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Biden Expected to Ban Russian Energy Imports Today; Civilians Evacuating Sumy After Ukraine, Russia Agree on Ceasefire; 2 Million People Have Fled Ukraine in 12 Days Since Russia Invaded. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired March 08, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good morning to you, I'm Jim Sciutto reporting from Lviv, Ukraine.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Erica Hill in New York.

We are following major breaking news this hour. Sources telling CNN that just a short time from now, President Biden is expected to announce a ban on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports to the United States. We will bring you his remarks live.

In the meantime, in Ukraine, there is one, one humanitarian corridor now operating out of the northeastern city of Sumy. You see the devastation on the left-hand side of your screen there in Sumy. Ukrainian authorities say a Russian air strike killed 21 civilians, including two children, there overnight.

SCIUTTO: Russia had offered routes out of four other cities its forces are attacking now, but those routes would have forced the evacuees to enter only Russia or Belarus, no choice. Ukraine did not agree to those.

All of this is taking place as Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of using these cease-fires to further advance its forces and at the same time, deliberately target civilians.

West of the capital of Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities shared videos today of fires at oil depots as well as something we see more and more often, and that is heavily damaged residential areas, including schools, which Ukrainians say were struck by Ukrainian airstrikes as well as bombardment.

HILL: We are following the latest across the globe this morning with all of our reporters. We do want to begin first at the White House with the latest on President Biden's expected announcement, just a short time from now.

CNN's John Harwood is joining us live from there. So, John, what more do we expect to hear in terms of this announcement from the president this morning?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Erica, we're going to hear a dramatic step that represents the continued widening of possibility in the response from the European Union, NATO, the United States, the entire western alliance to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Remember, the United States and its allies started with modest sanctions on Ukrainian -- on Russian actors and Russian industries. That has steadily gotten wider, the central bank, huge sanctions on Russian financial institutions. Now a step that both the Biden administration and Europe had been reluctant to take, a ban on American imports of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas and coal.

Now, this is something that has a limited risk for the United States in the sense that we don't import that much Russian oil. It's much tougher for European countries to do that. We're going to hear from the United Kingdom in the next hour. We expect a more graduated step on their part, but the pressure of the images that we see from Ukraine is forcing the members of the alliance to accept greater and greater pain domestically to try to respond.

This is going to and already has sent oil and gas prices spiking. This has been a problem in the United States and energy prices in Europe as well for some time. That problem is only going to get worse for a while.

The political leaders were trying to spare their own constituents from that pain. No longer, not in this situation. There are further steps it can go and we will see if ultimately the entire Russian oil and gas export sector gets shut down by western alliances. We're not there yet, but this is a dramatic ratcheting up of the pressure on Russia to try to get them to deter what they're doing in Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: It has improved deterrable to this point. John Harwood at the White House, thank you.

All right, let's talk about the effects on the U.S. market, the global market. Nikos Tsafos, he's an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

So, Nikos, there are a couple of ways to look at this. First of all, what does it mean for the U.S., because the U.S. gets a relatively small portion of its oil consumption from Russia but then what does that mean for the market, because that will also have effects on the U.S.?

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Can you give us an answer to both of those questions?

NIKOS TSAFOS, CHAIR FOR ENERGY AND GEOPOLITICS, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Yes. The impacts on the United States are modest. As you reported, the amount of oil that the United States imports from Russia is small. We are a large producer of oil and of natural gas, and more importantly, the impact of sanctions on the Russian oil sector are being priced in. We used to be at $90 a barrel of oil. Before the crisis happened, we're at $130 today.

So, we are getting to a point where the market itself is behaving as if there is an embargo on Russian oil exports coming even if that embargo is not formally announced. And so we have a bizarre situation where we are not sanctioning Russian oil exports in terms of the west but we have the price impact of an embargo. So, Russia brings more money, even though it has trouble --

HILL: There is this threat from Putin to cut off Europe's supply. Secretary Blinken saying it's imperative for European countries to stop relying on Russian energy. As you point out, for the U.S., this is a lot easier. It's a very small percentage of what we use in Europe. We're talking about 40 percent of Europe's gas, 27 percent of its oil, in Germany, it's nearly 50 percent of its gas.

So, the immediate impact, if Europe is cutting off supplies or greatly reducing supplies, where do they get those fuels that they need? What is the broader impact?

