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New Video Shows Fleeing Civilians In Ukraine Killed By Russian Military Strike; Historian Analyzes Putin's Intentions In Ukraine, The West; Netflix, TikTok Take Action Against Russia Amid Ukraine Invasion; Zelenskyy Says Russia Is Preparing To Bomb Odessa; Piano Man Playing For Peace Greets Refugees. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired March 06, 2022 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:01:01]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington, you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing no signs of relenting in his military assault on Ukraine.

This video shows Russian missiles screaming toward the Vinnytsia Airport. That's about 120 miles outside the capital city Kyiv. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says the airport has now been destroyed. But Moscow's assault isn't just focused on buildings and military targets. Concern is growing about the innocent civilians caught in the middle of Putin's deadly invasion.

This picture shows a huge crowd of Ukrainian people huddled under a bridge on the outskirts of Kyiv as they try to escape to safety. The mayor of the town of Irpin says Russians opened fire as people tried to move across the bridge, killing eight civilians.

Not far from there, at least four people were killed by shelling at an evacuation crossing point going into the capital city. Journalists on the scene say two of those killed were children. Ukraine's president accuses Russia of deliberately targeting civilian areas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): It seems it is not enough for the Russian troops. Not enough ruined destinies, crippled lives. They want to kill more. For tomorrow, Russia is officially announced an attack on our territory and defense facilities. Most of them were built decades ago under the Soviet government. They were built in cities and now they are in the urban setting, where thousands of people work and hundreds of thousands live nearby. This is murder, deliberate murder.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: According to the United Nations, more than 360 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the invasion began. Officials acknowledged that the real number is likely considerably higher. The UNHCR also says more than 1.5 million people have crossed the border from Ukraine into neighboring countries over the past 10 days and what the agency calls the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

And hopes of getting more civilians safely out of the hardest hit areas are fading after a planned evacuation convoy in the country's southeast was unable to leave the area because of heavy shelling from Russian forces. A top U.S. Defense official says Russia has fired a total of 600 missiles since the invasion began and all of the military power Moscow had amassed around Ukraine, they have now moved 90 percent of that into the country.

And just into CNN, brace yourself. Horrific new video showing the moment a Russian military strike kills four people, including two children, in the city of Irpin outside of Kyiv. This was a family desperately trying to flee to safety. They were killed in an evacuation crossing point and it is yet another case of innocent civilians in Ukraine unable to escape Moscow's brutal attacks.

We want to warn you, this video is very disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in foreign language)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shit. Shit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in foreign language)

[19:05:07]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, medic.

(CROSSTALK)

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: You heard it from there, yelling medic, looking down at the family that was killed. And this happened not far from where our CNN crew with Clarissa Ward have been shooting just recently.

I want to bring in retired Army Major Mike Lyons to talk about what we just saw.

Major Mike Lyons, your first thoughts after seeing that video? Can you tell if it was a mortar or a rocket or missile? Was it a weapon consistent with what Russia is deploying in Ukraine? MAJOR MIKE LYONS (RET), U.S. ARMY: It's clearly an indirect fire

weapon. Could have been mortar, could have been from a cruise missile or so. But I would look through more to the eyes of the combatants and the fact that you had those Ukraine soldiers go out there, expose themselves to what could have been another counter battery attack to try to save some of those lives there. They have got their hands full to try to prepare defenses of an oncoming enemy with tremendous capability and then to show the compassion.

To be able to flip a switch and show that compassion to try to help that family is incredible. And the Ukraine soldier on the ground is really, you know, holding up the shores for freedom fighters and for the like and through their country. It's a tremendous display of bravery and courage, and, you know, again, I look through their eyes and say, boy, they've got their hands full.

BROWN: Yes. They really do, but you're so right. I mean, to go from, you know, the combatant to then the empathy mode knowing on the compassion mode, knowing that they could be hit the next second really is incredible. Does this disturbing new video in your view change the calculus of U.S. or NATO's involvement in Ukraine? I mean what is the red line if this isn't?

LYONS: I know, Pam, it's difficult to try to make one thing change. What's the tipping point for when would U.S. forces be involved? But we've just got to really make this Ukraine's fight. We've got to pour weapons into Poland and into these supply lines and get them to these fighters, and what citizens have been doing there is just incredible, but the risks are just too high for an escalation.

