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U.S. Official: Russian Forces "Increasing Bombardments" Of Major Ukrainian Cities, Targeting Civilian Infrastructure; Pentagon Gives Update As Russia Intensifies Attacks On Civilians. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 07, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

A senior official says Russian forces are increasing bombardments on major cities across Ukraine and the strikes are hitting civilian infrastructure. We're seeing video evidence of that too. Look at this. This is a church hit by Russian forces in a small village about 30 miles from Kyiv.

CNN also obtained this video from an apartment building. Look at this, Russian tanks taking positions in this densely populated are in the district of Irpin.

CAMEROTA: And some families who have tried to leave through a civilian evacuation point were hit by a Russian missile strike. This is the video and we want to warn you, the violence is graphic.

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CAMEROTA: It does not get any easier to watch that video. In just a matter of seconds, eight people were killed, including this family. A war photographer captured this devastating image of them immediately afterwards -- a mother, her teenage son and young daughter. A Ukrainian security official said Russia is shifting its focus to the south where these explosions were caught on video.

The goal apparently is to cut off Ukrainian access to the Black and Azov Seas.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Anderson Cooper is in Lviv in western Ukraine.

Anderson, these images of the tanks outside of apartment buildings and churches, to hear that they're not targeting civilian infrastructure, you just can't reconcile the two. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, AC360: Yeah, and certainly those images,

if it comes to Russian forces actually trying to occupy cities, we're going to see a lot more images like that. Of course the question is how tenable is it for Russian forces to actually occupy. Do they have enough forces? What sort of insurgent or guerrilla war would we be seeing then?

There's a lot of different layers to this. It may change in scope and scale in a lot of different ways. CNN's senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt is live from the Kyiv region for us at this hour.

So, the Ukrainian defense ministry, Alex, says that it is creating a special unit that has some 20,000 foreign volunteers thus far. We can't obviously independently confirm those numbers. What have you been hearing or seeing about these foreign fighters?

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, this really just speaks to the David and Goliath nature of this fight. Ukraine knows what it's up against. They know how massive the Russian army is, how they are coming at Ukraine with this overwhelming force. We know that they had amassed just shy of 200,000 forces on three sides of the Ukrainian border.

So it was announced a little while ago that Ukraine would be standing up this international legion, as they called it, for foreign volunteer fighters to come in and fight for Ukraine. Remember, there's a general mobilization of Ukrainian citizens. They're letting any Ukrainian citizen who wants to get a gun and go fight to do so. They also put out the call to international volunteers.

Now the Ukrainian defense ministry is saying those volunteers have arrived and they're already carrying out combat missions against the Russians. They say that there have been some 20,000 applications to join this international legion from 52 different countries.

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The general, who is in charge or going to be -- is in charge of this international legion which falls under the intelligence branch of the ministry says that they are mostly experienced fighters who have participated in peace-keeping campaigns around the world. This general goes on to say that any fighter is worth his weight in gold.

So it really does speak to how daunting this task is for the Ukrainians, despite the fact they have been putting up significant resistance to the Russians so far, but the Russians still have a lot more they have yet to deploy. We should note this is not something that the Pentagon or the State Department wants to see American veterans going and doing or what the Brits want to see their veterans going and doing. In fact the State Department and the White House have cautioned against Americans going to fight in Ukraine, saying if you want to help, please do so on a humanitarian NGO level. There are other ways of doing things.

The U.S. and the rest of NATO very worried about getting further drawn into this conflict. They very clearly put the line down of how much support they are willing to give and that is significant financial support, significant military support, but they do not want boots on the ground. They're not going to impose a no-fly zone.

So, of course, there's this concern if you suddenly got all of these international fighters fighting on behalf of Ukraine this quickly becomes a much more international conflict, Anderson.

COOPER: There was reporting from "The Wall Street Journal" that Russia is recruiting foreign fighters from Syria. Do we know anything about that?

MARQUARDT: Yeah, the Pentagon has just confirmed that. A senior U.S. defense official is saying that does appear to be what the Russians are doing, that they are wanting to recruit foreign fighters as well, particularly Syrians. And they say that that's interesting for the reason that I just mentioned. Russia has one of the biggest militaries in the world, so what does it say if they need Syrian fighters?

