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Russia Vows To Open Humanitarian Corridors From Four Cities; Civilians Flee Through Checkpoint Manned By Ukrainian Forces; Civilian Death Toll Climbs In Ukraine As War Rages. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 07, 2022 - 04:00   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.

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ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in United States and right around the world. I'm Isa Soares in London with more of our breaking news coverage of the war in Ukraine. Right now, civilians across the country are facing a growing humanitarian crisis. A stark as well as disturbing images show really the harsh reality on the ground.

But in just the last few hours, the Russian defense ministry said it is opening humanitarian corridors from for Ukrainian cities, you can see there in your map, including Kyiv, and in Mariupol, where shelling over the last few days has made it too dangerous to evacuate civilians. These images you're looking at coming to us from Kyiv, civilians passing through a checkpoint manned by Ukrainian forces.

We have seen people including children walking through on foot. Who knows really how long they have been walking. We've all seen seeing them packed buses emptying where - where you are looking at before obviously knowing where they're heading off. We'll keep on top of those images for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Meanwhile, this video, excuse me, shows a Russian missile roaring towards minutiae airport southwest of the capital Kyiv. Ukraine's President says the airport is destroyed. Intense Russian shelling has also hit the town of Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv. The mayor says eight civilians were killed during evacuation efforts.

Some of our viewers may find the next video hard to watch because it captures the moment a Russian military strike targets Irpin, killing a family.

You hear them out calling medic medic. Absolutely terrifying. Well that strike just one of many launched by Russia as it ramps up its attacks on Ukrainian cities. Still negotiations between Ukraine and Russia continue with a third round of talks aimed at extending hostilities expected today. Since the start of the invasion, Russia has fired 600 missiles that is according to a senior U.S. defense official, who says Moscow now has 95 percent of its amassed combat power inside Ukraine. President Vladimir Zelenskyy says sanctions aren't enough to stop Russia and Vladimir Putin who he accuses of planning deliberate murder Have a listen.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE PRESIDENT (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're in an urban setting where 1000s of people work and hundreds of 1000s live nearby. This is murder. Deliberate murder.

SOARES: U.S. officials say there are urgent discussions underway with allies as Ukraine pleads for more help. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken says the U.S. is in talks with Poland about the possibility of sending fighter jets to Ukraine.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We are working with Poland as we speak to see if we can backfill anything that they provide to the Ukraine's, we'll reimburse and support them providing MIG (inaudible) planes that Ukrainians can fly.

SOARES: While CNN correspondents are tracking developments from across the globe, Natasha Bertrand is following European reaction from Brussels. Hadas Gold reports from Jerusalem on the arrival of refugees. Vedika Sud is in New Delhi monitoring the plight of Indian students trapped in Ukraine and nick Paton Walsh will join us with the latest on the situation in Odessa. But first let's go to CNN's Scott McLean, who is on the Ukrainian Polish border. And Scott give us a sense of what you're seeing there on the border.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey Isa. You can't see much right now because we've actually just been told that we're not allowed to shoot right near the border checkpoints. So we just have to go ways is up. Mark, if you want to just follow me on this side. You can see this lineup of cars here that is trying to get to the border.

Again, we're not allowed to swing the camera around this way. But you can see it stretches for quite a long ways. And if we can just take you in here, I'll show you the lineup. So luckily these people haven't been waiting for too long. They've actually just been dropped off on buses from the Lviv and if we can just go in, I'll try to get a shot just to show you the sheer volume of the -

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Mark, if you want to just lift up the camera and show how many people are trying to cross the border right now, it is really an absolutely remarkable number. And it is almost entirely women and children, of course, as we've seen, had the packing the train stations on the roads trying to get out of the country. And it seems Isa that every round of bombing, every round of shelling sends a new wave of people flooding out of the country, because there was obviously a huge spike in people leaving when the invasion first started. And then as we got a few days into it, at least the train station in Lviv was not nearly as busy as it once was. And now all of a sudden, we are starting to see the crowds back in absolutely massive numbers.

And obviously, there's a lot of vulnerable people in here. There's very small children. And there's very elderly, I just spoke to an 89- year old woman who fled Lviv. And remember, the Lviv, at least at the moment is still relatively safe. They're not bombing in that area. But she said - she just doesn't know exactly when or if it will be in invaded, if and when things will start falling out of the sky. And she just simply does not want to take a chance.