I think that's, you know, kind of the question is where is that escalation start, where does it go? For example, perhaps we put in anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile defense systems and maybe we make them more mobile, maybe we make them -- we give them Avenger Systems or M-SHORAD as what they're called, or other increased capacity. But this is their fight.

And again, it's so difficult to watch that kind of a video and watch as a Ukraine soldier literally watches the last breath come out of a person, out of a civilian, out of a fellowman and know that they've got to get their weapon and go back and fight, then go right back into the fight.

BROWN: I can't imagine, really can't imagine. President Trump's former Russian adviser Fiona Hill wrote recently that we are already in the middle of World War III. Do you see it that way?

LYONS: Well, you know, it depends what we're calling World War III. I mean, again, this has been a wake-up call for NATO in a good way and I think if NATO continues now not only to move equipment and supplies to Poland and Romania and Slovakia and other places where we can get equipment across the border, but we've got to really shore up the Baltics. And we've got to expect that there could be an impossible and military incursion to the north if Vladimir Putin is successful in corralling military assets inside of Ukraine. It takes with Belarus and he decides to go attack a NATO country, then

that's World War III. Right now, these wars used to be fought by proxy which is really how they're fought right now but again, the United States needs to stay out of this for a lot of different reasons. But we can continue to pour in again that supplies, grenade launchers, communications equipment, night sights, rations, everything we can, and get that to the 20 million men that are going to fight this fight against the Russians.

BROWN: OK. Major Mike Lyons, thank you so much.

Well, the U.S. is walking a delicate line with the situation in Ukraine, wanting very much to stop the war but not wanting to get involved militarily.

Joining me now to talk about is Anna Makanju, a former Russia director at the National Security Council, who also served as special policy adviser for Europe and Eurasia to then Vice President Biden.

Anya, I know just how incredibly difficult this time is for you. You used to be an adviser on Russia. You were born in Russia, you have family in Ukraine, family in Russia, there are so many parts of this that are deeply personal for you.

[19:10:01]

You just saw that horrific video of the civilians, that family fleeing, being killed by Russian forces. How might a video like this factor into the U.S. response to Russia?

ANNA MAKANJU, SPECIAL POLICY ADVISER FOR EUROPE AND EURASIA, TO VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I think it just shows how far Putin is willing to go and how many civilians he is willing to kill to achieve his aims here in Ukraine. This is obviously a horrific video and it is also very clearly a war crime but of course we have seen Putin do this before.

He has targeted civilians in Syria, he has targeted civilians in Chechnya. And I think a lot of people in Ukraine and in Russia believed that he wouldn't do the same thing in Ukraine but we're seeing now that there is no country where civilians, be it Ukraine or Russia, where their lives actually matter to him.

BROWN: Clearly. And you were in the White House, it's interesting you say that because you were in the White House in 2014 when Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Would you have ever thought back then that you'd someday see Putin launch an all-out war against Ukraine? I mean, what do you think has changed since then?

MAKANJU: Yes, I have to say that in 2014 this wasn't something that we would have foreseen. We of course feared that he would push further into the east, that he would try to take a city like Mariupol in order to create a land bridge to Crimea, but this kind of all-out assault on the entire country, honestly it wasn't something that we believed at that time would happen. But in terms of what changed, I do believe that we're probably looking at three things.

One of them is what happened in Belarus. The sustained protests, how close Belarus came to actually getting rid of Lukashenko, a dictator who was the only one in power longer than Putin in Europe, and clearly Putin responded very aggressively to that. The second is Putin's complete mismanagement of COVID. At one point, we had officials (INAUDIBLE) from Russia a couple of months ago, a thousand people died in a day.

There are some demographers that have estimated that over the course of a year, Russia lost a million people even if they weren't, you know, all classified as COVID deaths, but clearly that had a tremendous impact. And third is just that he has been increasingly isolated. We've seen that he has lost or gotten rid of any adviser that might have challenged him in any way and over the course of the last year his rhetoric has completely mirrored the most ultra- nationalists in his circle.

And I think you see that this kind of isolation and this kind of echo chamber is one of the reasons that he anticipated that this invasion would be quick and easy despite the fact that I think any analyst would have predicted that this is -- you know, that the Ukrainian people would not have greeted, you know, Russian soldiers (INAUDIBLE), or any of the other analysis that seemed to have factored into the decision to do this.

BROWN: Yes, I mean no doubt this has taken longer. I mean, when they first went into Ukraine, Russian troops were not able to easily route Ukrainian forces like Putin definitely thought they would. Some worry now that Putin will resort to nuclear weapons to get what he wants in that area. How likely do you think that is, Anna?

