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Russian Forces Moving in on Kyiv from the East; U.S. Dismisses Russia's Claims on Chemical Weapons Work; Sheltering the Mass of Refugees; Ukrainian Forces Destroy Russian Tanks Near Capital; Ukraine Dancers Stranded; Americans Paying Record High Gasoline Prices. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired March 11, 2022 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
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UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is "CNN Breaking News."
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around world. I am Michael Holmes coming to you live from Lviv in Ukraine.
And we do have some breaking news from the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro where authorities say three airstrikes have killed at least one person. The State Emergency Service says the strikes hit close to a preschool, also an apartment building and a shoe factory.
Meanwhile, Russian forces appear to be moving closer to the capital, Kyiv, with a concerted push from the east. Heavy fighting reported in several towns near the Ukrainian capital. Here, Ukrainian forces are trying to free a town currently occupied by the Russians. The fighting, as you are about to hear, is intense.
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HOLMES (on camera): And here, we see that the massive Russian convoy north of Kyiv -- well, it's been largely dispersed now. To where? Unclear, at the moment. But the British defense ministry is reporting that more Russian forces are being sent in to encircle key cities. And a U.S. official says the Russians are relying more on long-range bombardment, missile launches, and airstrikes.
New satellite images document the damage from Russian strikes about 80 miles or 130 kilometers northeast of the capital. One showing an industrial center on fire, and another, the burnt-out remains of a supermarket.
Maxar also publishing pictures from the Antonov Airbase which is now controlled by Russian forces and you can see thick plumes of black smoke billowing from burning fuel storage tanks.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reporting about 100,000 civilians have been evacuated from war zones here in the past two days.
Meanwhile, an Italian journalist recording video of sick orphans being evacuated from a Kyiv suburb. Ukraine's foreign minister tweeting the images, condemning what he called Russia's barbaric crimes. It's not clear if the children were injured in the fighting.
Now, Ukrainian forces putting up stiff resistance to the Russian military advance outside of the capital. They claim they have destroyed a tank column that was on its way to Kyiv.
CNN's Matthew Chance reports.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The aftermath of fierce fighting east of the Ukrainian capital. This is what you get when you invade Ukrainian land, the narrator says, as Russian forces attempt to encircle Kyiv.
Ukrainian military says it has defeated an entire regiment of Russian tanks and liquidated its commander.
Drone video captured the armored column in the city of (INAUDIBLE) being attacked and destroyed, the latest battlefield "win" in what is proving for now to be a determined Ukrainian stand.
But on the diplomatic front, stalemate. Despite the highest-level talks since this Russia-Ukraine conflict began, foreign ministers meeting in the Turkish city of Antalya, Ukrainian officials tell CNN the Russian side appeared unwilling or unable to make a deal.
DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We also raised the issue of a ceasefire, 24-hour ceasefire to resolve the most pressing humanitarian issues. We did not make progress on this since it seems that there are other decisionmakers for this -- for this matter in Russia.
CHANCE (voice-over): It's these gut-wrenching scenes in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol provoking wide international scorn. A maternity hospital devastated by Russian forces, according to Ukrainian officials, killing at least three people inside, including a child. Horrific images are circulating like this one of pregnant women bloodied in the attack.
[02:04:58]
CHANCE (voice-over): Still, the Russian foreign minister is insisting this was a legitimate strike on a far-right Ukrainian militia, the Azov battalion, not a war crime.
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): At the meeting of the U.N. Security Council, our delegation presented facts about this maternity hospital having long been seized by the Azov battalion and other radicals, and they have driven all the pregnant women and the nurses out of it.
CHANCE (voice-over): But in cities across Ukraine, trapped civilians are desperately escaping the fighting. These, the latest scenes from Irpin, north of Kyiv, where the city's mayor says nearly half the population has already fled. With no peace in sight, Ukraine's capital is emptying as Russian forces advance.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Kyiv.
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HOLMES (on camera): Douglas London is a retired CIA operations officer, now with Georgetown University Center for Security Studies. Now, earlier, I asked him about the U.S. strategy of releasing apparently classified intel in an effort to head off possible Russian plans. Have a listen.