Now, there are, of course, extremely experienced Syrian fighters. The war there has been raging for 11 years. And the thinking is, and as you noted, this was first reported in "The Wall Street Journal" that Syrian fighters fight on the regime side because the Assad regime is very much supported by the Russians. Russia has been fighting with them against the rebels for years. Those fighters are extremely experienced when it comes to urban warfare, so fighting in Aleppo and other cities around Syria, so that is a scary sign here, because as you and I have been discussing at length, this is increasingly becoming or appearing to become an assault on civilians of Ukraine.

So these Syrian fighters, if they were to arrive, would join what we already believe to be mercenaries who are part of the Russian military who have been brought in by the Russian military, including the Wagner group. There are indications that that mercenary group was prepositioned to help with this invasion. There are indications that hundreds of their fighters have already been killed just in the first few days of this war, and that Russia was planning on deploying another 1,000 mercenaries.

Suddenly, Anderson, we may find ourselves soon in a position where this is ostensibly a war between Russia and Ukraine, but you're going to have fighters not just from those two countries but from all around the world who are fighting in this battle here in Ukraine, Anderson.

COOPER: Talk about -- you know, it's often hard to see what is actually happening on the front lines. The front lines move a lot, traveling around is very difficult. What do we know about Ukrainian forces and what kind of success that they are having fighting back or what the biggest limitations they have right now are?

MARQUARDT: Well, you're right. It is often hard to keep track of their successes and their failures. We're obviously doing the best job we can in terms of tracking Russian troop movements. So it does appear that the Russians have made significant gains in the past few days, both in the north and in the south after about a week and a half of the Ukrainians putting up fairly stiff resistance. Let's take Kyiv first. We know that the Russians are pushing hard at

the Ukrainian capital, coming down from the north, from Belarus, looping around to the west and really trying to press into Kyiv from the north and from the west. They have yet to come too far south, which is where I am here, but the intention does appear that they are trying to encircle the city and doing it in a much more ruthless way with bombardment of those civilian areas, hitting that suburban area of Kyiv yesterday, Irpin, killing at least eight people. The bombardment has really been stepped up in Kharkiv, the second biggest city.

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We've seen pretty fierce fighting there over the past week and a half. Much more fighting in the streets of that city than we have seen here in the Kyiv region. And then if we head down south, Anderson, that is where arguably Russia has had some of their bigger successes because they're able to take the city of Kherson, which is pivotal because it's right there above Crimea.

What that means is that the forces from Russia can go east and west to try to take Odessa on the Black Sea and try to take Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and try to connect Crimea, which, of course, they allegedly annex back in 2014 with Russia in the -- sorry, with mainland Russia to the east.

So they are making -- they are taking significant territory and making gains there in the south as they press very hard against Ukraine's two biggest cities here in the north. Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, Alex Marquardt in the Kyiv region -- I appreciate it, Alex. We'll check in with you a little bit later on.

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy is obviously still in Kyiv, still trying to rally his forces as best they can. The country's third largest city, Odessa, he says, now is one of Vladimir Putin's next targets. He warns Russia is now preparing to bomb the major port city on the Black Sean.

CNN's Nic -- international security editor, Nick Paton Walsh, he is there for us.

Nick, what is the situation right there in Odessa?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Look, I mean, it has, Anderson, been for a number of days despite the warnings spreading around that's quite quiet. We had a couple of bangs during this afternoon. It's unclear in an open environment really what they were. I think we are just hearing a siren in the distance here.

But look, we have not seen the amphibious assault that has long been warned of and have not seen the air strikes that President Zelenskyy spoke of yesterday. It's unclear where his intelligence or feeling about that came from. What we have seen, though, is pressure building from the east on here. Now, it has not been overwhelmingly successful, frankly, the Russian

moves in the south. They did take the city of Kherson, certainly, but they have seen significant civil disobedience in that town. And then it appeared to be their inadequate numbers to really be influencing how daily life functions there. That's a separate issue for Russia in the longer term or the medium term.

Mykolaiv, the native port city on the center of the Black Sea coast, Odessa on its far west, and Mykolaiv over the weekend, we saw ourselves a consistent series of battles on its outskirts. Russia trying to push in and being stopped, blundering its way in again and again and possibly frustrated firing rockets, often landing in residential areas. This morning about 5:00 a.m. some residential blocks were hit and I was told about one person, possibly three people were injured. One person died, three injured as a result of those rockets.