MAKANJU: I mean, at this point, I think people, myself included, who believed that there was some rationality left in the Kremlin wonder if we can count on that any longer given what we're seeing here and, you know, what we've just seen. And Putin has essentially said that nuclear war is on the table. He has already put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert so unfortunately I'm not sure that that's something we can necessarily rule out.

BROWN: I want to talk about religion. Putin is part of the Russian Orthodox Church. How does his religion play into the way he is operating and how he's conducting this attack on Ukraine?

MAKANJU: Well, Putin has certainly used the Russian Orthodox Church, you know, in order to serve his goals, and so the Russian Orthodox religion is fairly mystical and I think there are often these comparisons and commentary that Putin is trying to rebuild the USSR but I don't think that's accurate. I think he's trying to build the Russian empire. He's not trying to take Russia back to 1989.

He's trying to take it back to 1889. And part of that is that the czars believed that they were essentially ordained by God in order to rule Russia and I actually think that Putin believes he is like the czars, you know, potentially called by God in order to control and, you know, restore the glory of the Russian empire. [19:15:04]

BROWN: Wow, that is fascinating. Well, let's talk about something else that you are deeply knowledgeable of and that is just the way that the people in Russia are also isolated, right? From the media. I mean, CNN other global media outlets have stopped broadcasting from Russia after Putin imposed a new law that threatens prison terms up to 15 years for journalists reporting news critical of Moscow.

Putin has blocked Facebook and foreign media outlets. So what kind of view are people in Russia getting of the Ukraine crisis and how are they being brainwashed right now, essentially?

MAKANJU: Yes, at this point, Russians have essentially no access whatsoever to outside sources. And that, you know, we've seen just a couple of days ago the last Russian independence television station, last Russian independent radio station, any Web site that had been broadcasting any views that were contrary to the Kremlin being shut down.

So not -- you know, not even just in the few days since this war began but over the course of the last eight years, this war -- you know, the conflict in Ukraine has been portrayed as, you know, it is a neo-Nazi Ukrainian government that is committing a genocide against Russian speakers in Ukraine in the last couple of months.

That genocide and that war has been stepped up and this goes against the natural order which is a unified Russia and Ukraine that was always meant to be one people, and so this narrative which has been played over and over, and of course in Russia, you are not even allowed to say the word war. What is happening is a special military operation to de-Nazify and protect the civilian population to the extent that any civilians are dying, it is because the Ukrainian military used them as human shields or intentionally targeting their own people.

So the vast majority of Russians will have no idea about the horror that, you know, you just showed or any (INAUDIBLE) that are, that, you know, we've seen happening. When we speak to my family in Russia, they obviously have no idea that this is happening and --

BROWN: What do they say when you talk to them? Because one of our viewers actually asked the question, how do you talk to relatives? What do you tell relatives in Russia who believe it's the Ukrainians killing one another? So what would you say to that viewer and what are you hearing from your family there?

MAKANJU: You know, my family, of course, you know, they have me and it's a little bit different because, you know, even though they are seeing this relentless propaganda, they're still beyond horrified. You know, they were born in Ukraine, even if it's a special military operation against Kyiv, against, you know, Odessa, against these cities, I think that no amount of propaganda is going to convince people who, you know, were born in Ukraine that there are enough Nazis there in order to launch this type of operation. But of course, there are people, you know, former classmates that say

that, you know, why should they -- you know, I am brainwashed by the United States propaganda so who am I to say that they are being brainwashed by the propaganda that they are seeing?

BROWN: Yes. I wondered if you were hearing that from people in Russia, that no, actually, you're the one that's being brainwashed. We know the truth.

Wow, fascinating discussion, Anna. Thank you so much for coming on the show and offering your unique perspective on this.

MAKANJU: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: So how can Russia's war in Ukraine affect democracy right here in America? I'll ask my next guest, author and history professor at Yale, Timothy Snyder. Plus, from George Floyd Square in Minneapolis to the border of Ukraine and Poland, one man's journey to bring peace to people using a piano.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:23:35]

BROWN: Russia's war on Ukraine may seem far away from us -- you know, those of us in the U.S., but you the threat to the U.S. and to democracy is a lot closer than we may realize, so says Yale history professor Timothy Snyder who joins me now. He is the author of several books including "The Road to Unfreedom: Russian, Europe America."