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DOUGLAS LONDON, RETIRED CIA OPERATIONS OFFICER: It's really unprecedented, the amount of information that was declassified from apparently real (ph) intelligence. We have seen the Khashoggi report. We have seen the information on Russian meddling. Those are finished products that had gone through analytic review and a good deal of scrubbing before it was made declassified.
Here, we have the president, secretary of defense releasing almost daily information that seems to be coming in a stream of information. We haven't seen that since at least December of 1980 when we tried to throw off the then Soviets who were planning to invade Poland.
I don't necessarily think it was done with the belief it was going to preempt Putin's invasion. I think we were pretty confident he was going to do it. I would like to think it was more to prepare the battlefield, to create public-opinion pressure on our allies, on governments and NATO and the G7 to unify as we have. So, I think, in that extent, it's been very successful.
HOLMES: Hmm. Yeah, that's an interesting take on it. I -- in -- in the bigger picture, does there need to be a bigger investment in human intelligence and resources? Has that ball been dropped in this high- tech age?
LONDON: Technology is such that it works both ways and people could use it to manipulate images, manipulate collection of voice recordings that we might even pick up. So, I think that the agency, particularly CIA, my old employers, were so focused on counterterrorism for a while that they were likely underinvesting in what they needed. But we're able to transition and pivot now, as we see, clearly from the intelligence that we've heard and read being declassified. But there is still some work to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES (on camera): Now, the top U.S. Intelligence official is dismissing Russian allegations that the United States is developing chemical weapons in Ukraine.
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines testified before senators on Thursday, a day after the White House slammed those accusations as patently false, and said they could, in fact, be part of Moscow's strategy to accuse first before using similar weapons themselves. Haines said the allegations are signature Russian propaganda.
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AVRIL HAINES, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We do not believe that Ukraine is pursuing biological or nuclear weapons. That -- we have seen no evidence of that. And frankly, this influence campaign is completely consistent with longstanding Russian efforts to accuse the United States of sponsoring bioweapons work in former Soviet Union. So, this is a classic move by the Russians.
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HOLMES (on camera): The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, echoing the U.S. sentiment on Thursday.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): They accuse us -- again, us -- that we are allegedly developing biological
weapons? Allegedly, we are preparing a chemical attack? This makes me really worried because we have been repeatedly convinced, if you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of.
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HOLMES (on camera): Now, President Zelensky also denying Ukraine has developed any kinds of weapons of mass destruction.
Concerns are growing about Ukraine's nuclear power plants, which have been taken over by Russian troops. Ukraine now telling the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency, it has lost all communications with the Chernobyl plant. On Wednesday, it lost its external power supply which is needed to cool its used nuclear fuel. The U.N. Nuclear Agency says it cannot confirm reports that the power is now back on. So, it's concerning.
Nina dos Santos with more.
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NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First, Russia seized Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear meltdown. A week later, it was Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant.
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DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Now, with power cut from Chernobyl and more than 200 plant workers held hostage, alarm bells are ringing. ZELENSKY (through translator): This was terror at a new level. Ukraine has 15 nuclear plants, and the Russian military has forgotten Chernobyl and the world's tragedy.
RAFAEL GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: We cannot go on like this. There has to be clear understanding, clear commitments not to go anywhere near nuclear facility when it comes to nuclear -- to military operations.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Some have called the targeting of such sensitive infrastructure a war crime.
(On camera): Do you think that these nuclear plants are going to be targeted specifically?
TARAS KUZIO, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SECURITY AFFAIRS EXPERT: They are extremely callous. They don't not give a damn about civilian casualties. But I would be surprised if they were going to deliberately target missiles or artillery nuclear power plants, although, you know, with a sociopathic president Putin, anything is possible.
JOEL RUBIN, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: It is energy extortion, nuclear energy extortion in this case. And it is also extortion of the Ukrainian people because it is going to harm their ability to gain -- have electricity. This is a diabolical maneuver by Vladimir Putin.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Ukraine is home to 15 nuclear facilities. With two taken already, Russian forces are now approaching Ukraine's second largest nuclear site, Yuzhnoukrainsk, in Mykolaiv Oblast.
KUZIO: (INAUDIBLE) is a means to control the power supply to Ukrainian cities and towns as a way of intern controlling all aspects of Ukrainian society, trying to put a stranglehold and a squeeze on Ukraine civilians.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Nuclear power makes up almost a quarter of Ukraine's overall energy mix after coal and natural gas, most of which ultimately comes from Russia. But oil has also been hit. Ukraine posted these images on Tuesday of fires at oil depots in Zhytomyr and Chernihiv in the northwest of the country.