And that's what you hear from a lot of people. A lot of these people haven't seen bombing, haven't seen shelling in their own cities yet. But they're just not prepared to take the risk, especially when you see they have little kids like, like that little boy there. And so what's, you know, yesterday at the train station, we saw crowds of people going - flooding outside of the building several hours just to get in to try to get on a train.

And what they're doing now is actually putting people on buses, from the Lviv train station, city buses and we just saw a convoy of maybe five or six of them coming in this morning. And then they drop them here and then they wait in this line. This is just the lineup to get into the lineup for the actual building to do Ukrainian passport control. And then beyond that, you still have to go to the Polish side as well.

So this is a sort of new flood of humanity. And sorry, if I can, I'll just take you down just to show you again, this is even more people in line here. And so again, the first wave only been here about 30 minutes so we can see the line is moving quite slowly. And so hopefully we don't have a repeat of the situation that we saw early on Isa, in the invasion, where you had people waiting outside in these bitter conditions for 12 plus hours.

Right now it's -1 Celsius, but I just checked, it feels like -6 and it really is frigid. I'm wearing like four or five layers, and I'm still not very warm right now. And again, I don't think I could be able to take you to the end but it just keeps going and going. Isa.

SOARES: And so many children in the - in that line that you just shown us, so many young children, those frigid temperatures. Very quickly, Scott, if you could tell us how many of these people you've spoken to how many of coming from Mariupol or from Kyiv where now we've been hearing those humanitarian corridors have been set up but do people believe that they will - that Russia will stick to this ceasefire?

MCLEAN: No one is optimistic about anything that Russia is doing. I have not met anyone specifically from Mariupol. Obviously a lot of people are trapped in those cities. But we have seen a lot of people coming from Kharkiv, a lot of people coming from Kyiv as well. Some people have heard explosions, some people have seen explosions. Some people have been on the road. Many people have been on the road for several days. I just spoke to one family about 30 minutes ago who said that from Kharkiv, they took three different trains, hello. Three different trains and then a bus, a city bus to get here and remember, you know the lineups that we're seeing in the Lviv train station are not limited to that part of the country.

Obviously at every single train station, you have lineups and lineups that people trying to get out of the country so they literally had been on the road for 48 hours barely sleeping along the way Isa.

SOARES: Yes and it's starting to snow, yet those children's spirits still smiling at you and saying hello. Incredible bravery. Thanks very much Scott McLean there for us in Lviv. Appreciating you at the Ukraine board. Thank you.

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SOARES: Now the Ukrainian defense of the city of Mykolaiv has kept it from falling into Russian hands but Nick Paton Walsh reports the civilian death toll is rising as Russia repeatedly targets the city with rockets. We must warn you though some of the images are disturbing.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Putin needs it but he's having real trouble getting it. Drive to the last Ukrainian position outside the port city of Mykolaiv and you can see the mess made of the Kremlin's plans. Even the Z Russian propaganda says it's from the de- Nazification, they ridiculously claimed to be enacting is charred.

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Its occupants captured or dead. Their missiles on display. Along with their names, it says the army of Russia. Further down this road are the rest of the Russian tanks. But one was left behind. And now farmers pensioners, and bemused locals are picking it over. The model may be newer, but the empire it seeks to restore is long gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just saying it goes forward but doesn't turn around.

PATON WALSH: The same can't be said for its crew who fled. The Ukrainians here are little gleeful that this keeps happening. They left the tank here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They needed to do that.

PATON WALSH: Right. They didn't have much of a choice there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. They didn't have any other choice.

PATON WALSH: Then a warning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a helicopter coming.

PATON WALSH: A helicopter is spotted and we have to leave. Rushing in the weapons, this David has hit the Russian Goliath with again and again but the Kremlin is sure to impose a cost on anyone it can. Grand rockets have slammed into homes regularly.

This woman thinks she has broken her back. The house collapsed on me she says and then they pulled me out. There are no other patients in this hospital. All the injured treated here died in their beds were told, including one 53-year old man brought in on Sunday morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just here.

PATON WALSH: Across town, the rockets apparent cluster munitions that seem to fall just anywhere. Another rocket landed up the street here. From cars to vegetable gardens. At the morgue, the toll is growing. At least 50 bodies they told us, 20 of them incinerated in a Russian missile strike on the naval port of Ochakiv, they said.

The bodies so often of the elderly, who would have survived being a Soviet citizen, but not this. Ruslan has worked here 13 days straight and is from Crimea, where Russian state propaganda still calls this a special operation against Nazis.