Hi, Professor. Thank you for coming on the show tonight. Tell us, how does Putin's war in Ukraine crystallize the threat to democracy here in the U.S.?

TIMOTHY SNYDER, HISTORY PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY: Well, I think in at least three ways. Number one, historically we've seen over the past several years that what Putin does to Ukraine eventually comes to the United States. So in 2014, Mr. Putin tried cyber war in the U.S. -- sorry, in Ukraine. The tactics worked pretty well, and then they were applied in the 2000 election here in the United States.

Number two, Ukraine is a kind of avantgarde, a fore post for democracy. It's an eastern most democracy in Europe. What annoys Mr. Putin so much about Ukraine is that it elects presidents, presidents who lose leave. For him, that's entirely intolerable, that's something that just shouldn't happen. And then finally, the democrat order in general in North America and in Europe, around the world depends upon certain principles being met.

[19:25:01]

One of which is that countries don't just invade other countries and overthrow their democratic governments, and of course that's what we're watching right now, an attempt to do that.

BROWN: So if you -- give us the historical perspective of what happened here in the U.S. between the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the fall of the Soviet Union to a President Trump glorifying Putin to now?

SNYDER: Well, I think something very interesting happened which was that after the Cold War, we took on the view that there weren't really any alternatives to democracy, that maybe capitalism would automatically bring democracy and that we Americans were exceptional, and no matter what we did, it was democratic. And coasting along on those kinds of ideas, we neglect our own institutions.

We forget about our own values but also we become unwatchable about actual alternatives that do emerge abroad. What Putin is doing now is shocking but it is the result of an intellectual and political evolution that's been going on -- that's been ongoing in his mind for at least 10 years, probably longer, but we just haven't been paying close enough attention to it because we thought in some general way, history was going our way.

But then there's something else which is going on, which is that Mr. Putin has been able to position himself as a kind of center for right- wing Christianity and for white supremacy around the world. There are people in America, not only in America, who look to him as a kind of hero, as a kind of, you know, right-wing savior of what they regard as civilization.

BROWN: Wow. That's just a whole another thing, a whole another conversation I want to have with you.

What is the most important thing Americans need to realize about Putin and the Russia that he rules now?

SNYDER: I've got to give to you two. I mean, number one, that this is a system that depends upon overthrowing democracies. What Mr. Putin has done is make all alternatives to his own rule impossible in Russia, but he also wants Russians who look out beyond the borders of their own country to see that there's nothing else out there either. This is why he has to attack Ukraine but it's also why he needs to undermine democracy in the U.S. and Europe if he can.

He wants to show the Russian population that the way things are in Russia is really the only possible way for things to be. And then the second thing we have to know and, you know, those of us in America who have had mixed feelings about Putin or even admired Putin, what you have to know is that this war in Ukraine, this is how Russia conducts business. It fights wars but it doesn't win them in any conventional way.

It gets involves, it makes a mess of things, and then it commits atrocities and kills enough civilians until the fighting has to stop. That's what we're watching now and that's what Mr. Putin does. So if you're going to be on Putin's side that's what you have to own. You have to own deliberate atrocity.

BROWN: Yes, own the killing of countless innocent civilians, children, little children, families being killed as we saw in the video earlier today. You have written that Putin knows how to make his enemy do his work

for him. What do you mean by that?

SNYDER: Well, he's -- your last segment you talked about 2014. He was much better at this back then, but the basic idea is that he tells you something that maybe you want to hear. He presses on some vulnerability and thereby distracts you. So, for example, he tells you that what he's doing in Ukraine is fighting a bunch of, quote-unquote, "Nazis." In 2014, people were much more likely to fall for that nonsense than they were in 2022, perhaps, you know, because Ukraine -- people know more about Ukraine more, has a Jewish president.

We've seen a bunch of elections happened and so forth. But the idea is that he tells you something that's going to disarm you. And he tells you something which is going to lead you off with some kind of false direction so that you don't see what's happening right in front of you which is for example that a big country is invading a small country.

BROWN: Yes, that's exactly what's happening.

All right, Professor Timothy Snyder, really important perspective from you. Thank you.

SNYDER: My pleasure.

BROWN: Well, the latest companies to take action against Russia, Netflix and TikTok. What they're doing and the impact it could have, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:45]

BROWN: More international companies from American Express to Netflix to TikTok are cutting ties with Russia over Vladimir Putin's totally unprovoked war in Ukraine.

