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Russian Strikes Hit A Mariupol Hospital, A University, A City Administration Building; U.S. Hunts For Signs Putin May Use Nuclear Weapons; High-Level Talks Between Russia And Ukraine Set For Tomorrow; White House Bracing For "Headline Inflation" In Thursday's Consumer Price Index Report. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired March 09, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:30:59]
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, we're just getting new pictures in to show you the devastation after the Russian attacks on a hospital in the city of Mariupol in Ukraine.
We have a warning. These images are graphic, but they show the horrors of what is happening on the ground.
So Russian forces have bombed this maternity ward and children's hospital there in Mariupol. And you can see a pregnant woman. You can see blood on her.
Officials say at least 17 women and staff were injured in this attack.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: A maternity hospital hit.
Listen, let's go a couple of miles away now and the second location targeted by an apparent Russian military strike. A university and a city administration building were hit. No military value in those two targets.
And look at these new images. These are satellite images from Mariupol.
A residential area. You see what it looked like before. That's on the left. On the right, you can see what's left. Very little left.
Mariupol officials say that around 1,300 civilians have been killed in the city since Russia's invasion began. We have no way to independently verify that at this moment.
The U.N. says the number across the country since the start of the invasion is a little more than 500.
CAMEROTA: U.S. officials are looking into indications of whether Vladimir Putin will escalate the war in Ukraine somehow with nuclear force.
BLACKWELL: But his recent move to put nuclear deterrence forces on high alert has caused worldwide alarm and a lot of people to wonder if he would ultimately go that far.
CNN's Nina Dos Santos has more on this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Russia's tanks rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin made a threat not heard since the height of the Cold War.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences never experienced in your history.
DOS SANTOS: Then, days later, he raised the alert level of the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translation): Everyone knows that a third World War can only be nuclear.
DOS SANTOS (on camera): Only nine countries have nuclear weapons. The theory is that they are preventative mechanisms, hopefully, never to be needed in battle.
According to the Arms Control Association, Russia has the largest number of warheads, just over 6000. While the U.S. isn't far behind, no other country, not even Israel or North Korea has anywhere near this type of capability.
Now most of Russia's warheads are not currently on missile bases. Just over 1,400 of them are deployable at the moment.
These find themselves on weapons like intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launch missiles, and also bombers.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): But would Russia's president really use them? Britain's defense secretary told the BBC he thinks Putin is bluffing.
BEN WALLACE, BRITISH SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENSE: He reminded everyone he's got nuclear weapons, which, as you say, starts to set off people being worried. But, secondly, he distracted from what's going wrong in Ukraine.
DOS SANTOS: This expert says the mere threat itself is designed to change the dynamics of the war.
MALCOLM CHALMERS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: He's in a corner. Somebody in a corner becomes more dangerous. Is more prepared to take risks. Still, it's most unlikely.
I don't want to alarm people unnecessarily. The probability is low, but it's not zero.
DOS SANTOS: The last time nuclear weapons were unleashed by the U.S., in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, more than 100,000 died. At the U.N. disarmament conference, Japan expressed grave concern
about Russia.
ICHIRO OGASAWARA, JAPANESE AMBASSADOR TO U.N. CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT: It's the only country to have suffered atomic bombings during war, Japan is fully aware of the catastrophic human cost and consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. We stress once again that such tragedy must never be repeated again.
[14:34:57]
DOS SANTOS: While Russia says its nuclear intentions are purely defensive, that brings to mind its previous assurances, that it had no intentions to invade Ukraine.
LAVROV (through translation): It's in the minds of Western politicians that nuclear war is going on, not in the minds of Russians.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
DOS SANTOS: Only President Putin knows how far he would really go. In the meantime, it's a gamble that the West can't afford to take.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
DOS SANTOS: Nina Dos Santos, CNN, in London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: High-level talks between Ukraine and Russia are scheduled for tomorrow. The Kremlin already previewed some of what they want to come out of the talks. Up next, hear what Ukraine's president is demanding.
