Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Russian Invasion of Ukraine Enters Week Three; Three People Killed in Attack on Mariupol Maternity Hospital; Kuleba: Expectations Not High for talks with Lavrov; W.H.O.: 18 Health Care Facilities Attacked so far; Kharkiv Resident Posts Videos About Life Under Siege. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 10, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and right around the world. I am Isa Soares in London. We are following breaking news coverage of the war in Ukraine and just ahead right here on CNN Newsroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My heart is bleeding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My elbow is under continuous shell in from the artillery and boom bin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mariupol is a violent place to be right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want us to do more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 2 million people have left Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, there will be terrible implications for European and global security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: It is Thursday 11 am in Ukraine and where we mark the beginning of a third week of war. The Russian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers have been meeting in Turkey. That's where they're meeting right now, as condemnation over the invasion really just intensifies.

We're about to air some images from the besieged city of Mariupol, which you can see there in the upper right, that you may find disturbing and they show the aftermath of an attack on a maternity ward as well as children's hospital that has now turned deadly.

Just minutes ago, authorities announced that three of the 17 people wounded in the blast have died and one of them was a child. The victims include extremely pregnant women as well as doctors and children all rushed out of the building or carried out as we've seen on stretchers like look at that image. A few hours before the bombing, Russia's Foreign Ministry claimed Ukrainian combat troops were holed up in the hospital and expelled patients and staff. Russia later insisted its forces were not involved in the explosion and try to blame it on Ukrainian nationalists. Ukraine's President said his troops would never commit a war crime like this even in the separatists regions have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Children's hospital maternity ward why were they a threat to Russian Federation? What kind of country is Russian Federation that is afraid of hospitals afraid of maternity wards and destroys them? A strike on a maternity hospital as a final proof a proof of genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Ukraine's former boxing champion had a very strong reaction to the hospital strike, which left this huge crater behind. Wladimir Klitschko the brother of Kyiv's Mayor says to attack children is to attack life and civilization itself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO, BROTHER OF KYIV'S MAYOR: My heart is bleeding. It is often said that the first casualty of war is truth. Yes, it is, as you can see in the Russia, but you know what? The most unbearable casualties are the children. Children are dying by dozens now at home, in their houses or in the road side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Well, a warning we are going to add more images that you may find upsetting. They shed really light on the suffering that continues every day in Mariupol. So many people there have been killed that workers have been placing victims in a mass grave their bodies wrapped in plastic bags as well as carpets.

We are told this trench was dug next to a graveyard. Overwhelmed workers and shell shocked families clearly unable to provide fitting funerals. Mariupol officials say some 1300 civilians have been killed since - there since the start of the invasion. CNN cannot independently confirm that figure. It far exceeds the UN's estimated death toll of 516 which is for the entire country.

Well, Mariupol so they're clearly in a world of hurt. But that attack on the maternity ward is especially outrageous because it happened during what was supposed to be a ceasefire a ceasefire that was remembered proposed by Russia that was meant to help trapped civilians escape. Our Sam Kiley has the details for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAM KILEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We were really stretched whatever cause you have sent them here. He says airstrike maternity hospital. This was Russia's response to a global appeal for a ceasefire to evacuate a city of a million people.

A bomb dropped next to a maternity hospital in Mariupol. It's hospital number three. Inside a frantic search for survivors early reports say that there were more than a dozen injured a miraculous outcome to an attempt to a mass killing at a place where lives should begin.

Many women and children had already fled to underground bunkers after a week of Russian bombardment. Ukraine's President renewed his pleas for NATO to drive Russia from his nation's skies after the hospital airstrike.

[04:05:00]

ZELENSKYY: Everything that the occupiers do with Mariupol is already beyond atrocity Europeans, Ukrainians citizens of Mariupol today; we must be united in condemning this war crime of Russia.

KILEY (voice over): In fact, evacuations from other towns have been more successful, but still very limited. Around 700 people, mostly women and children, were bused out of Zaporizhzhia the site of Europe's biggest nuclear reactor, which was captured recently by Russia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The shops are empty. There's nothing there not enough medical supplies retired. We need to eat and rest.

KILEY (on camera): It may seem extraordinary, but these are the lucky ones. They've escaped from the shadow of a nuclear power station and the clutches of Russian troops but in comparison to what people are enduring in Mariupol this is good fortune.