So pressure building. The local regional governor there, they feel they have kicked them out of the international airport there. Later on today, he admitted that a rocket strike had in fact killed eight soldiers when it hit a barracks. So, always a mixed picture.

But it does appear that the Russian military despite its persistent attempt day after day are simply not getting in to Mykolaiv, and the rocket attacks are not obviously bringing the population closer to thinking a Russian occupation is a good idea.

So they were certainly faltering on the way here. Here in Odessa, I think people are wondering how is it possible that Russia has a plan to try and control all of Ukraine that doesn't involve taking this city or pressuring it somehow. Deep fears, I think, about what comes next. They put barricades up, but so far tonight a thin layer of snow and utter silence, Anderson.

COOPER: Nick Paton Walsh in Odessa, thank you.

Victor and Alisyn, let's go back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Anderson, thank you.

So according to a senior U.S. defense official, nearly 100 percent of Russia's pre-staged combat power is now inside Ukraine. And Russia is trying to supplement its forces in Ukraine with foreign fighters. This is all while Russian forces are increasing bombardments in major cities including Kharkiv and Kyiv over there and Mariupol.

BLACKWELL: So, let's discuss that with CNN military analyst, General Wesley Clark. He is the former NATO supreme allied commander.

General, thanks for being with us.

Let's look at the map and I want to walk through where we're seeing some of the strength at least of the Russian forces thus far. The areas in red here is where the Russian forces have a presence. We know they early on came here in the south. We just heard from Nick Paton Walsh. He's in Odessa. And we know that Ukrainian officials say that Russia is preparing to encircle Dnipro in central Ukraine.

What's your assessment of their advances thus far?

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GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So the Russian force has not performed up to expectations. Partly it's a function of weather, but more it's a function of the lack of training, motivation and education of the Russian force. Nevertheless, they're a superior force in terms of material and they do have air superiority and they are now bombing airfields and making sure the remaining few Ukrainian aircraft are hobbled and kept on the ground if they can do that.

So what they are doing is still Kyiv is the main objective. They're moving in the outskirts of Kyiv to try to encircle it. The problem in the north is they have to get close enough to the city center for their short-range rockets to actually strike meaningful civilian targets and they're facing pretty heavy resistance in the outskirts.

In the south, they're moving on Odessa. There's a fight around Mykolaiv. And the Ukrainians have regained Mykolaiv at one point. They're still fighting and they block them. What we're looking at now is a bridge that's in the northern approaches out of Kharkiv near Kyiv where the Ukrainians blew it. Civilians are trying to scramble out of the line of fire.

Meanwhile the Russian forces will be going to try to seize Dnipro and a major crossing site on the upper river and encircle the Ukrainian forces east of Dnipro.

CAMEROTA: General, let's take a closer look at what's happening in and around Kyiv. So here's a close-up. I said here's a close-up. Thank you very much for the assist.

These are the suburban areas around Kyiv. So Ukrainian state emergency services reported that civilians were killed over here at a bakery in Makariv right here, and then in Irpin right here, we saw that horrific family that was mowed down at what is supposed to be a civilian evacuation point.

And then in Irpin also, we also see these tanks. This is Russian tanks. They're lining up near civilian apartments. This is just west of Kyiv.

So what does all this tell you about their strategy to get into Kyiv?

CLARK: Well, this is the encirclement of Kyiv and it starts from the outside and works in. What they found when they made a run straight into Kyiv is they got knocked out. That was the fighting last week in the suburb of Bucha which you show up there.

Now the challenge for the Ukrainians is can they come out into the suburbs like Irpin and can they take it out at night using javelins or rocket-propelled grenades or do they let them close in on the city center. As they close in on the city center, the risk to Kyiv grows. So the fight has to be taken to the Russians as they come in during the day. Ukrainians have to come out at night or during the day and take those forces out bit by bit.

The Russian forces are mostly road bound. The roads have houses and other obstacles, bridges and overpasses, so it's imminently defendable terrain. They have got to defend it successfully.