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[14:40:22]
BLACKWELL: Tomorrow, two top diplomats from Ukraine and Russia will meet in person for the first time since the invasion began two weeks ago. Turkey will host a forum with the Ukrainian foreign minister and his Russia counterpart.
Now, Ukraine's foreign minister says he does not have high expectations for this meeting. The Kremlin spokesperson said they are interested in these talks.
But we know desperate civilians are trying to escape some of the hardest hit areas. They're hoping for additional ceasefires.
Joining me now is Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. And he is the William Perry fellow at Stanford University.
Also with me, Greg Simons, associate professor at Uppsala University's Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Gentlemen, welcome to you.
Mr. Ambassador, let me start with you and your expectation for these talks.
We have these ceasefires that had been set up, agreed to by Russia, but also the bombing of a maternity and children's hospital.
Does it appear that Russia is in a place where they're ready for talks that would even be consequential?
STEVEN PIFER, WILLIAM J. PERRY FELLOW, FREEMAN SPOGLI INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY & FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, Victor, let me say that I think it's good that these contacts happened. But I have very minimal expectations.
In the last couple of days, you've had coming out of Kyiv, some suggestions they might be prepared to compromise on certain questions of interest to Russia but the Russians have not responded publicly.
And while it's good that Foreign Minister Kuleba will meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, we need to understand that Mr. Lavrov is not in the inner circle in the Kremlin.
So it's likely he will not have anything very flexible to say. So they should talk, but my expectations are quite minimal.
BLACKWELL: Interesting that the foreign minister is not in the inner circle.
Professor, let me come to you with what the ambassador hinted there.
This has what we heard from President Zelenskyy on potential compromise ahead of these talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): First, I'm ready for a dialogue. I'm talking about security guarantees.
I think that items regarding temporary occupied territories and on recognized republics that have not been recognized by anyone but Russia, these pseudo republics, but we can discuss and find a compromise on how these territories will live on.
What is important to me is how the people in those territories are going to live who want to be part of Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Can discuss and find a compromise on these territories.
What's your reaction to what you hear from the president, Professor?
GREGORY SIMONS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, INSTITUTE FOR RUSSIAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES, UPPSALA UNIVERSITY: Well, he seems to be putting out some tentative ideas in order to get some kind of dialogue going. I mean, this war has gone on way too long. It was avoidable to begin
with. But the fact is it's too long.
There needs to be a halt to hostilities in order for the suffering of ordinary people to end. So this is a natural response.
BLACKWELL: Ambassador, you think that's enough for Putin? You said Lavrov's not in the inner circle. But what he wants is a commitment from Ukraine and NATO that the country will never join. It's part of their constitution.
Do you think some custody of Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea as well, will satisfy President Putin?
PIFER: Well, the Kremlin the other day outlined its demands for a Russian ceasefire.
They were that Ukraine accept and acknowledge that Crimea's Russian territory, that it recognized the two break-away people's republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, that it accept neutrality and it demilitarize.
It's not quite clear what all those terms mean.
Bear in mind, Russia had a neutral Ukraine backed in 2013. It was in the Ukrainian constitution that they would be neutral.
But Russia put immense pressure on the Ukrainian government not to sign an association agreement with the European Union. That triggered the Maidan Revolution when the government succumbed to that Russian pressure.
I worry that what the Russians say, it's probably much broader demands than they look on their face. And right now, those demands are things they want just to get a ceasefire.
BLACKWELL: So the reason I have the two of you paired together is because you're on opposite sides of a question, if the U.S., if the U.K., are violating the 1994 Budapest Memo, in which Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal for, among other things, its territorial integrity.
[14:45:15]
You, Professor, believe the U.S., the West is violating that. Quickly, explain why.
SIMONS: Yes. Well, I do believe this is not a single violation, but a rather comparative negligence. Because, I mean, there has been evidence of meddling from the beginning.
If we remember back to the taped conversation between Nuland and Pyatt. I mean, this was a clear indication that there was interference on who was being sought in the government and who was not to be in government.
If we go a little bit later, of course, then we could look at the role of Joe Biden, who sought to withhold aid to Ukraine and asked for the Ukrainian prosecutor-general to be fired because he was starting to investigate his son, Hunter Biden.