KILEY (voice over): Yulia Coriolan volunteers and refugee center in - set up to receive people fleeing her hometown of Mariupol. It's empty. She's been waiting a week for news from home of her husband --. This morning, she got a brief call.

KILEY (on camera): How's your daughter doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daughter told me she loves me.

KILEY (on camera): Of course she does.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually how she's alive. She's doing like all of its children doing now in Mariupol almost no food, no drinking water, no electricity. It was minus five this night. They have no heat and cold basement and some courts.

KILEY (voice over): Small families living in a bomb shelter with hundreds of others. She says they can only survive another few days. Then they will have to surface perhaps to face more of this. Sam Kiley, CNN Zaporizhzhia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Well, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hoping more civilians will be able to leave war zones in Ukraine in the coming hours. Six humanitarian routes are expected to be open today. And that includes three so called green corridors planned in Ukraine's Sumy region.

Wednesday's efforts were mostly successful. Mr. Zelenskyy reports 35,000 were rescued from Mariupol in the south and areas around Kyiv in the north. Ukraine Interior Ministry claims Russian forces stop some of the convoys. Well, CNN's Scott McLean is live from Lviv, Ukraine and one of the major cities of course; the refugees have been traveling through to try to escape the war.

And Scott, good morning to you! Let's start on these humanitarian corridors. I mean, we've just seen the pictures out of Mariupol at that hospital. How can anyone take Russia at their word, given what happened in that maternity hospital? I mean, they bombed it during a ceasefire.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it only underscores the need for these humanitarian corridors at this time Isa. Of course, blame is being assigned by Ukraine to Russia. But the Russians continued to deny it at first saying that it was actually Ukrainian nationalists who were responsible, but several hours even before this hospital was bombed, or there was this military strike against this hospital.

There were - the Russians were saying that they were actually Ukrainians taking up combat positions at that hospital and actually expelling the patients and the staff there. The Mayor of Mariupol said very clearly that look; the perpetrators of this will burn in hell right after they're brought to justice at The Hague.

And remember, the Mariupol is a city under siege. So even before this bombing took place, you had a city that was essentially cut off from the rest of the country lacking food, lacking water, no power, no water, no heat, no cell signal, that's obviously the least of their worries at this stage. And now all of a sudden, on top of all that you have this and watching through some of the videos is absolutely horrifying.

You hear the first responders saying, look, send all the cars you can in another video, someone says where should we send the children from the maternity ward which hospital? And you can imagine Isa, how difficult it is to navigate a city, which is under siege, which doesn't have basic resources. And now all of a sudden you're trying to send injured people from one hospital to another.

SOARES: Yes, there just no words really what we have seen the last 24 hours there in Mariupol. Let's talk though, about these new humanitarian corridors that have been announced. Scott, I mean, what are you hearing from people? I know you'll be meeting some who have been able to get out from these locations.

MCLEAN: Sure. So far, it's been hit and misses. The first couple of days that they tried these humanitarian corridors it did not go well. The Ukrainians accused the Russians of shelling in the area shelling in the direction of these corridors and so they were quickly called off especially few people were actually able to get out of some of these cities.

We saw the first sign of success on Tuesday at Sumy when several 1000 people according to Ukrainian officials were able to get out and including almost 1000 international students were taken out along the humanitarian corridor to the City of Poltava about 100 miles away.

[04:10:00]

MCLEAN: And then from there they were put on trains to Lviv, where actually I got to meet some of them and they described an absolutely terrifying experience sheltering in the basement bunker of their dormitory building. One student told me that she accepted at one point that she was likely going to die.

Thankfully, they were able to get out in these corridors safely; their journey took more than 24 hours. But I can tell you, nobody complained about the condition of the trains or the discomfort of the buses, they were just happy to be alive and in one piece.

So as for today, there is potentially some optimism that things could go a little bit better. As you mentioned, the president said that some 35,000 people were able to get out of a handful of cities yesterday, one of the problem areas that we're seeing is around Kyiv and the suburb, some suburbs were able to get into the city where they're able to take trains or other transport out.

In other places, particularly the suburb of - the Ukrainian say that the Russians actually blocked the road. And what ended up happening is that some people who were in that convoy ready to go could not get out ended up going another direction and actually linking up with a different corridor through Irpin, where people were able to get out.

