated, she's saying, "The kids. Little kids." The U.N. said half a million children have now fled the country. Some
with a parent, others were forced to make the journey alone.
Murat Sahin is UNICEF's representative in Ukraine. He's on the ground witnessing this horrific scene.
Murat, the impact on children is already so devastating, but I'm hearing the humanitarian needs are multiplying by the hour as the fighting intensifies.
Could you just describe the conditions for families who are in Ukraine right now?
MURAT SAHIN, UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE IN UKRAINE: Given the five million children across Ukraine. Earlier, for the last eight years it was 500,000 children who were experiencing this.
They were waking up on a day with shelling. They were sleeping in shelters. They were waking up at homes without water and electricity.
They were walking on streets with mines, one of the heavily mined fields in the world. But it was a kind of forgotten crisis.
Now around 7.5 million children across Ukraine, they're on the move, they're in shelters, they're in basements.
They are having lack of access to electricity and water and lack of access to medicine, lack of access to teachers and lack of access to peers and friends. They're traumatized and stressed.
And some of them, around 500,000, made it to the borders to cross into neighboring countries where UNICEF is providing lifesaving support and assistance.
CABRERA: It sounds --
(CROSSTALK)
CABRERA: It sounds so overwhelming. It sounds really, really unfair for everybody involved, especially these children.
And we've been reporting on makeshift hospitals that are being set up underground. Medical care for mothers having babies or children needing cancer treatment. That is all impacted, too.
What could you tell us about how immediate medical needs are being handled?
SAHIN: Everything is needed. It is amazing. It's frustrating.
We have community practice with 20,000 doctors and nurses across the country, including COVID-19 response, including our response to polio Ukraine.
We have established a network of community practice with doctors and nurses. Every day, we are having hundreds of calls, hundreds of touching base with different places across Ukraine.
In the center, which is 200 meters from the biggest bomb was dropped the other day, the intensive care is at the fourth floor of the hospital.
They cannot move to the basement because the ICU equipment cannot be operated in the basement. So the doctors and the kids are stuck at the fourth floor, staying there. And more children are coming to hospital.
That is meaning they cannot move and come to the hospital to operate and to deliver services.
In Kyiv, where we delivered also oxygen kits to hospital, the bridges are not passable to cross. The doctors cannot come and work in the hospitals.
Basements are not designed for having deliveries made or children at the hospitals.
On a normal day, I return to basements in the places where I am six or seven times to the shelter.
And we're talking about children, nurses, doctors, trained to operate on the basement in the buildings. It is tough.
CABRERA: Oh, my goodness. That sounds so hard.
SAHIN: (INAUDIBLE)
[13:54:59]
CABRERA: I know you have worked in UNICEF for about two decades or more now. What is the hardest part you're experiencing right now?
SAHIN: The hardest part is seeing children and their faces and mothers and their faces.
I worked 23 years in UNICEF and worked in Afghanistan and North Korea, Kosovo and across the world.
We are 110 communities here. At the global level, 20,000-plus UNICEF staff members are fully supporting and engaging us on the ground and bringing much-needed humanitarian support.
Trying to establish humanitarian corridors, so that we could reach each and every child, 7.5 million children, and their families, there grandparents.
CABRERA: Wow.
SAHIN: They're in need of immediate health support and immediate psycho-social support, immediate support in the hand that is extending and reaching to them saying that we are here.
CABRERA: Well, thank you so much for sharing with us. Murat Sahin, thank you for all of the work you're doing. And our
hearts go out to you, your team and all of the people impacted in those seven and a half million children who are trying to escape the violence.
Our breaking news coverage continues after a quick break.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
