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Russia Intensifies Bombardment Across Ukraine; E.U. Imposes Fourth Round Of Sanctions On Russia; Over 2.5 Million Have Fled Fighting In Ukraine; Volunteers Work To Free Those Trapped Near The Front Line; Dozens Of Companies Abandon Or Limit Operations In Russia; Russian Businesses In U.S. Facing Backlash Over War. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired March 12, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers around the world and the United States. I'm Hala Gorani, live from Lviv in Ukraine.
In the past few hours, air raid sirens have gone off right here in Lviv, in the western part of the country and in both Kyiv and Dnipro, where CNN crews have heard numerous explosions. Ukrainian authorities say overnight shelling caused a fire at a warehouse northeast of the capital.
It is part of the growing evidence that the Russian bombardment of Ukraine is intensifying and that it is widening, evidence like this, take a look.
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GORANI (voice-over): This is the town of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, heavy shelling. As one official describes it, indiscriminate shooting at civilian targets, including a cafe and an apartment block.
There's new satellite imagery of Russian artillery units 18 miles from Kyiv in a field outside of the village of Ozura (ph). You can see the flash of orange, apparently from the muzzle flash of one of the guns.
The British ministry of defense says the bulk of Russian ground forces are around 25 kilometers from the center of Kyiv and a number of cities are encircled and continue to suffer heavy shelling.
Against the backdrop, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a new video addressed his people to keep up the fight.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The actions of the Russian invaders will be equated with the actions of ISIS terrorists. Today, everyone is gaining glory for Ukraine. And his or her place shows the world who Ukrainians are and what strength we have. Hold our ground. Hold on. We will win. (END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: We have crews positioned around the world covering this story. This hour alone, we'll hear from correspondents here in Lviv and Kyiv and Paris and New York. We begin our coverage with CNN's Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon.
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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Russian military is expanding its invasion of Ukraine, increasing its attacks on the western part of the country.
Fire and smoke seen in the aftermath of strikes on airfields near the Polish border. It's a scene that played out in cities all across the country, as Russia unleashed a barrage of attacks in the early morning hours.
In the central city of Dnipro, fire poured out of a destroyed factory, the rubble littering the ground and another strike near a preschool and an apartment building.
In Chernihiv, an isolated city north of Kyiv, an explosion destroyed a soccer stadium and a nearby library. This crater shows the force of the impact.
In Izya city, near the border with Russia, a strike destroyed a home for the disabled, many of whom are elderly. And there is growing evidence that the town of Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine has fallen to Russian forces and their separatist allies. Russian troops are seen running through the decimated streets.
Russia has falsely accused the U.S. of supporting experiments in Ukraine with biological and chemical weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it's a sign Russia itself intends to use such weapons.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): This makes me really worried because we've been repeatedly convinced, if you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): President Joe Biden didn't go as far as drawing a red line on the use of chemical weapons by Russia but he didn't issue this threat.
BIDEN: I'm not going to speak about the Intelligence but Russia would pay a severe price if he used chemical weapons.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): The Russian advance is closing in on Kyiv. It is slow progress against a fierce Ukrainian resistance that has turned the capital city into a fortress. The Pentagon says one Russian approach to the city is about 10 miles outside the city center.
The convoy of Russian tanks stalled outside Kyiv for days has now largely dispersed but it is unclear what the movement means for the capital -- Oren Liebermann, CNN at the Pentagon.
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GORANI: So what do those in increase attacks in Western Ukraine mean in terms of Russia's wider military strategy?
I put that to our military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who says the strikes have left even him baffled.
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LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It was a minimal strike, Hala. I think what we are talking about is three or four cruise missiles on that airfield.
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HERTLING: And truthfully, I can't make anything of it. It is very confusing to me from an operational or strategic perspective.
You know, the city of Lutsk that they hit this morning was -- is -- an old, historic city. It has about 200,000 population. The only thing I can figure is that the Russians thought that it might be able to disrupt both the refugees going out and potentially NATO lethal aid coming in.
But I think -- I believe the real rationale behind it is to just continue the terror to show Ukraine -- Ukrainians throughout the country that Russia is hitting everywhere. It just doesn't make sense from a military perspective. Again, none of these strikes against cities do make sense because none of them are military targeting.
GORANI: Similarly, in Dnipro, as well, which hadn't been hit, a shoe factory, an apartment block, a school.
I mean, it does remind me a little bit of what the Assad regime, with the help of Russians, did in Syria, where it was really terror from the skies, aimed at frightening civilians and diverting sort of military resources to dealing with civilian casualties.