CNN senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy, joins me now with more on that.

So hi, Oliver. Let's start with these major credit card companies, which are essentially cutting Russia off from the global economy.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes, Pam.

Russia is just getting disconnected from the rest of the world. You have AmEx now coming out and saying that they're going to be cutting off services inside Russia, and you also have these entertainment giants who are cutting off services.

Netflix came out today and they said that they are going to be suspending service for users inside Russia. I'll read you a brief statement that they put out. They said: "Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia."

They're not the only ones either. TikTok came out and they're reacting to this new law that was passed in Russia and signed into law on Friday by Vladimir Putin, which really makes it difficult to report accurately on what's going on in Ukraine with Russia's war on Ukraine.

And TikTok says that as a result, they are going to be suspending some of their services in the country. Their statement says: "Our highest priority is the safety of our employees and our users and in light of Russia's new fake news law, we have no choice but to suspend live streaming and new content to our video service in Russia while we review the safety implications of this law."

[19:35:19]

DARCY: The statement goes on to say that it's in-app messaging service will not be affected, and they say that they will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when they might fully resume their services.

But Pam, what you're seeing here is really just Russia be disconnected from the rest of the world.

BROWN: All right, Oliver Darcy, thanks for bringing us the latest on this front. We appreciate it.

Well, if Russia manages to take over Ukraine, will Vladimir Putin stop there?

I'm going to put that question to CNN political and national security analyst, David Sanger, up next.

You're the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:40:29]

BROWN: More than a week into Russia's war on Ukraine, concerns are growing that Vladimir Putin will not only push ahead with his military action, that he could soon move troops into neighboring Moldova.

Russian backed separatists have held a 250-mile swath of land there for 30 years.

Joining me now to talk about the crisis, David Sanger, CNN national security analyst and New York Times national security correspondent.

Hi, David, good to see you.

So Moldova is not a member of NATO, but it did apply this week for fast track entry into the European Union. Should the United States and NATO be concerned that Putin could expand this conflict beyond Ukraine into neighboring Moldova in the coming weeks?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, there is no reason to believe that he would stop at Ukraine other than the fact that he seems to have bitten off more than he can chew for right now, Pam. But here are the factors involved that if you believe that what his

ultimate goal here is to create a sphere of influence for Russia, that begins to approximate what the Soviet Union had in its better days, then Ukraine, obviously is the big prize, but hardly the only one to two countries that are not NATO members, Georgia, which he had a brief war already in 2008.

And Moldova, as you mentioned, would be the obvious candidate. And of course, there is worry about the Nordic countries. As you know, Sweden is not a member of NATO, obviously, Finland, who's President was visiting President Biden at the in the Oval Office on Friday.

So what you're seeing now is an effort to sort of signal to Putin by reaching out to these countries. Secretary of State Blinken was just in Moldova this weekend, as I said, the Finnish President was in the U.S. I wouldn't be surprised to see some attempts to talk to Georgia and Sweden in the coming times.

But if you're Putin, you want to make the argument that if he reaches much opposition, he could easily double down and keep going, and that's certainly been his history in the past when faced with obstacles.

BROWN: The U.S. has made it clear at this point that it does not want to put American troops on the ground in Ukraine for fear of what could be, you know, a war with a nuclear superpower, another nuclear superpower. But some experts believe that if Russia takes control of Ukraine, that Putin will most certainly go against -- go up against NATO, will go try to get control of a NATO country or do something against a NATO country. That's something I've heard from other experts.

So the question then in that case would be so why not do more now in Ukraine to prevent that from happening?

SANGER: Well, there are a couple of reasons. It's a -- you know, a perfectly legitimate concern. Right now, the President has drawn the line right at the NATO countries, but if Putin is successful in grabbing all of Ukraine, NATO countries will suddenly be right on the border with Ukraine, including Poland, including Romania.

So you know, previously, Ukraine was serving as sort of a buffer zone for NATO and Russia, and that buffer will be gone.

There were a couple of interesting and somewhat concerning moments, even today on this issue. The Russian Ministry of Defense noted that some of Ukraine's Air Force, some old MiG fighters are sitting parked right now in Romania, where the assumption is that the Russians would not dare bomb them.

And so they issued a warning that if a Ukrainian plane lifts off from foreign territory, and gets engaged with Russians over Ukraine, that foreign territory will be considered to be a combatant, and this gets right at what President Biden is worried about, which is he doesn't want to put this air cap over Ukraine because enforcing it would definitely put American pilots right up against Russian pilots. He wants to be very careful in the cyber action that we take against

Ukraine because he doesn't want us to be direct combatants even in cyberspace.