RUSLAN, MEDICAL WORKER (through translator): Now you understand. I am from Crimea and my friends who live there think it's just like that. And I have to say that my former friends you betray me you are supporting Putin who is a fascist, a real one. My family is hiding in the basement now because of you monsters. I'm telling you it's really scary to watch it. My friends who are in Kyiv and Kharkiv and Sumy, they are sitting in the basements. And hiding because they are being bombed by Russian missiles. When will it stop?

PATON WALSH: They show us the corpse of a Russian soldier and ask us to film him up close which we don't do. Loathing here, set in deep and lasting with each body in the ground.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Incredibly powerful report from our Nick Paton Walsh there. While evidence of that breaking relations between the Russians and Ukrainians was clear in President Zelenskyy's warning posted on Facebook. In it he warned that it could be ahead - what could be head for the port city of Odessa Have a listen.

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ZELENSKYY (through translator): They are preparing to bomb Odessa. Russian people always used to come to Odessa and they only knew warmth and generosity and what's now? Artillery, bombs against Odessa. This will be a war crime. This will be historical crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:15:00] SOARES: Let's go to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh who joins me now from Odessa. And Nick, give us a sense of what you're seeing on the ground this hour, as well as the importance here of Odessa as a port, as a vital port.

PATON WALSH: Yes, I mean, we have been hearing for days, of the possibility of maybe an amphibious or naval assault against this third largest city in Ukraine, it's vital maritime hub to the outside world, you can't really claim to control any part of Ukraine if you don't have Odessa as part of that. But so far throughout the night, and this morning with horizontal snow a moment ago, it has been quiet.

Not the case, though, for Mykolaiv from where you just saw that report. At five o'clock this morning, a number of rockets landed in a residential area there. And we've seen images posted by local officials of residential buildings on fire, and a hospital official, we've spoken to confirmed one dead and three injured.

That may not be the full extent of the damages there. But it appears Isa, that when the Russian forces that you saw there are frustrated on the outskirts of a place like Mykolaiv, they try again, and again, we've been in and out of there for a week, watching them sort of stumbling their way in and then being pushed back.

It appears that that is then followed by significant bombardment, essentially the price of Russian failure there and I think that's increasingly deeply desperate for those civilians inside Mykolaiv because you just saw in that report, the rockets just land anywhere. I mean, it is startling to walk around a vegetable patch where children are sleeping in the neighboring house and see these cluster munitions partially exploded just landing there.

That's not, I don't think a failure of aim. There are so many in that specific area. It's either just carelessness or some desire to randomly inflict violence. But Mykolaiv, a port and strategic town on the city on the way towards Odessa had (inaudible) to its east taken a number of days ago by the Russians, but they're seeing significant civil disobedience in that city. Mykolaiv holding out and Odessa, here really on edge.

I mean, it's extraordinary to see the volume of Defenses already put up inside the city expecting this but so far, eerily quiet. Isa.

SOARES: Incredible reporting there from our Nick Paton Walsh and team. Thanks very much, Nick, great to see you. Thank you.

More civilians caught up in airstrikes as Russia presses ahead with its war in Ukraine. Coming up we'll hear from survivors in a village devastated by conflict.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SOARES: We are seeing more and more civilian casualties from the fighting in Ukraine now at more than 1100 killed or injured according to the UN. The Polish border guard says at least a million refugees have crossed into Poland so far, a million. The UN puts that number closer to 900,000. CNN has not independently confirmed either or those figures. Many refugees have travelled long distances and braved freezing temperatures in their struggle to get to safety as we saw from Scott McLean at the top of the show.

The exodus has been so overwhelming in neighboring countries that tent cities such as one in Moldova has been popping up near borders. And as the war intensifies a desperation only grows for those hoping to escape the violence and those left behind a force to cope with the devastation from Russia's onslaught.

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IGOR MOSJAJEV, SURVIVED MARKHAIVKA ATTACKS (through translator): They took me up over there somewhere, two of my grandchildren are alive but my wife and daughter were killed Georgia.

KATJA, SURVIVED MARKHAIVKA ATTACKS (through translator): My boyfriend died here. My aunt, my cousin, my grandmother, my sister's husband, and a friend that stayed with us here while everything was happening. We've been living together since the start of the war. We had plans to leave but couldn't decide. Should we stay? Should we go? A miracle we survived.

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SOARES: And with Russian forces now in control of Ukrainian nuclear power facility people in that area have packed into a train station to evacuate. Our Sam Kiley has a story for you.