HERTLING: Yes. I completely agree with you. This has become the Russian way of war. The Dnipro strike, I think, is a little bit different than the Lutsk strike, because you see that town of Dnipro, halfway between Mariupol and Kharkiv.
And I think what part of the original plan in that secondary effort was to do a surrounding and envelopment movement for the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. But they haven't executed that plan very well. They are still stalled in and around Kharkiv -- I'm sorry -- and Mariupol is just become a scorched earth city right now.
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GORANI: Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling there. That's the latest on the battlefield. And there are some developments to bring you on the diplomatic and
political front. European Union leaders have wrapped up a two-day summit on the situation in Ukraine. On Friday, they implemented a fourth round of sanctions against Russia, aimed at choking off Russia's financial dealings with the bloc, including a luxury goods ban.
And they're working to suspend the country's membership in the IMF and the World Bank. The day before the leaders decided against fast- tracking Ukraine into the E.U., the European Council president said Ukraine will be welcomed in to the bloc when the time is right.
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CHARLES MICHEL, EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT (through translator): We also have been discussing the application by Ukraine, as it was by Georgia and Moldova. We want to make a point clear to our Ukrainian friends, who, of course, are full members of the European family.
And we want to say to them that we will stand by them and mobilize very quickly in order to strengthen the links that we have with the population of Ukraine and we will also be there to support their choices on their path, which is a European path.
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GORANI: Melissa Bell joins us now from Paris now with a closer look at the summit.
The first three rounds of sanctions didn't really pressure Putin into changing course.
Why do they believe this latest round will have an effect or what's the thinking there?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They keep trying to ratchet up the pressure to show they are determined to make him pay the cost and, in the end, to try to make him rethink what he's doing in Ukraine.
But you are quite right. These successive rounds of sanctions, the latest of which announced last night, this time targeting the export of luxury goods from the European Union, also trying to sort out a way of preventing crypto currency from being used to get around sanctions, beyond those sanctions, one of the problems the European Union has, is dependence on Russian energy exports.
It is trying to lessen that. They believe it can do with a small hit on those in the short term. But longer term it will take several years to wean itself off the energy supplies. Of course the problem is that brings so much money into Russia.
Clearly that would be the best thing to be able to target. Earlier this week, the European commissioner in charge of energy was looking at the amount of money that brought in to Russian coffers. In 2019 it was 26 billion euros. Clearly, if they could more aggressively cut the dependence on that,
it would make a big difference. In the meantime, they're looking at any way they can to bring the pressure to bear. Have a listen to what Macron said yesterday at the summit in Versailles.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): We are willing to adopt other sanctions.
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MACRON (through translator): And all options are on the table. The point of our discussion is to order -- to prepare ourselves for these sanctions if they were able to call a halt to the attack and the aggression and could prepare us, also, for the consequences in the coming weeks and months.
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BELL: That's an important reminder. The sanctions, the pressure put on Moscow is not cost-free for the countries that are imposing it. The next set of sanctions, next bit of pressure to be brought, is removing Russia from the preferred nation status, essentially pushing out of the WTO.
That is what G7 countries are looking at. Each has to go through a different process to make it happen. President Biden announced it will need to go through Congress before being approved.
What it will, mean for instance, on trade, the trading partners of Russia will be able to bring more pressure to bear on that front. That is the next front they intend to bring the pressure on it through.
That means goods exported from Russia, whether it's energy or energy dependent sectors, that demand a lot of energy, paper pulp, aluminum, steel, those Russian exports are likely to see much higher tariffs imposed on their import into other countries, therefore, hitting those industries.
And, of course, that continues to pile up the pressure on a country that already bearing the brunt of some of the harshest sanctions that have ever been imposed anywhere.
GORANI: All right. Melissa Bell, live in Paris. Thanks very much.
Just ahead, refugee numbers are soaring as more and more Ukrainians flee the country. I'll talk to an expert on the ground in Moldova. Stay with us.
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GORANI: Well, the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and in neighboring countries is reaching some pretty staggering numbers. The U.N. says more than 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine. It's the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II on the continent.
Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Moldova are facing bitter cold temperatures in that part of the world, dropping below minus 10 degrees Celsius. And snowstorms as well are hampering their ability to reach the country safely.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We came this morning from the capital and it is very cold. We are freezing here. Five minutes after our arrival, we were already very cold.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Lots of people are coming without blankets or proper clothes. We're trying to offer them blankets, tea, coffee, something warm. I'm helping with my organization and do all the best for people to keep them warm.
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GORANI: Well, I'm joined by Joe Lowry. He's the spokesperson for the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration. He joins me now live from Moldova.
Could you describe the situation there for refugees coming from Ukraine, where you are?
