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Ukraine Military Claims It Defeated Russian Tank Regiment Near Kyiv; Mariupol Officials Accuse Russia Of Bombing Humanitarian Corridor. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 10, 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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[15:01:20]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Victor Blackwell.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

We have new video to show from the outskirts of Kyiv, a Ukrainian assault on a column of Russian tanks. This is northeast of the capital city. The Ukrainian military says they defeated these Russian troops and killed their top commander there.

But Russian forces are continuing to try and push into the capital. Clarissa Ward just told us the fighting is intensifying there.

We're also getting a clearer picture of Russia's assault on southern Ukraine. Officials in Mariupol say Russians are bombing a corridor set up to evacuate civilians.

And this is new video of a Ukrainian civil defense building that was hit in Mariupol. This is the same city where that children's hospital and maternity ward was bombed yesterday. It ended up killing three people there including a child and also a warning that this next video is very graphic.

BLACKWELL: These are the images of people burying bodies in mass graves. The red cross says the humanitarian situation in this area is becoming increasingly dire and desperate. The city of Mariupol, the council there, says the food supply is decreasing every day and with the entrances to the city blocked, there's no way to deliver food and water.

Earlier today, the highest-level talks between Russia and Ukraine since the start of the invasion, those ended without progress. Russia would not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, instead insisting on a surrender, according to a Ukraine's top diplomat. And the Russian foreign minister is now continuing the Kremlin's misinformation campaign surrounding his country's invasion.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Anderson Cooper joins us live from Lviv in western Ukraine.

Tell us what you're seeing, Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, those images of the Russian tank column being picked off by Ukrainian defense forces themselves is really extraordinary to see.

I want to talk about it with CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance who is live in Kyiv for us.

Matthew, that video of Russian tanks being destroyed one by one on fire, what more do we know about what happened and other heavy fighting reported near the capital?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, the destruction of that armored column is really fascinating. We've seen it time and again something similar happening. This time it took place in a little town called Brovary, which is about ten miles or so outside to the east of Kyiv. And you have that video on the ground of people filming the scene of destruction after the attack had taken place. Incredible close-up video, armored personnel, tanks absolutely destroyed by what appears to have been anti-tank missiles.

In one of the videos, filmed on a cell phone, you can hear the person saying this is what happens to you if you come to Ukrainian land. So, it underlines just how much defiance, how much will there is still amongst the Ukrainian defense forces to push back these Russian advances. There's incredible video from the air as well, from a drone which is actually watching as the attack on the ground on that column sort of takes place.

You can see, you know, the front of the column, the back of the column, they are devastated by a massive ground assault on those tanks, not just the column destroyed, it was the commander of that column as well. He was liquidated, in the words of the Ukrainian defense ministry.

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So, it's one of those battlefield victories, it's tactical, it's boosting morale. But, and this is the painful reality, its battlefield losses like this fro the Kremlin may well push Vladimir Putin over the edge. And encourage him to double down rather than back down, double down on the military pressure he's going to put on this country and city to enable it to fall.

So, that's the danger of this. It doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, of course. But nevertheless, it's inherently hazardous to defeat the Russians in this way.

COOPER: Matthew, how many roads like that -- how many routes are there into Kyiv? Obviously, the roads are the way the Russians are moving. The Ukrainians know the roads well and can set up ambushes, assume that was an ambush as seems likely. Are there many routes in Russian forces can use? CHANCE: I mean there are, I think. 3 million people, 360 degrees you

can get in by various different routes but, yes, of course the Ukrainians know which routes they are traveling along. It's hard to hide them. They have their own drone intel, they got human intel and I suspect they're getting intelligence from Western sources as well. I don't know that for a fact but I suspect they are.

One of the easiest things to do if you want to lose a tank column is drive in with an army waiting for it with Javelin, U.S.-provided anti- tank missiles. That's what they're doing. Their original take particular or strategy was to take strategic airports around the capital and then fly in reinforcements and armor in order to spread out with forces and the various weaponry inside the capital. It didn't work out.

I encountered those Russian special forces in the hours after they landed here. They held on to the airport for a day or so, but there was a massive counterattack and they were forced out of the strategic air bases they had taken in the first few hours of this conflict. And so, to get the supplies in, the forces around the city, the Russians were left with no option but to do it through muddy fields, through roads that were easily ambushed.

And this is the result of that method. I went to a column destroyed a few days ago and there were bodies everywhere. There were destroyed vehicles that were just sitting ducks on a bridge as it approached the northern limits of Kyiv. Almost exactly the same type of situation played out in Brovary earlier today, Anderson.

COOPER: And the shelling we've seen in Mariupol, those images, Alisyn and Victor, were showing of the mass grave that's been dug essentially for residents there. There's no possibility of having private services. It is just one of the horrible realities of a very, very difficult situation in Mariupol right now.