The trouble is that by the time they managed to get there and get onto a green corridor, well, it was past curfew past the time that these corridors were supposed to be open and local officials said that you had some 15 kilometers worth of backups of people just trying desperately to get out of the cities.

Obviously the situation in Mariupol and the bombing there does not bode well. Ukraine has said that some 200,000 people would desperately like to get out of that city on the Volnovokha similarly some 20,000 people would like to get out and so obviously fingers are crossed that things go better today.

SOARES: Absolutely. And temperatures have been so low. It's been so bitterly cold. I can't imagine what those families are going through. Scott McLean in Lviv thanks for your terrific reporting. I appreciate it, Scott.

MCLEAN: You bet.

SOARES: Well, top diplomats from Ukraine and Russia are meeting right now in Turkey. Talks got underway in the last hour between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. They're the highest level talks, I should say yet, but no major breakthroughs unfortunately are expected. Jomana Karadsheh joins me now from where the talks are taking place in Italia Turkey.

She's in the conference room, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to speak. And Jomana they're talking and I suppose that's a good sign. But are there any hopes of progress here?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know Isa; this has been a serious diplomatic push by Turkey for days and weeks right now trying to bring both sides together to get them to start talking at a higher level.

Both Foreign Minister Cavusoglu and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been working the phones. They have tried to bring President Putin and Zelenskyy together for a summit. But right now they have managed to get these two top diplomats to sit together in this trilateral meeting that is being hosted by the Turkish Foreign Minister.

Now, as you mentioned, that began about an hour ago. And we understand from a senior Turkish official Isa, that this meeting is expected to last about 90 minutes. So it could be wrapping up in the next 30 minutes or so. Perhaps an indication that no one is expecting this to go on for hours no one's expecting any sort of a major breakthrough to come from this meeting.

But you know things are quite fluid in that could change. But we have now seen preparations underway for two separate press conferences that are going to be taking place after the talks conclude one here where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to address the press and then a separate room where Foreign Minister Kuleba is going to be speaking.

Look, Turkey was really hoping Isa that this is going to be you know, as we heard from President Erdogan opening the door towards a permanent ceasefire. But I think realistically no one is expecting any sort of a major breakthrough, especially when it comes to the key issues at the heart of this conflict.

And we heard that from Foreign Minister Kuleba saying, look, he has - he doesn't have high expectations, coming to this meeting, but he's hoping that his Russian counterpart is going to approach this in good faith, he said rather than from a perspective of propaganda.

So we'll have to wait and see what comes out of here. We know that for Ukraine on the table, according to the Foreign Minister, ceasefire is key, the humanitarian catastrophic situation on the ground and according to Kuleba, they're also going to be discussing "Liberating our territories".

For the Russians we've heard that for them they consider this to be an important continuation of negotiations that have been already taking place. So we'll have to wait and see what happens.

[04:15:00]

KARADSHEH: But you know one important thing Isa that Foreign Minister Kuleba said that they are coming to this - to these talks from a position of strength this time. They feel that they have the backing of the international community, they have had the support, they've had those sanctions slapped on Russia, as well as the fights that the Ukrainians have put up on the ground Isa. SOARES: Yes, I think that's a very good point that Kuleba makes. They are in a position of strength, the Russian troops been digging in there haven't been able to take Kyiv. And the Ukrainians have been defiant. And the rest of the world has been sanctioning pretty much everyone in Russia.

So what are we expecting from the Russians? I mean, are we expecting realistically Jomana for them to budge on their list of demands?

KARADSHEH: I mean, that is the big question here Isa. You know, how much is this international pressure going to impact the Russians? I mean, we have heard from officials saying, look, we're going to have to wait and see what directives Foreign Minister Lavrov has coming into these meetings.

And again, I really don't think a 90 minute meeting is going to be the one where you're going to see any sort of concessions, or any sort of major changes to the situation. But again, as you mentioned, at least, you know, there is this optimism, this hope that they are starting to talk at the highest of levels right now.

So we'll have to wait and see Isa what comes out of it, at least the hope is some sort of a ceasefire, perhaps at least that's the optimism from the Turkish side, the hope and the expectation that they're going to be pushing forward to because really, Turkey wants to present itself as a serious peace broker in all of this that has been trying and working really hard behind the scenes to try and use its good relations with both countries to try and bring an end to the devastating violence Isa.