JOE LOWRY, SPOKESPERSON, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION: Yes, thank you, Hala. Thank you to all the journalists covering this story.
As you mention in the leadup to this, it's very cold here. It's minus 10 on the border. It's also really cold. It's a very flat area with no real cover. The border crossing called Palatka is on the border in Ukraine. People are coming over in huge numbers.
These are small border crossing points that normally take a few dozen or 100 a day. And now we have 21,000 crossing on a daily basis. People are coming in distraught situations; they've been through an awful lot. Families are ripped apart on the border. The men are going back, only the old men and the very young are able to go across with families.
This lead to several problems. One is that what's essential on board in any refugee's journey is protection. Women and children are always the most vulnerable in these situations and particularly in the situation where families are crossing incomplete.
The women are carrying the complete burden of looking after the families by themselves in a very unusual and frightening situation. You've got to remember, three weeks ago, these people were, sitting out having coffee, watching YouTube and playing football, seeing their friends. And now three weeks later, they're refugees with all that entails.
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GORANI: It's such a tragedy -- I'm sorry. I thought you were done with your sentence. I want to ask you about where are they sheltering?
You mention tens of thousands of people and normally a border crossing such as the one that some of these refugees are using would handle 20 people.
Where are they spending the night?
How are the kids kept entertained?
What are -- all the basic, everyday life things, that we all do all day, every day as just part of the just being alive in a stable environment, how do they get any of that in the location they're having to flee to now?
LOWRY: Obviously it's very difficult. There are some shelters being set up for people to spend time, to warm up, to get tea.
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LOWRY: Volunteers are doing a fantastic job and making sure there's food available. The crucial thing is to decongest borders like this. What we have done is we start working with UNHCR, our colleagues at the U.N. and also with the governments requesting this, Romania and Moldova.
We're sending buses down to the border every day, as many as are needed to collect several hundred of the most vulnerable and get them through Moldova and into Romania, where they can register and move on to other destinations in Europe.
I also mention the necessity of protection. Getting people away from borders is important, getting people safely onto onward journeys because of the danger of exploitation, of human trafficking and perhaps even abduction of children.
GORANI: Of course. Of course. And obviously you are familiar with the Syrian refugee crisis, Iraqis and Afghans who've come here and most often ended up in neighboring countries. And so many of them do not want to be refugees. They want to go home.
What are -- I mean, the refugees who are fleeing Ukraine must desperately want one thing, for the war to stop and for them to be able to go to their own homes in their own country.
LOWRY: Yes, you mentioned people of other nationalities. About 116,000 people from other countries, third country nationals, are caught up in the refugee flow as well. A lot of them are students and maybe refugees themselves in Ukraine or married to Ukrainians. And they're caught up in this as well.
We know that already, treating this as a longer term phenomenon because in three years, access is granted by many countries. So long term, the longer people stay away from home, they'll need to be able to get on with everyday life. And already they need what we need, education for their kids, college, space for themselves, they need medical treatment, somewhere to stay, somewhere to live, somewhere they're safe.
And we're seeing it happen already. Ukrainian children are getting school classes while staying in Poland and many other wonderful initiatives. It's incumbent on us to be a community for the new citizens or the new community members coming to us now. Solidarity and kindness are as important as warm clothes and food and shelter right now.
GORANI: Sure, absolutely. Joe Lowry, thanks so much and I really wish the teams there on the ground the best of luck and as they try to help the refugees going through the worst time in their lives for most of them. Thanks so much.
If you'd like to help people in Ukraine, who may be in need of shelter, food and water, go to cnn.com/impact. There you have several ways to help and a list of organizations helping refugees.
Russia is stepping up attacks on a southern Ukrainian city that's been holding off Russian troops so far. Still ahead, the mayor of Mykolaiv talks about how the city has managed to keep the enemy at bay, despite heavy bombardment.
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GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani, live in Lviv, Ukraine. Let's get you caught up with latest on the Russian invasion of the country.
Officials say the food warehouse caught on fire after Russian shelling north of Kyiv Saturday. They say preliminary reports show there are no victims.
Meanwhile, a new British intelligence report says the bulk of Russian troops are now about 25 kilometers from the city center. The report says a massive Russian column north of Kyiv has now dispersed. And Russian troops are possibly trying to encircle the capital.
The report says at least four other cities, including Kharkiv and Mariupol, remain under Russian siege.
In the south, the coastal city of Mykolaiv has been taking heavy artillery. Take a look.
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GORANI (voice-over): Heavy shelling erupted Friday, hitting a cafe and an apartment block. The Ukrainian official also said ground battles were underway. But the city's mayor told CNN earlier that Ukrainian forces managed to push some Russians back.