The jury is out for now on what Russia's endgame is for Ukraine's energy infrastructure, especially its nuclear sites. Ukraine tells the IAEA that radiation levels at these plants appear to be normal, but western nerves have been rattled.
Nina Dos Santos, CNN, in London.
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HOLMES (on camera): And just in the last few minutes, we've heard from the Ukrainian president's office reporting explosions in the western city of Lutsk, as if shutting down two boiler houses apparently, according to the president's office. And the adviser there said that three powerful blasts hit Ivano-Frankivsk, which is in the southwestern part of the country. Literally just getting that information in the last few minutes. We will keep you updated on developments there.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people are making the arduous journey across Ukrainian borders in hopes of reaching safety. Just ahead, how one country is coping with the crisis and the overwhelming number of southern refugees.
Also, hundreds of international students were caught in Ukraine's Sumy region amid Russia's invasion. Some of them spoke with CNN after moving safely through a humanitarian corridor. We will have that and more after the break.
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HOLMES (on camera): Welcome back. The humanitarian crisis growing daily in Ukraine, showing no signs of slowing down. Quite the opposite in many ways. According to the United Nations, more than 2.3 million people have fled this country so far, nearly a million and a half of those to Poland alone, and hundreds of thousands to other nearby countries.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, explaining how the country has been evacuating citizens in danger over the last two days.
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ZELENSKY (through translator): Humanitarian corridors were also delivered. Hundreds of tons of food, medicine. We're doing everything to save our people in the cities that the enemy just wants to destroy. Taking into account the work of humanitarian corridors in the previous two days, we have already evacuated about 100,000 people.
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HOLMES (on camera): Neighboring countries such as Poland, Romania, and Moldova are now trying to figure out how to house the thousands of people pouring across their borders every day, and that is a hard thing to do when you can't be sure how many more are coming.
CNN's Miguel Marquez has more now on that from Romania.
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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The refugee crisis, deepening.
ANNA LEUKINENKO, FLED UKRAINE: They opened just my bag just thinking of what I need in maybe about two hours (ph).
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Anna Leukinenko from Mykolaiv in Southern Ukraine, a city hammered indiscriminately by Russian rockets and artillery. Leukinenko had two hours to pack up her two kids, her mother, and her children's godmother. Two hours to pack. No idea if she will see her husband, grandparents or country again.
LEUKINENKO: In my heart, I said I think that Ukrainians will be free and everything will be okay. But who knows when?
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Leukinenko trying to get from Bucharest to friends in Poland. One story of millions. Families now being torn apart in Ukraine and across Europe.
RAED ARAFAT, STATE SECRETARY, ROMANIA MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS: We will see people who are without capabilities, without possibilities, financial possibilities, who are running from war. They are running for their lives, taking just very few things with them, and sometimes even without documentation.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): The speed at which Ukrainians are transformed into refugees, increasing exponentially as Russia continues punishing attacks on civilian and military targets alike.
COSMINA SIMIEAN (ph), GENEVA MANAGER DIRECTORATE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, CITY OF BUCHAREST: We don't know what is coming and how many people are coming to Bucharest. As far as we know, the people coming here are only in transit. A few of them remain in Romania. But we don't know how many people will come, so we need to be prepared.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Romanians not just waiting to receive Ukrainian refugees.
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MARQUEZ (voice-over): Now, they're collecting and organizing massive amounts of humanitarian supplies, all to be shipped directly to Ukraine.
NICUSOR DAN, GENERAL MAYOR, BUCHAREST: They need drugs, and we have a specific list of what kind of drugs. They need medical kits. And they need food that can be preserved.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Did you ever think you'd be in this situation?
DAN: No. I mean, a war in 2022, it's unbelievable.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Miguel Marquez, CNN, Bucharest, Romania.
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HOLMES (on camera): All right. The U.N. expects millions more to flee Ukraine in the coming days. Let's talk more about this. I am joined by Deb Barry. She is a humanitarian response team leader with Save the Children. She joins me now from Warsaw.