I think we may have lost Nikos' audio.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: We're going to try to work on that for a minute.

SCIUTTO: We'll try fix it. Nikos Tsafos there, we'll try to fix that audio, come back to some of those question.

Meanwhile, though, let's turn to the latest on the ground here in Ukraine, where the fighting continues, the casualties continue to mount.

CNN National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt, he's near kyiv, CNN Senior International Correspondent Sam Kiley, he is in Dnipro.

Alex, first, let's talk about this one humanitarian corridor out of the town of Sumy that just suffered a horrible evening last night with so many deaths there. Is it working? Are folks able to leave safely?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It appears that this may be the one that, for now, is working. And you're absolutely right, Jim, that it comes on the heels of a brutal attack overnight. Just around 10:30 P.M. on Monday night, there was a Russian airstrike on what we understand was a residential building that has killed at least 21 people, 19 adults, two children, all civilians, we are told by local authorities, which, of course, is just the latest example of the indiscriminate attacks that are being carried out by the Russians.

But this corridor that is out Sumy is really quite interesting. It's one of the few -- it is the only one that the Russians and the Ukrainians have agreed on because it goes south of Sumy to another Ukrainian city, and from there, people can head west and get out of the country in a way that they would want to, as opposed to the other humanitarian corridors that Russia has suggested that Ukraine has not agreed to that would have Ukrainian citizens and residents heading to Russia and to Belarus, the two countries that troops have come from to attack this very country.

So, we understand that hundreds of people have been able to make it out of Sumy, including several hundred foreigners, mostly Indians, Indian students. We understand from their foreign minister that around 700 Indian students have gotten out. There are also Chinese, Jordanian and Tunisian citizens among others. So, that does appear to be working today.

As we've said before, these situations are really tenuous at best. And we've seen these claims of humanitarian corridors crumble. We've seen Russian attacks step up on the very places where people are trying to get to safety.

In the south, Mariupol, the key port city on the Sea of Asov, which is being surrounded by Russian forces, there is another humanitarian corridor that goes into Russia. That's one example of that one and there. The foreign minister of Ukraine says that some 300,000 residents are being held hostage, that people are not being allowed out of Mariupol and a humanitarian convoy heading south towards Mariupol was shelled by Russian forces. So, down there, it does not appear to be working all that well. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Our Sam Kiley is in Dnipro. Sam, tell us -- you've been traveling, a big portion of the country in the east right now and keeping in touch with contacts there. What are you seeing in terms of Russian advances, particularly in the southern part of the country?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think at the moment, Jim, the Russians seem to be being held up in the Kylib (ph).

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They have not yet invaded, as much anticipated potential sea invasion into Odesa. And in Mariupol, as Alex was saying, they are encircling the city, they have stopped the movement of people out of that city to Zaporizhzhia, which is not far from where I am now into the interior of the country. They did offer a route out into Russian territory that has been rejected and would also take, in most of the cases of these routes, it would mean a cease-fire on both sides and the opportunity for the Russians to regroup.

I think one of the really catastrophic cities, perhaps the worst-hit city by far so far has been Kharkiv. Now, Kharkiv has no exit route other than the one offered by Russia. That is through a northern route, it's only 25 miles to the border, but it goes right through the front line where the Ukrainians have been holding up the Russian advance really very effectively now since the very beginning of this whole invasion organized by Vladimir Putin.

And the Kharkiv mayor is getting -- saying the city is getting into a desperate state. This is what he told CNN.

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MAYOR IHOR TERKHOV, KHARKIV, UKRAINE: I cannot regard this as anything but genocide because the strikes are on residential districts. What else can it be? There are no military infrastructure, no military facilities in these areas. Strikes are happening on kindergartens, schools, maternity hospitals, clinics. I cannot -- this isn't an accident.

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KIELY: No, it's not an accident. And he's right about that. He may be wrong about the actual term, genocide, but there's certainly profligate disregard for human life in Kharkiv. It's been going on for some time and a lot of people are seeing that, the first moment when the Russians change their tactics to mass attacks against civilian targets, because they're being held up, Jim, on the battlefield.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And that's right out of the playbook from previous wars under Putin in Chechnya and Syria, target civilians. Alex Marquardt, Sam Kiley, thanks so much.