CHANCE: Yeah. I mean, Mariupol is -- I mean, it's a blood bath. It's a humanitarian catastrophe. I mean, you've got thousands of people trapped inside this small little city and they're being bombarded by Russian forces with no regard for residential areas, civilian infrastructure, and that's underlined by that attack, that bombing, that assault, on a maternity hospital in the middle of Mariupol.

We've seen patients, women, pregnant women, being carried out of the building shattered by what looked to be immensely powerful bombs. There are horrific images circulating of pregnant women sort of bloodied by the attack and, of course, the Russian reaction isn't to apologize. It's not even to accept responsibility.

I mean, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was asked about it today after the peace talks, talks he was engaged in with his Ukrainian counterparts in Turkey. He said, look, this is basically fake news.

We know that this maternity hospital, the patients had already been cleared out several weeks ago, he said, had been taken over by the Azov battalion, a far-right wing militia that fights with the Ukrainian forces near the front line, the very anti-Russian, very far right. He said it's those people being attacked inside this building.

But, of course, that's totally contradicted not just by the images of the bloodied mothers -- would-be mothers that we've seen by the fact that three people including a child was killed in this incident.

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But also, by the other hundreds upon hundreds of civilians they've had to bury in mass graves in Mariupol because it's too dangerous to give individual funerals, Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah. It's remarkable how many autocrats and their spokespeople use the term fake news when they want to lie now.

Matthew Chance, appreciate it. Thank you.

More than 2.3 million people refugees have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands of those people have crossed through Romania on their journey to find safety. Nearly 85,000 of those people are currently sheltering in Romania.

I want to take you there. Miguel Marquez is at a train station in Bucharest where many people are still arriving.

Miguel, you've been there for days. What's the situation like today?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Look, we have seen this train station, the main station here in Bucharest, sort of accordion. It fills up quickly and then the Romanians have gotten very, very good at moving people on. Most Ukrainians who are coming into Romania move on to other locations, to Poland, to Germany, to Hungary, across other countries in Western Europe.

The E.U., the European Union, is making it a lot easier for Romanians to do that right now -- everything from paperwork to trains to transportation. I've got to say it is impressive. The first few days we were here, it was -- it was chaotic. There was a lot of people. It was very, very cold. People weren't sure where to go.

Now, they have tons of volunteers in the train station. They have lots of areas people can go and have opened up, in the city of Bucharest alone, some 6,500 spaces for temporary housing for people. So, they are getting through it. It is difficult. About 85,000 Ukrainians still in Romania.

They may be here for a very long time but Romania says they've never felt closer to the European Union, to NATO, to the U.S. They feel they are being supported and so far they are getting through it.

When you hear those stories from Matthew Chance and what is happening in Ukraine, you realize the people, as hard as it is in this station and how much uncertainty they have in their lives, they are the lucky ones -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, they certainly are. Miguel Marquez, appreciate that. Victor and Alisyn, a lot of those people from Romania, also many people are coming into Moldova and then being transited into Romania and from there points further west.

BLACKWELL: Two-point-three million people on the move out of the country. Of course, we don't have the count of those displaced within Ukraine, but it is just remarkable how many people are on the move.

CAMEROTA: And we're told there will be millions more before this is all over.

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper in Lviv, thank you.

So, the U.S. and the U.K. are increasingly concerned that Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons to create a false flag operation. We have more on that, next.

CAMEROTA: And two weeks into the conflict, two U.S. intelligence officials say they underestimated the Ukrainian resistance.

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CAMEROTA: Ukrainians continue to fight Russian forces more effectively than many analysts predicted. This afternoon, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency admitted that his initial expectations were wrong.

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LT. GEN. SCOTT BERRIER, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR: My view was that based on a variety of factors the Ukrainians were not as ready as I thought they should be, therefore, I questioned their will to fight. That was a bad -- that was a bad assessment on my part because they have fought bravely and honorably and are doing the right thing.

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BLACKWELL: Joining us now, former NATO supreme allied commander, General George Joulwan, and CNN security analyst and former CIA chief of Russia operations, Steve Hall.

Welcome to you both.

General, let me start with you. We see this video of this strike from Ukrainian forces using the anti-tank missiles to take out the tank column there north of Kyiv. That is one instance, one strike here, but overall do you see that the Ukrainian forces are a better match against the Russians in defending Kyiv than they were two weeks ago at the start of this invasion?

GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, what you're seeing the terrain favors the Ukrainians. Build-up areas are difficult for tanks and armored vehicles. I mentioned this at the start of this and said that they should attack and they're doing great work and are treating the Soviet armor as it's coming into town.