BLACKWELL: All right. General, let's talk about these blue countries here, this shows the line of NATO countries around Belarus, which, of course, is allied with Russia and Ukraine.

And the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. says that -- I'm sorry to NATO says that they're not prepared to move forward with a no-fly zone. So we know the realities of the numbers, general. What's that mean, the significance that still no commitment to that? And we know the realities if they were to commit what that would mean for the U.S. and Russia.

CLARK: The no-fly zone is a straw man. It's thrown out there. People argue about it, all the former people who think they know so much about military strategy will tell you, you can't do it because you have to do A, B and C. That's all -- it's not actually correct.

The point is, there has got to be some support brought into the Ukrainians. Ukraine is fighting our fight. It's the most defendable country outside of NATO. If it falls, it's much more difficult to defend that blue line of NATO.

So the NATO countries know this, but they're operating under Putin's threat of a nuclear strike. Now, we don't know where that nuclear strike might come. We don't know if it's one, two, a dozen weapons, but everybody is running scared of it.

And what Putin is doing, is using that threat to outmaneuver us. So when there's discussion in the Western press about no-fly zone, within a day, Putin says that would be an act of war and we're going to come after you. When there's discussion about Polish jets coming in, then he's going to go bomb airfields. He is listening to what we're doing and trying to outthink us and outmaneuver us.

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We got to do less thinking in public and more acting in private to keep Ukraine in this fight. These people are fighting our fight for us.

BLACKWELL: All right. General Wesley Clark, I've got to jump in here. Thank you so much for the expertise.

Let's get to the Pentagon now. John Kirby is giving an update.

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: There would be associated enablers with them. This is part of that support. All of these posture judgments are being done in full consultation with the NATO allies in question. OK?

Shifting topics if I could to the Red Hill storage facility in Hawaii. Secretary Austin decided today and you should have the statement, if you don't you'll have it shortly, that directs the secretary of the navy in coordination with the commander of the United States Indo- Pacific command to take all steps necessary to defuel and personally close the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility in Hawaii. I know many of you are tracking the importance that leaders across the Department of Defense have placed on that November leak and the contamination that resulted from it.

The secretary, the deputy secretary, leaders from across the Department of Defense and navy as well as Indo-Pac Com are very, very focused on this issue. And the impact it's had on families, communities and our responsibilities in both national security and being good stewards of our resources and the environment.

Throughout this process, the department's approach has been guided by a commitment to protect the population, the environment and the security of the country, and goals that are mutually supportive. As the secretary outlined in his direction to the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense launched a thorough review of the facility's long-term future, work that was grounded in analysis and completely aligned with our focus. So, a few points on today's decision.

First, national security. We will defuel Red Hill and reposition the fuel to land in a float locations. This will meet our national security objectives by better positioning the United States to meet future challenges in the Pacific region while ensuring environmental stewardship and protecting the population.

Secondly, as the secretary noted, we're going to be able to take care of our people and the community. We are committed to mitigating the impacts of the November incident and we are restoring safe drinking water to all affected residents and providing best in class sampling and testing to ensure the continued safety of the drinking water.

And, finally, we're going to complete mitigation efforts for the area and continue to engage the community on land use. One additional note which I believe many of you are tracking the commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet has directed a command investigation into the releases and contamination of the water supply. When that review is complete, the Navy will publicly release the report and continue to work closely with the department of health in Hawaii about pursuing follow-on actions. That work continues.

I want to end by noting that the secretary's decision is not considered by the department to be some sort of quick fix. We have work to do, we know that, across the enterprise with elected officials from Hawaii and local organizations and of course with our military families, many of whom have suffered as a result of that leak and the contamination.

We're going to stay transparent -- as fully transparent as we can. We'll continue to update you and them as actions are taken, but we do believe that this decision by the secretary today marks a significant first step in the path forward. With that, I'll take questions. Bob.

REPORTER: Thank you, John. On Ukraine, I wonder if you could just discuss sort of the overall

direction of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, I'm thinking in particular, for example, their increased use of long-range fire, artillery and rockets in recent days.

Is this an adjustment by them? Is this a new phase of the war? Are they compensating for problems in other areas? How would you describe the thrust of what they're -- where they are right now?