BLACKWELL: OK, I don't think --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: -- that has anything to do with exactly what we're talking about, the connecting, pulling funding from Ukraine connected to Hunter Biden.
Did not know that was the direction it was going to go in.
Mr. Ambassador, you were part of the talks leading up to that --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: -- helped to negotiate them.
PIFER: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: Explain. You wrote that there's a difference between guarantees of that integrity, that territorial integrity and assurances.
PIFER: Right.
BLACKWELL: Which to just someone sitting at home, it sounds like a distinction without a difference. But you say diplomatically, there is. Explain that.
PIFER: It does. To the ears of American officials, if you say "guarantee," our NATO allies have a U.S. guarantee. If they're invaded, they have an expectation that the 82nd Airborne will come to their aid.
When we were negotiating the Budapest Memorandum, we told the Ukrainians we have to call it a memorandum of security assurances, not guarantees.
But neither the George H.W. Bush administration or the Clinton administration were prepared to make a military commitment to Ukraine's defense.
Now, what we did say was that, if there's a Russian violation, we will take an interest, we will do things, but we did say American military forces coming to defend Ukraine was off the table.
I think the administration has done things. We're supplying lots of weapons to the Ukraine, as well as economic support.
But I would just take on -- you know, first of all, let me talk about the conversation cited between Victori Nuland and our ambassador in Kyiv. BLACKWELL: Quickly.
PIFER: The Russians portrayed that as the United States dictating who would be the next prime minister of Ukraine.
I listened to that conversation. That's an analytical conversation. And she, I think, made the right judgement. That point in time, Arseniy Yatsenyuk would have been a good prime minister's candidate.
When you have an analytical conversation, it doesn't mean you're picking the next prime minister because that was a Ukrainian decision.
BLACKWELL: All right. Ambassador Steve Pifer, Professor Gregory Simons, thank you.
[14:48:20]
CAMEROTA: So, President Biden just met with business leaders to address rising costs in the U.S., like the ones we're seeing at the gas station. We'll tell you the plan, next.
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[14:53:11]
BLACKWELL: President Biden hosted a group of business leaders and governors to lower record inflation.
The White House is bracing for a key economic report tomorrow, which they anticipate will show prices continuing to rise.
CAMEROTA: CNN M.J. Lee is at the White House.
M.J., how do they lower inflation? What did they come up with?
M.J. LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, guys, ever since the sanctions against Russia have started to get rolled out, and yesterday, we saw this big announcement from the U.S. banning Russia energy imports in the U.S., this is an issue, inflation.
But particularly rising gas prices that the White House has been intensely focused on.
This week, we saw gas prices reach record highs. This is an economic problem but also a political problem for this administration as we head closer to the midterm elections.
And what the White House has tried to do over the last several weeks is trying to lay out a different thing it might try to do to try to lower gas prices in the long term.
We are talk about things like raising global supplies. We know the administration has begun conversations, outreach to countries like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran, to try to bring in more oil from those kinds of countries. But there was an interesting dynamic actually yesterday, when we saw
the president rolling out this import ban. He said in his remarks, "I'm going to try to do everything that I can to try to minimize the impact on American consumers."
But then, hours later, we saw him land in Texas for an event and telling a reporter there, "Can't do much right now," on rising gas prices.
I just asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, which of the two is it? Are the American people to believe he thinks there's something that can be done on rising gas prices or there isn't much to be done?
[14:55:01]
And she said, in these kinds of settings, in these short gaggles with reporters, they are not comprehensive. She would point us to the remarks he made earlier in the day.
But again, it just goes to show what a tricky problem this is for the White House.
CAMEROTA: Certainly complex.
M.J. Lee, thank you for telling us where we are today.
BLACKWELL: We have more on the breaking news out of Ukraine. Russia is accused of bombing a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol. Devastating new images coming in.
Stay with us.
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[15:00:06]
BLACKWELL: Right now, House Democrats are pushing to pass a trillion- dollar spending bill that will include billions in aid to Ukraine.