[19:45:05]

SANGER: So there is a concern in the U.S., I think, a quite realistic one, and you don't want to be in a position where Putin gets to make this about the U.S. and NATO instead of about Ukraine.

BROWN: Got-cha. And I think you meant cyber action against Russia, right, not Ukraine.

SANGER: I'm sorry, cyber action against Ukraine.

BROWN: That's okay. I just want to make sure.

Before we let you go, very quickly, I want to get to this. Oh, no worries.

I want to get to this viewer question. Are we doing enough to demand China to take a stand with Moscow? What do you say to this view?

SANGER: It's a really good question, but I think at this point, there is not much leverage that the United States has. My suspicion is that the Chinese government right now is a little nervous about what Putin has done.

They just signed this agreement with him during the Olympics, the opening days of the Olympics that call for a much closer participation between the Russian military and the Chinese military. That called for a common strategic view.

And then all of a sudden, he does exactly what the Chinese Foreign Minister warned him at the Munich Security Conference that China didn't want to see, which was roll over the borders of a sovereign nation.

In fact, the Chinese said, sovereignty is a key part of their belief of how the world has got to be organized, and that includes Ukraine, the Chinese Foreign Minister said. Three days later, he runs into Ukraine. So my guess is that the Chinese are nervous about it, but they are probably not so nervous at this point that they are going to denounce him.

They may quietly suggest that he cooled down, but I suspect that they're not going to go stand up to him at this point.

BROWN: Okay. David Sanger, thank you so much.

SANGER: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up on this Sunday, a man travels 5,000 miles to play his piano for Ukrainian refugees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:51:36]

BROWN: At least 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and some are being welcomed with music.

CNN's Sara Sidner shows you how one man is playing the piano for peace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): As the world's newest war refugees step into Poland from Ukraine, they arrive to an unexpected sound -- a man at the Medyka, Poland border crossing playing his heart out just for them.

DAVIDE MARTELLO, PIANIST AT POLISH BORDER: I'm just trying to welcome all the refugees and I know that all those people, they hear bombing, guns shooting, cannons and whatever.

SIDNER (voice over): Davide Martello traveled from Germany.

MARTELLO: The peace is starting right here.

SIDNER (voice over): A piano man for peace.

MARTELLO: I have a trailer and I just drove like 17 hours straight.

I turn the music very loud so they can hear me everywhere. That is my purpose.

SIDNER (on camera): Your purpose here is to bring peace through music.

MARTELLO: Yes, that's my message, just peace through music.

SIDNER (voice over): And the message is received.

This is another stop on the piano man's peace tour.

MARTELLO: Taksim Square, 2014 and Ukraine in Donetsk, Afghanistan with the Army, Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo.

SIDNER (on camera): I know one place that you've been because I saw you there.

MARTELLO: Minneapolis, Minneapolis, two years ago.

SIDNER (voice over): Sure enough, in 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd, there he was with his piano healing hearts at George Floyd Square.

MARTELLO: It was just the perfect medium to restore peace, I think.

SIDNER (voice over): Nearly two years later and 5,000 miles away, he plays for the newly heartbroken in Medyka, Poland.

His next stop, Lviv, Ukraine. MARTELLO: Before I die or something happens, I, at least want to do

something. Maybe I can soften Putin's heart with music because everybody loves music, Putin loves music, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[19:55:01]

SIDNER (on camera): We can now report the Davide has made it to Lviv, Ukraine. He plans to play his piano in the train station there.

And to give you an idea of what's happening on this side of the border in Poland -- Medyka, Poland. There is all manner of things set up now for the refugees that wasn't here just a day ago. That's a medical tent.

If you back up and you will see a whole host of people still coming over in the middle of the night and this is what they are greeted with. They will see a whole bunch of boxes of clothes, jackets, things to keep them warm, and their children warm.

You will also see food being brought around to people, nice hot food. That's the situation here and it has been like this in a smaller way, but now, you're seeing much, much larger numbers of people coming across and many more people here to help -- Pam.

BROWN: Thank you. It's so beautiful to see how Poland has stepped up in this way to help so many of these Ukrainian refugees.

Well, up next, the latest on the terrible toll of Russia's invasion, including a look at the damage affecting civilians in one village south of Kyiv.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:00:00]