HILL: I want to bring back in Nikos Tsafos, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As we wait on this big expected announcement from President Biden this hour, just tell us, what should we be expecting both here in the U.S., perhaps, but also abroad, once this announcement, which we are expecting is made, what will those ripple effects be? What should Americans, frankly, be preparing for as they watch this?

TSAFOS: In many ways, the price impacts are already baked into the system. The price of crude has increased from $90 to around $130 right now. So, we are acting as if an embargo on Russian oil is coming. In fact, the market is expecting probably an even wider embargo on Russian oil. We're seeing private companies refusing to transact in Russian barrels. And so, in many ways, we are already paying the impacts of a disruption to Russian energy supplies.

What we haven't seen so far is the full-on embargo from Europe on Russian energy, and that is essentially the next stage in this game.

SCIUTTO: We'll see, Nikos, right, because European nations are saying to this point they're too dependent on it, they can't institute an embargo. So, are you saying that if the market has already priced this in, are you saying you do not expect a significant jump in oil prices with the president's announcements today?

TSAFOS: I think the president's announcement is not going to have a major impact on the price today because we are a small importer of Russian oil and the price of oil has already gone up significantly. On the European side, I think it's a different picture. Europe imports much more Russian oil on the gas side, Europe cannot really live without Russian gas in the near term. That is why we have seen European countries be hesitant to impose a full-on embargo on Russian exports.

HILL: Nikos Tsafos, good to have you with us this morning. Thank you.

TSAFOS: Thank you.

HILL: The Pentagon says the U.S. is sending another 500 troops to Europe to defend NATO's flank.

SCIUTTO: We're joined now by former director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Director Clapper, good to have you back.

I want to ask you since we're nearly two weeks in, for a big picture question here because, yes, Putin's swift invasion plan hasn't worked, as a result, he seems to be pursuing more and more scorched earth strategy here of burning down cities, right? The U.S. and the west seem to have reached the limit of their military support. They're ruling out a no-fly zone.

If you were advising the president right now, what would you advise to prevent that scorched earth strategy from coming about here, even more so?

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JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, that's a great question, Jim, and I'm not sure what I would tell him other than, given the constraints, the parameters of the no-fly zone, et cetera, to keep doing what we have been doing, which is supplying anti-tank weapons and air defense weapons, and whatever other supplies we can spear into Ukraine. But what it would take to stop the scorched earth, hitting cities, residential areas, killing civilians, I'm not sure what we could do short of a direct military intervention.

We're trying everything we can, you know, with the restrictions on now cutting out Russian oil imports, and all the other sanctions. If we're going to get to Putin, I think it's in the information realm and trying to get to his citizens. But how do induce him to change, I don't know.

HILL: You talk about the information realm, Director Clapper, getting to his citizens, which is becoming increasingly difficult. Do you believe there's still a path there to penetrate this propaganda in Russia?

CLAPPER: Well, either overtly or covertly. There have to be ways to get to these citizens of Russia. A lot of them are very supportive of Putin. There's no question about that. But there's also, as we've seen, an element spread across Russia that is opposed to it and we need to build on that, and as another way of pressuring Putin to change his behavior.

But he is committed, he's doubling down and we're going to see more brutality and wanton destruction and death than we already see. It's going to get worse before it gets better. There's no question about that.

SCIUTTO: What does Russia's relations with the west, with the U.S., look like after this war, if and when we get to that point? Are we going to see the wall, as it were, going up again, the iron curtain coming down?

CLAPPER: Well, I think we're already kind of there. What concerns me, Jim, is assuming he finishes whatever he's going to do in Ukraine, I'm not sure he's going to stop there. I think, obviously, you look at the map and you see how vulnerable Moldova is. I worry about the Russian enclave in Poland, for example, the Baltics.

So, to the extent that the U.S. physically, you know, provides physical manifestations of support, which means more troops present on the eastern flank, I think we need to be concerned about deterring Putin from further encroachment into Europe.

SCIUTTO: That is an alarming prospect given, of course, the security commitments the U.S. and NATO has to those allies. James Clapper, always good to have you on.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Jim.

HILL: Again, we are monitoring the White House. We will bring you President Biden's announcement live as soon as it happens. We're expecting that later this hour.

First, though, as we continue our coverage in Ukraine, what is life like now for the more than 2 million refugees who fled their country? The majority of them making their way to Poland. You're going to hear from a Ukrainian journalist who is now among them.