CAMEROTA: General, I have a follow-up question for you. Why haven't we seen more Russian attacks from the air? Why haven't Russian forces been able to establish air superiority over Kyiv, say?

JOULWAN: Well, I think there have been some attacks from the air, but the Ukrainians are putting up a good fight in the air, and we just got a lot of stingers to them. If they use those stingers like they're using the javelin on the tanks, they're going to turn out much better than the Russians will.

So, I would wait to see what happens as we get further into this, but right now, I'm not sure that I would call the Russian air, air superiority at this point because they've taken a lot of them down.

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BLACKWELL: Steve, I want your reaction to this. We just got in that Russia will now unilaterally open humanitarian corridors. This is from a Russian official from the defense ministry who says we officially declare the humanitarian corridors will be open unilaterally without any approvals. We guarantee full security in the territories controlled by the Russian armed forces.

What's your reaction to that from the Russian military?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah, I think my reaction is the same as the Ukrainians which is, yeah, right, sure. We'll do whatever you say. I'm sure your corridors are safe.

We know a lot of things. We know that the Russians have attacked civilian targets in this and other wars. We know that with regard to their values and how their military operates and what values they operate under are very, very different from the West and certainly from the United States.

So, you know, I think the Ukrainians, to put it mildly, are taking this with a large grain of salt. I can't imagine anybody at this point believes much of anything that Russia says. It's a better bet if they say X to do not X or to do Y, because that's just how the Russians are behaving. That's not to be believed, not to be trusted and doesn't improve the situation at all.

CAMEROTA: And, Steve, speaking of the Russian playbook, why are they attacking maternity hospitals and pregnant women and children? How is that part of their playbook? How does that help them -- you know, it isn't endearing them to the West and NATO and the U.S., how does it help them otherwise?

HALL: Yeah. So, obviously, they don't care about the West. You know, more than that, they just don't really, again, value human life and noncombatants the way that we do. I mean, think about it, whenever there is a missile strike or any type of U.S. military strike where civilian casualties are incurred, I mean, we read about it in the newspaper. We hear about it on this and other networks. The Pentagon undertakes studies. Congress oftentimes gets involved. Apologies are oftentimes issued. Military officers sometimes get into trouble for this thing.

If you try to explain that to a Russian, it's like talking color to a dog. They're like -- we don't get it. We do things like we go in Grozny. If we run into some sort of guerrilla street fighting that we don't like we'll back off and bomb it to smithereens regardless of whether there's a hospital, whether there's children, whether there's anybody, because the goal is to win at all costs. If that means leveling a country, leveling a city, then so be it.

BLACKWELL: General, you mentioned you appearance on Wolf's show. I would back and watch that, the one on the first day of the invasion, which you said it looked like in 24 to 48 hours, the Russians could come in and take Kyiv. We know that has not happened. But you also said the U.S. and NATO have work to do to prevent the carnage in the capital. Supplies are good and, quote, we are better than that as a nation, talking about camping over the city.

Listen to Defense Intelligence Agency director, General Berrier, at this worldwide threat assessment today.

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BERRIER: Well, the Air Force is having a tough time flying in Ukraine right now. They're conducting surveillance and reconnaissance. They're using their assets to do a bunch of different things. And quite honestly, a no-fly zone is a combat operation that requires manned and unmanned aircraft, ISR assets, resources on the escalation ladder that is escalatory.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): I understand that but my point is a no-fly zone wouldn't inhibit missiles, rockets, and artillery.

BERRIER: That is correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Do you think now still they need a no-fly zone over the capital?

JOULWAN: I think so. It may be too hard to do when the will isn't there. I truly think what needs to happen is that when I was in Bosnia, we worked in Bosnia, when the Bosnian Serbs were shelling hospitals and schools, et cetera, the U.N. put exclusion zones around 20 kilometers around Sarajevo, around Gorazde, around Bihac, and said to Milosevic, you cannot shell. Those are safe areas.

If they did that, then they're violating the U.N. order, and they're war criminals. You take them to The Hague. And that's where Milosevic, Mladic and Karadzic wound up. And that's what we should look at. Putin should understand that. This is no free lunch here. BLACKWELL: Yeah.

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JOULWAN: He's killing civilians. He's bombing safe areas and take his ass to The Hague.

BLACKWELL: The difference here is that Putin doesn't seem to be deterred by any of those threats.

CAMEROTA: And he would have to be arrested.

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, great point.

Steve Hall, retired General George Joulwan, thank you both very much for your expertise.

So, the next several days, temperatures will be below freezing in Ukraine, making the humanitarian crisis even worse, if you can imagine. So, we're going to speak to one aid group that is helping people with thermal blankets, shelter kits and more.

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