It's good to see you. So, more than two million refugees -- 2.3 million. Half of them are children. Speak to the sheer numbers you are seeing and how something like this impact kids, in particular.
DEB BARRY, HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE TEAM LEADER, SAVE THE CHILDREN: Yeah. So, every day, you know, the numbers here in Poland go up by over 150,000, women and children primarily coming across the borders. And, you know, they only want to be at the borders just for a few hours. They want to get that final place on where they are going to be.
And I was just down at the border yesterday talking with some of these families that have come across. And for these children, you know, just like you just saying in the other interview, they are bringing just their most prized, you know, the things they really want to hold on to.
But really, what they are really focusing on right now is where are they going next, which part of Poland will they go to or what other cities in Europe. And they are so worried, the parents, about their education, about their health, and psychologically, how are they all going to be after this.
And right now, they are trying to not think about that. They are trying to think about, you know, just their safety of getting to a home and having a bed to sleep in, after so many of them have not had a bed for five or six nights at the moment.
HOLMES: I was going to ask you about exactly that aspect of this. We interviewed a woman here in Lviv a few days ago who was managing a foster home with kids who had come in from other parts of the country being shelled. And she said even in Lviv, where there had been no bombs, if an air-raid siren goes off, the kids panic. They reacted. They were traumatized from what they've been through.
Can -- can you imagine it? There's going to be countless Ukrainian kids in need of some form of counseling or psychological help.
BARRY: Right. And this is the advice we have been giving to parents as soon as they cross the border, when they get their sim cards, because that is one of the things that they really want to be able to get, is a phone card to call back home their families.
It is advice about how to talk to their children right now as they continue on their journey. Not to make those promises that everything's going to be okay, but be really reassuring that there are so many people working together for them, that they will try to find a place to have that and to feel connected to loved ones.
That's why, you know, making those phone calls back to home, connecting with friends is so important for these children on the way.
And in Warsaw, you know, and other places around Poland, we are working with the schools to make sure that children feel welcomed when they go into schools.
The health care professionals, if you are a new -- if you are a pregnant mum and you are going to have a baby, you are going to want somebody who can help you do that in your language, especially now that you are not going to have your husband with you. He is not going to be there. You know, all your safety nets have now gone.
And for the children, you know, we do have an experience around the world on how to help children come through war and to be really be active.
And especially for youth, already we are seeing these young people just saying, can we volunteer with you? You know, they just have a desire to prepare themselves (INAUDIBLE) in Ukraine or to have the skills so when they go back, they can rebuild their country. And I think, you know, we have to take that --
HOLMES: Yeah.
BARRY: -- same energy that these children have right now and build on it.
HOLMES: That's -- that is heartening, the helping. But, I mean, it's hard, isn't it, to make people see past the numbers and truly understand the misery that people have endured. What sorts of things are you and your people hearing from those who have crossed? You know, about what they've been through, the individual trauma of this.
BARRY: I think one of the things that really hit me yesterday was this -- this beautiful little girl who is 8-1/2. And she really wants to make sure that I knew she was a half, like wasn't just 8, she is 8- 1/2. And she was telling us about the fact that, you know, for two nights, you know, they have traveled across the Ukraine, sleeping in a train. They had to travel by night with all the lights off, right? And now, she is kind of has that fear of the dark. She wants to keep that light on now, because in her mind, she associates that.
And, you know, those are stories that we don't hear from Ukraine at the journey they have taken so far. And we actually were able to connect with her yesterday morning and find out about how her first night had been here in Warsaw. And her mom told us that she was so excited that she has a bed that she could finally sleep in with a little night-light on. And that's what this is, right?
[02:25:00]
BARRY: It is having a safe bed in a hotel. She hadn't slept for days. You know, they had been on -- they had slept in the bathtub. And she is like, you know, yesterday, she finally got to take a bath. (INAUDIBLE). And I think, you know, for these parents (INAUDIBLE). Sorry.
HOLMES: Yes. No, no, no, exactly. Little delay, so I didn't mean to interrupt. Real quick, we are almost out of time, I guess. But I got to ask you, depending on what happens in the weeks and months ahead, this could be a problem that lasts for years. Some of these people might not be going home for some time, right?