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SCIUTTO: So, this is an increasingly familiar scene. That is the civilian cost of this war, new video into CNN a hospital in Eastern Ukraine shelled by Russian forces. Look at that there. The deputy mayor of the city of Izium posted these images of extensive damage to the central hospital in that city. He described patients as having to climb out of the rubble. We do not yet have official word on casualties or if anyone remains trapped in that rubble. We will continue to follow. We'll bring you those updates as we have them.

So far, more than 2 million refugees have already fled Ukraine since Russia invaded less than two weeks ago. More than half of them have gone on to cross into Poland just, to the west of here, including over 141,000 people in a single day yesterday alone.

Joining me now to discuss is one of those refugees, Thaisa Semenova. She's a National Reporter for the Kyiv Independent newspaper. She was actually in Kyiv when the fighting started, then left for Poland due to those safety concerns. It's good to have you on here. I'm glad you're safe.

I'm curious what you're seeing there because this has become -- it started as a trickle and now it's now a flood of people fleeing for their lives in Poland. How's Poland handling it?

THAISA SEMENOVA, NATIONAL REPORTER, KYIV INDEPENDENT: Actually, the amount of support that Ukrainians gained from the ordinary Pols (ph) is enormous. On the Polish side of the border, there are many, many volunteers who provide for Ukrainian refugees water, food, warm clothing, even free SIM cards so people could contact their families in Ukraine to tell them they're okay.

So, the amount of support has been so huge, even though the road to the Polish border has been so exhausting for many Ukrainians. They are not very good.

SCIUTTO: Yes, the line-ups have been incredible, hours and hours of waiting, sometimes 24 hours. Thaisa, 2 million so far, an E.U. diplomat said yesterday he expects the number to quickly rise to 5 million. This is a country of 44 million. If more come, the fighting pushes further west, you can expect more. Are the bordering countries prepared for a humanitarian crisis that big?

SEMENOVA: I'm worried that despite the initial generous welcome that Poland gave to Ukrainians, over the time, the support eventually decreases, as this will exacerbate existing intention with refugees in E.U.. Although I hope very much this would not happen.

The Polish government has been so far very supportive and made a lot of decisions that helped Ukrainian refugees feel better in their places. For example, the public transport is free, all the trains in Poland are free and many housings are available for Ukrainians.

So, so far, the Polish government has been very supportive. But, as you know, honestly, whether it's going to last for as long as it needed to last.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a big burden. I mean, we saw there in the Syrian war an initial outpouring of generosity and then some resentment over time.

As you speak to refugees there, I've asked the same question of many on this side of the border. Do they believe they will go home?

SEMENOVA: I personally believe I will go home very soon and many people. We try to believe it too, even though it's hard when you see all the shelled buildings and the war crimes that Russia commits every day by shelling a civilian infrastructure. Many refugees, they still believe is not going to last long. So, they're kind of afraid to start their new lives in Poland, creating some routines. They just live constantly scrolling the news feeds and talking to their families who left in Ukraine. They are, of course, relieved they are in safety.

But imagine the spectrum of emotions they feel, the devastation, it's fear, constant fear that never ends, because, in Ukraine, everyone still lives this horror and people are learning to live in it, but how can you learn it? It's like a person learning to live in a concentration camp.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, the echoes of World War II. Do you worry at all that this refugee flow is part of Putin's intention here? I mean, there's another word for this. You can call it ethnic cleansing, right, to some degree. He's pushing people out of the country who are part of Ukraine.

SEMENOVA: I think that was definitely his intention, and I think that he expected the E.U. would not be so welcoming. As for example we've seen with the Syrian refugee crisis. He kind of expected that Ukrainians are going to be met with hatred. And now we can see the narrative spread by Russian media that polish people are not happy with Ukrainians' behavior, which I personally never heard from any Polish volunteer here.

SCIUTTO: Well, Thaisa Semenova, we know that you're one of those refugees, you're not just a journalist covering it, with all the costs and pain that causes. So, we do wish you the best and we hope you're home soon.

SEMENOVA: Thank you, thank you so much. I also hope to be at home soon and finally meet my family again, and know they are in safety.

SCIUTTO: Please keep them safe.

Well, Russian state television is now sharing this photo of detained American of the WNBA Star Brittney Griner taken at a Russian police station. There's the photo there. What is being done now to bring her and, we should note, other Americans long detained in Russia home? We're going to have more on their cases after this break.

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