KIRBY: With the caveat, Bob, that we don't have perfect visibility into Russian plans, what we believe is happening, as the Russians continue to get frustrated and slowed down and they really haven't made any noteworthy progress in the last few days with the exception of down south. In the south they continue to have some progress, but up in the North and Northeast -- what we assess is as they continue to get frustrated, they continue to rely now more on what we would call long-range fires.

So this is bombardment, missile strikes, long-range artillery, into city centers that they aren't in yet, at least not on the ground in any significant number.

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So we're seeing that. Of course, that has been leading to -- as you would expect it would when you're relying more on long-range fires you're going to cause more damage and you're going to kill more people and injure more people. So that's what we think is happening and that's what we're seeing them do and we think it's because, again, they have not been able to make up for the lost time that they continue to suffer from on the ground in terms of the advancement of ground forces.

REPORTER: And they have not taken control of any of the cities yet?

KIRBY: I wouldn't say no cities. I mean we do assess that Kherson fell to the Russians and a town called Burdansk we believe they have control over. We believe that they're in control of that power plant up near the Dnieper River that we talked about last week. So some smaller towns as they continue their advance down south.

In the north, we do not see them have any control over Kyiv, Kharkiv. Still a lot of heavy fighting outside Kharkiv, and, of course, Kharkiv is really becoming a victim to a lot of these long-range fires. And then in that town to the northeast to Kyiv, called Cherniv, they are attempting to circle the city but have not taken it yet. So again down south they have a little bit more success and some control over some local population centers, but up in the north not so much.

The other one that I would note is Mariupol, just to the south of the Donbas. We believe that they very much are aimed on taking Mariupol. Mariupol is a violent place to be right now. This is another location for long-range fires and bombardment.

You've heard the mayor himself talk about power outages and water supply problems. We believe that they are trying to encircle Mariupol as well but they have not done it yet.

Jen?

REPORTER: John, have you seen any evidence that Russian morale among the troops is low? We've seen some reports, but have you seen any evidence of that? And how would you characterize that convoy, the 40- mile-long convoy north of Kyiv? If it doesn't have tanks in that convoy, where are those tanks? Where did they go?

KIRBY: I don't have perfect visibility on the convoy. We're watching it with much the same imagery that you are. We believe that the main purpose of it was resupply, so it does -- when you look at the images from the air, you can see they don't look like armored vehicles so much as they look like resupply trucks.

That's not to say that there aren't combat vehicles in there. We don't have perfect visibility on it. But the assessment is that it was largely meant to help resupply and it is still stalled, it is still stuck. We don't assess over the course of the weekend that it has made any progress. And I'm sorry, you had another one.

REPORTER: Morale.

KIRBY: Morale. We certainly see what's in the open press that you see about anecdotal evidence that some soldiers are flagging in their morale. We have also picked up other indications as well on our own that morale continues to be a problem for many of the Russian forces, particularly up in the north and the east. It is not clear to us that all of the soldiers that Russia has put into Ukraine realize that that's what they were doing. That they were actually going to invade Ukraine. It's not clear to us that they had full visibility on the mission that they were being assigned.

REPORTER: And again, if that convoy was a resupply convoy and not really armored vehicles, where were those columns of tanks that were supposed to encircle Kyiv? Were they sent elsewhere?

KIRBY: Yeah, I don't know. That's a better question for the Russian ministry of defense. We don't have perfect visibility in terms of what they're moving and what alternative routes they might have taken.

And I don't want to leave you with the idea that we know perfectly what each and every vehicle is in there. It looks to be -- our assessment is that it's largely meant for resupply but I can't rule out there aren't combat vehicles. It's a very, very long convoy. We can't even say that it's all one convoy and not several, but it does remain -- our best assessment is that it remains stalled.

Fadi (ph)?

REPORTER: Thank you, John.

When reports about efforts by the Russians to recruit Syrian fighters to fight in Ukraine, first of all, what do you have to say about these reports? And based on your knowledge, did this effort start before the war or after the war? And who are these fighters they're seeking to recruit? Are they from the Syrian military or what is your understanding of the situation?

KIRBY: Yeah. I'm not -- I can't speak for Russian recruiting efforts, Fadi. We do -- we do believe that the accounts of them, the Russians seeking Syrian fighters to augment their forces in Ukraine, we believe there's truth to that.