SOARES: Yes. Turkey is interesting of course, because it's has called a Russia's invasion unacceptable, but it has not sanctioned or posed sanctions on Moscow interesting indeed. Jomana Karadsheh in Alitalia Turkey, I know you'll keep us posted. Thanks, Jomana.

Well, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is in Poland for talks today with the country's president as well as Prime Minister. The Biden Administration says she will reiterate U.S. support for NATO allies and the Ukrainian people and emphasize that Russia is headed for resounding defeat. Her visit comes with the U.S. has rejected a Polish offer to send MIG 29 fighter jets to Ukraine via U.S. NATO airbase in Germany.

Well, children are among the millions of refugees from Ukraine. For them the journey from home can be as terrifying as well as confusing as the attacks they survive. We will bring you their stories just ahead you are watching CNN Newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:20:00]

SOARES: The World Health Organization says it's verified 18 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine so far. And now as more than 2 million people have fled the fighting the W. H. O. is helping to provide care in the neighboring countries that have taken them in. Most of the refugees as you can see there are women and children one group is taking care of the orphans who needed to help to escape the attacks. Sara Sidner reports they're safe for now, but they have little hope of returning home soon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The normal beautiful chaos of children at play. But these children have been through hell and back more than once in their young lives. Some are orphans, others foster children in Ukraine and suddenly overnight they became war refugees fleeing over the Polish border from Kyiv.

The youngest one says I want to go home. I'm telling him that he can't. It's scary there. He doesn't understand. This is the only woman they know as mama. This is their comfort their constant she helped them escape Ukraine. But doing that meant leaving her own family behind and becoming a refugee herself.

I have a daughter in mother in Ukraine. I'm worrying so much. But these children's should be saved. Her daughter is staying behind to fight Russia as a member of the Ukraine territorial defense. These children have been fighting for their place in the world from an early age. We're not showing their faces to protect them.

Before the war, our children have been abused physically, psychologically, economically and sexually. They suffered. They didn't have a childhood. Now in Poland, they are safe at the SOS Children's village, but the trauma of war and abuse never really goes away. Their longtime mental health counselor says.

She's held it together to reassure the children even while they all hid in the basement with bombs exploding outside. It was around 4 am I woke my husband up and told him - this is war. We started to seal the windows two children started to scream I was trying to calm him look at me breathe. We're going to seal the windows. Everything is under control.

Now we need you to stop the panic and help us so far SOS Children's village says it has brought 107 orphans and foster children out of Ukraine. Some children escaped without seeing war up close. Others witnessed horrific scenes.

There's a girl which is coming to us she broke free from the hell of Irpin a city that's been leveled and she witnessed a family being shot before her eyes. When she thinks of the man responsible for raining down bombs and bullets on her beloved country her tears turned to rage.

[04:25:00]

SIDNER (voice over): Putin is the second Hitler it is serious if the world doesn't stop him there will be World War III.

SINDER (on camera): Putin has said that he is going into Ukraine to kill Nazis. You're saying that Putin is in your mind the new Hitler. SIDNER (voice over): Yes, it is obvious now that he is not fighting Nazis. While they are all grateful to escape to Poland, the children and adults all say they want one thing to be able to cross the border home to a safe Ukraine.

SIDNER (on camera): And I should mention that now the number of refugees and total that have come over the Polish border from Ukraine is now up to 1.3 million people Sara Sidner, CNN Przemsyl, Poland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Now we have some breaking news coming in to CNN. The UK has added oligarch and Chelsea Football Club Owner Roman Abramovich and Putin ally Igor Sechin to its list of sanctioned individuals. In a statement on Thursday, the UK government said it was adding seven for the oligarchs and politician to its lists, including Oleg Deripaska.

Again the UK adding oligarch and Chelsea Football Club Owner Roman Abramovich to its list of sanction individual that means basically, its assets will be frozen. UK coming under pressure in the last few weeks to sanction these oligarchs. And we're seeing that action now from the UK Government the last few minutes.

We'll stay on top of that breaking news story for you. Well, life under siege in Ukraine second largest city one resident keeps a video diary of Russia's relentless attacks on Kharkiv, and as you will see her account is heart wrenching.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last night, was probably the most terrifying night of my life. Kharkiv was terribly bombarded last night. Airstrikes all over the city dozens of buildings destroyed civilian buildings for people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:00]