BARRY: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things that we really are driving home. You know, we have been an organization for 100 years, working in 102 countries. We've been actually in the Ukraine for the last eight years. We are reassuring the government and the people that come with us that we are staying with them through this as well, and we will be working and using all those amazing funds that have been raised to really stay with these families for years to come as no matter what happens, and that they can rely on that support and being integrated into the communities.
And also working with, for example, you know, the Polish community who has been amazing. But we know that it's going to become overwhelming. So, how do we ensure that? They are supported well, that the schools are better for their children, for all children, and better healthcare so that whatever happens after this, Poland as well hasn't felt like they have been damaged by this, that everyone is kind of moving forward together.
HOLMES: Yeah.
BARRY: So, a real investment in Ukrainians and Polish people here.
HOLMES: Important, important stuff. Deb Barry, good to speak with you. Thanks so much and thanks for the work that you are doing.
BARRY: Thank you.
HOLMES: All right. The mayor of Kyiv says Russia's goal since day one has been to capture his city and then overthrow the government. We'll explain how close Russian troops are getting to the capital.
Also, still to come, newly-released images showing the devastation and the suffering of the (INAUDIBLE) city of Mariupol. But can those who survive the bombardment survive the shortages? We'll be right back.
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[02:36:51]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Michael Holmes coming to you live from Lviv in Ukraine. And minutes ago, an aid to Ukraine's President reporting new explosions in several major Ukrainian cities. Dnipro is among the cities described as being under attack. We're hearing airstrikes there have killed at least one person and another has died in Lutsk. Now Kiev is also undergoing threat of course with heavy fighting on several sides of the city now.
Western defense officials warning Russian forces are moving closer, some just 15 kilometers away. Now they've got those satellite images there. This is Chernihiv which is north of the capital which we're told is now "isolated by Russian troops." The Ukrainian military claiming some victories though, like the destruction of this Russian tank regiment in the region east of Kiev. The British defense ministry saying it appears Russian troops are now focused on encircling major cities as opposed to gaining new ground on the battlefield.
Now remember that massive Russian convoy that had been long stalled outside Kiev? Well, it's been largely dispersed and redeployed apparently. You can see the growing amount of red on that map there mocking the presence of Russian troops especially now and newly to the east of the capital. Where we're about half an hour into Russia's daily opening of humanitarian corridors in Ukraine.
Russia decided unilaterally to open them every day at 10:00 a.m. Moscow time. Russia's Defense Ministry denying reports that Russia was not observing the daily ceasefire. However, Ukraine's president says that's exactly what's been happening.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Mariupol and Volnovakha remain completely blocked. Although we did everything necessary to make the humanitarian corridor work. Russian troops did not cease fire. Despite this, I decided to send a convoy of trucks to Mariupol anyway.
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HOLMES: Mr. Zelenskyy says 100,000 people have been evacuated in the past two days. Russia says the number is closer to 197,000. But in hard hit Mariupol, the mayor says hundreds of thousands of people are being held hostage by the Russian military. He's accused Russia of genocide saying no aid has been able to reach the city for six days now. The Ukrainian emergency service building in Mariupol was shelled on Thursday, a day earlier you remember.
A blast damaged a maternity and children's hospital, killing three people, wounding several others and setting off global condemnation. Russia denying any responsibility in fact calling the attack staged. And a warning, some images in our next report might be difficult to watch. They show some of the Ukrainian civilians harmed by the relentless attacks on Mariupol. CNN's Phil Black with that story.
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PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When you hear Ukrainian city is under siege, cut off and under bombardment by Russian forces. This is what that means. No one knows how many people have been killed in Mariupol.
[02:35:03]
BLACK: But it's too many to allow the care and dignity that usually comes with death. Relatively few images have escaped Mariupol since the siege began. These were captured by A.P. photo journalist Evgeniy Maloletka who says he saw around 70 bodies buried in this trench over two days. They arrived wrapped in whatever people could find and use. Plastic bags even covered. And this shows why it's likely there are many more.
Mariupol suffering from above. Before and after satellite images reveal extraordinary devastation in commercial and shopping areas. Residential neighborhoods too. Russian munitions are steadily wiping out this city. It's already unlivable. There is no food, water or power. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says a child in Mariupol has died of dehydration, probably for the first time since the Nazi invasion.
During a meeting in Turkey, the Ukrainian foreign minister says he asked his Russian counterpart for a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave Mariupol.
DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Unfortunately, minister level was not in a position to commit himself to it, but he will correspond with respective authorities.
BLACK: That means Sergey Lavrov has to ask his boss, but Russia's top diplomat was comfortable repeating Russia's explanation for bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday.
The Russian version says there were no patients or staff in these buildings, just soldiers. This was the reality captured in the moments immediately after the blast. And obviously pregnant woman is stretching from the side. Another hurt, bleeding walks out carrying what she can.
Russians often honor the bravery and determination shown by their own citizens who were besieged by Nazi forces in the Second World War. Now Russia is inflicting that same suffering on the people of Mariupol. Phil Black, CNN, London.
HOLMES: Do stay with us. Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM. Thousands have evacuated Sumy, Ukraine. Thanks to humanitarian efforts. We speak with some international students who made it out after being trapped for days.
Also, still to come, dancers for the Kiev City Ballet are stranded. How they are adjusting and how they are finding ways to support Ukraine's fight from afar. We'll have that and more after the break.
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[02:42:08]
HOLMES: Welcome back. Tens of thousands of people have now been safely evacuated from the Sumy region in Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities say 20,000 passed through green corridors as they're called on Thursday. Buses have transported them to another location when they then travel by train to Western Ukraine. Now among those trying to get out safely are foreign students who spent days in an underground bunker.
CNN's Scott McLean with that story.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is what relief looks like for hundreds of foreign students who've been trapped in Sumy. Ukrainian city under constant Russian bombardment. They say their exhausting journey to safety took more than 24 hours.
SHABNAM HEERAH, FOREIGN STUDENT IN SUMY, UKRAINE: I don't think I would ever forget this in my whole life. Just in my mind.
MCLEAN: Shabnam Heerah, a student from was one of hundreds who spent days sleeping in an underground bunker, hoping and praying, the bombs would let up. They didn't.
What was going through your mind when you were sheltering in that basement?
HEERAH: I just said to myself like, I'm ready to die. I'm going to die now.
MCLEAN: Really?
HEERAH: Yes. Because when you hear that bomb explosion, you just freeze and you start shaking.
MCLEAN: The evacuation of the students who are mostly from India, China and countries in Africa came after intense diplomatic efforts to get them out to safety. And tense negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to open a humanitarian corridor out of Sumy after days of failed efforts in other cities.
DURI NDISIRO, FOREIGN STUDENT IN SUMY, UKRAINE: How will I get out of this place? And even if I get out of this place, will I survive the journey there because we had in some way that the Russian army was surrounding the city and (INAUDIBLE)
MCLEAN: When the busses finally left the students were prioritized in the first convoy. Local authorities say subsequent convoys were held up because the fighting on the outskirts of the city. It took 11 hours along the indirect corridor to Poltava as rows of military vehicles. Then they were quickly put on a train bound for Lviv. Arriving some 15 hours later.
BLESSING JOHN IBANGA, FOREIGN STUDENT IN SUMY, UKRAINE: We've been here to Sumy (INAUDIBLE) all the way.
MCLEAN: These students from Nigeria are headed to Budapest by bus where their embassy will help them from there. Some say they're planning to go back as soon as the war is over.
SAMUEL OTUNLA, FOREIGN STUDENT IN SUMY, UKRAINE: I've spent six years in this country and it's just -- it's a wonderful place to be. Ukraine is a -- they are going through all of this trauma in their country, but they're still able to look out for us as foreigners and a lot of us are very grateful for that.
Scott McLean, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.
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HOLMES: That'll do it from here in Lviv. And now I will be back later. Let's go to Kim Brunhuber now in Atlanta for more news. Hi, Kim.
[02:45:02] KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hey, Michael thanks so much. Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM. Americans are paying more than ever before for gas. We'll talk to some motorists on how they're coping. Stay with us.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very expensive. It's like an extra $200 a month just for my car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're ridiculous and I've been across the country. So, I know that the gas prices, you know, in other states are a lot lower.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had to take a metro because of it's really high. $6.00 has really impact me.
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BRUNHUBER: You heard those drivers. Americans are seeing record-high gas prices. The unprecedented spike will take a significant chunk out of household budgets.