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SAM KILEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A collective breath is held as a long awaited evacuation train slows to a halt the odds of getting out determined by access to a carriage door. Police struggled to contain the crowd, all are desperate to flee West. The mass evacuation from Zaporizhzhia is part driven by the recent capture of a nuclear power station by Russian invaders.

Here they're being begged by the control room over a public address system to stop their attack on the six reactor plant the biggest in Europe. They say you are endangering the security of the entire world. Attention, stop shooting at a nuclear hazardous facility, attention, stop it.

There is now a disregard as much for nuclear safety as civilian lives in cities across the country being bombarded by Russia. Scenes like this have not been seen in Europe since the Second World War in the 20th century. The mass evacuation of civilians from a major city is been accelerated here, because the people now believe based on the evidence that they've seen elsewhere in Ukraine that it is civilians who are now going to be targeted in Vladimir Putin's invasion. [04:25:00]

SERGIY SAMKO, ZAPORIZHZHIA RESIDENT (through translator): When Russian troops came closer to Zaporizhzhia, I decided it was better to get my family out before they entered the city itself.

LATONA SAMKO, UKRAINIAN REFUGEE: We Hope that we will be getting on the train today because this morning people didn't let us in even though we have a baby.

KILEY: This is a wall that separates lovers and parts husbands from their wives, fathers from their families. Ukrainian men here between 18 and 60 cannot leave. They're needed for the fight. You're staying here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.

KILEY: So this is goodbye, temporarily. Well, I hope in in a week or two, you can be back together again. More than a million Ukrainians have fled their homeland so far, but more still are enduring these freezing conditions in the hope of a train to safety. But Mykola Tymchishim is staying on. He's a former paratrooper in the Soviet Army.

MYKOLA TYMCHISHIM, ZAPORIZHZHIA RESIDENT: Yes. I made Molotov cocktails. I have great rifles. I'm a hunter with 40 years of experience. I have a medal left from the USSR. I'm staying. I hate them. All the invaders because of this, not to mention the fact that my grandson was bombed for a week in Kharkiv.

KILEY: Those people who make it on board now face a 600 mile journey to Lviv. For those who don't. Time and luck maybe running out. Sam Kiley, CNN, Zaporizhzhia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: No to war. That was the final message from Russian News Channel TV Rain, shut down by the Kremlin after implementing a strict as well as overreaching censorship bill, making it impossible to accurately report the news from inside Russia. Its goal is to stop the spread of so called fake news with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for those convicted.

The New York Times reports the law could even make it illegal to refer to the war in Ukraine as a war, the Russian government ultimately decides what is fake and what is real news, prompting many networks and publications to suspend operations.

CNN spoke with a News Director of TV Rain about what information the Russian people are actually getting, and how much harm this new law has inflicted.

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EKATERINA KOTRIIKADZE, NEWS DIRECTOR & ANCHOR, TV RAIN: I think that the society in Russia is divided terribly. One part of Russian society believes the propaganda machine which tells them every day, 24/7, shouting from the screens of televisions that Russia is under the threat of NATO, that NATO is right behind the corner and NATO rocket they're going to do you know, to be on I don't know, Red Square, and someone is coming for Vladimir Putin, who helps people to be free and proud and so on and so forth.

But another part of Russian society this - this people are the viewers of TV Rain. These viewers are readers of in the few independent media outlets, which were shut down just recently, during those days. And I want to tell you that after the war has started, on 24th of February, we have had the absolutely amazing viewership. I mean views like 25 million views per day only on YouTube.

It means that there are many people, a lot of people, millions of Russians, who understand that something terrible is going on and who understand that they need this alternative sources of information because they feel that this is a disaster. This is a catastrophe that has come to their homes, and the whole world is broken for them. For us, for me personally as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Staying in Russia, more than 4500 people were detained across Russia, Sunday in connection with anti-war protests. That is according to an independent human rights monitoring group tracking detentions in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: That is St. Petersburg Russia video posted to social media shows anti-war protesters and the violent altercations, you can see there with police, CNN geolocated and verified the authenticity of the video which was taken on Sunday. CNN also contacted St. Petersburg police to ask about the nature of the arrests, but did not receive an immediate response.

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SOARES: Ukraine's president has so far refused to leave the capitol in the face of those Russian attacks. Coming up next, what an Ukrainian government in exile might look like should the country's leadership have to flee? We'll bring you that story next. You are watching CNN.

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