[02:50:01]
BRUNHUBER: And there's concerns that higher prices could hurt the broader economy by forcing families to cut back spending. CNN's Alison Kosik takes a closer look.
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ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From the grocery store to the gas station, we're spending more on just about everything.
WAIN CHIN, NYC TAXI DRIVER: Most of the gas station expensive anyway go.
KOSIK: The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped by another seven cents to a fresh record of $4.32 a gallon on Thursday according to AAA. That's up 59 cents in one week and 78 cents since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We've never seen gas prices in the U.S. run up so quickly. Moody's Analytics predicting families will pay up to $1,300 more this year just to fill up the tank.
CHIN: No, I won't leave. But right now I now make enough, you know, just surviving.
KOSIK: Higher energy prices are likely to exacerbate already high inflation raising costs for delivery. Prices of food, clothing and cars. And because Russia is also a major exporter of crucial metals like aluminum, palladium and nickel that could feed into current supply chain disruptions causing even more sticker shock when buying a new or used car. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything is just gone skyrocket.
KOSIK: Many are calling on the White House to allow more drilling for oil in the U.S. as a way to drive down prices at the pump. But several industry analysts tell CNN that is unrealistic for a number of reasons. The type of oil the U.S. produces is not the kind used to make gasoline and the global supply of oil determines gas prices, not just oil that's drilled in the U.S.
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BRUNHUBER: Ukraine is one signature away from getting nearly $14 billion in new U.S. aid. The money was included in a massive government spending bill the Senate passed Thursday. The aid had a strong bipartisan support and President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill. It signs -- sets aside money for humanitarian, economic and military assistance and that includes more defense equipment and more aid for Ukrainian refugees.
Well, it started off as a quick tour but now members of the Kiev City Ballet are stranded abroad helplessly watching Ukraine fight the Russian invasion from afar. CNN's Jim Bittermann meets with the dancers, many of whom say they want to go home.
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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The 34 dancers so the Kiev City Ballet troupe practiced and trained for weeks before coming to France on tour. But no rehearsals could have prepared them for the news that they saw the day after they arrived in Paris. Their country was being invaded, and they found themselves with no direction home.
In the days that have followed, they've nearly completed their scheduled tour but stranded abroad now. They face an uncertain future.
Dr. Ivan Kozloff says all of his troops some as young as 18 years old want to go back because of families and friends who are now under fire at home. But he knows how dangerous that would be.
IVAN KOZLOV, BALLET DIRECTOR: The most-good thing they can do is dance to provide Ukraine, to show Ukrainian heart, to show Ukrainian culture from the stage to show to audience, to share our culture and we call ourselves the Warriors on the stage.
BITTERMANN: But if they are warriors, they are warriors practically without uniforms.
(on camera): The dancers came here expecting only a brief tour with only the costumes for the Nutcracker performance and no scenic backdrops or stage props. For now, their continued performing around France by borrowing everything right down to replacement ballet shoes.
Olga Posternak and Mykhailo Scherbakov, two of the ballet companies star performers have toured abroad before, but this is different. Neither can stand being apart from their families, knowing that they are increasingly under the Russian booth.
MYKHAILO SCHERBAKOV, BALLET DANCER: At this moment, I understand the time safe here, but still, I want to return home.
BITTERMANN: Olga says there are times when she steps off stage and breaks into tears.
OLGA POSTERNAK, BALLET DANCER: All my family is in Ukraine. What I'm without my family, nothing. Sometimes I feel like I'm shame because I'm here. I want to help them.
BITTERMANN: But as the mayor of Paris said at the ballet's fundraiser, creativity is its own form of resistance. The French are helping the dance company stay, lending them what they need, trying to arrange performances and giving them a dance home at one of the most prestigious theaters in Paris. The dancers from Kiev closed up the program not dancing but singing the words to the Ukrainian national anthem.
[02:55:02]
BITTERMANN: the kind of cultural identity and patriotism Vladimir Putin wants to crush. But in their own small way, a thousand miles from home, the dancers are helping to keep it along. Jim Bittermann, CNN Paris.
BRUNHUBER: I'm Kim Brunhuber at CNN Center in Atlanta. Our breaking news coverage continues in just a moment. Michael Holmes will join us again live in Ukraine. Stay with us.
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[03:00:00]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
HOLMES: Hello and welcome everyone to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes.