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OLEKSANDR SENKEVYCH, MYKOLAIV MAYOR: They divided into small groups, trying to attack. We attacked them instead and they fell back. So, for sure, everyone here in Mykolaiv is ready to stand and to defend our city and our region and the whole of Ukraine.
We know why we do this. But they don't know it. And they, in case they get fire from our side, they run away.
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GORANI: Millions have fled Ukraine to escape the fighting but not everyone who wants to is able to leave.
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GORANI: So volunteers with little or even no experience in a war zone are putting their lives on the line to help those who need to get to safety. We have their story.
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NATALIA LARSON, UKRAINIAN CITIZEN: My name is Natalia Larson. I'm from Ukraine. But last five years I live in United States. My mama, she is still in Irpin --
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An impassioned plea sent to us on Twitter by a daughter desperately trying to track down her mother.
LARSON: My mama doesn't have connection. I cannot call her. I didn't hear from her a few days. She is by herself in our apartment. Please, I beg you, Clarissa, you are my last hope.
WARD (voice-over): That message brought us back to this spot, the destroyed bridge, where brave volunteers continue to ferry out civilians who have been trapped in Ukraine for more than 10 days. We've been told they may be able to help find Natalia's mother. On our way to meet them, we hear a familiar accent.
DWIGHT CROW, VOLUNTEER: Only English.
WARD (voice-over): Dwight Crow has flown here from San Francisco to help in any way he can. Less than a week after arriving he is embedded with Ukrainian volunteers and now spends his days helping Irpin's most vulnerable escape.
CROW: When I saw the invasion, I honestly bought a plane ticket and got here as quick as I could. This feels like the biggest fight for freedom I've seen in my lifetime. WARD: Have you ever been in a war zone before?
CROW: Not like this.
WARD: For most Americans, this would be a little out of their comfort zone.
CROW: This is a little out of my comfort zone. It's scary when you hear the bombs going off at the same time, you just there's people a lot closer to it than us and they're really the ones in harm's way and we're just doing our part to get him out of here.
WARD (voice-over): Lawyer Daria and her team risked their lives every day to do just that. She speeds through the deserted streets, looking for those who are stranded and need help. She's agreed to add Natalia's mother to the list.
WARD: So Daria, are you not afraid to do this?
DARIA PISARENKO, VOLUNTEER: I'm afraid of course. I don't have a child yet. And I understand that I can help people.
WARD (voice-over): They reach the first stop. Shelling can be heard in the distance and they need to move quickly.
WARD: You can feel how this place is completely deserted. It's like a ghost town.
WARD (voice-over): "Is the owner here?" they shout.
The team consults their list to check the address.
WARD: (Speaking foreign language)
WARD (voice-over): No one answers and it's time to move on. In less than two weeks, Daria has seen the pleasant suburb of Kyiv where she lives turned into a warzone.
WARD: Does it make you angry?
PISARENKO: Yes, I'm angry. And I think it's OK. I'm angry to all the Russian people to all Russian people. Because silence it's also violence now. You are with Ukraine or with Russia.
WARD (voice-over): We recognize the next stop. It's the address we've been searching for. But the first glance is troubling.
WARD: So this is the apartment complex where Natalia has told us that her mother lives. I'm just a little bit concerned because I can see there's some damage up there, presumably from artillery.
WARD (voice-over): Team member Anton enters one of the buildings, who is waiting for evacuation, he shouts. But there is no reply. And Natalia's mother is no way to be seen.
There is just a handful of people still living here with Mila and her husband tell us they chop wood in the forest and burn it to stay warm.
WARD: (Speaking foreign language).
So she's saying that there's no water. There's no gas, there's no electricity. They cook their meals out here on an open fire.
WARD (voice-over): Yet they refuse to leave.
"Where would we go?
"We don't have anywhere to go," she says.
"Whether they kill us here or there doesn't matter.
"When will these monsters leave?"
Across the road, Daria urges another couple to evacuate. But it's another, no. They've made it this far and are willing to see it through. The team has found one man, Ole, (ph) who wants to get out. He bundles into the improvised rescue vehicle and sets off.
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WARD (voice-over): Beyond the smashed windscreen lies the relative safety of Kyiv center.
Back at the bridge, he tells us about his ordeal. It was an awful frightening situation there, he says. They shelled us 24 hours a day. The rest of his family is in a city now held by Russian forces in the south. I don't know where I live anymore, he says before bidding us goodbye.
It's time to head back our mission unfulfilled. We haven't found Natalia's mother. But as we get closer to the city center, our cell phone signal returns.
WARD: So we have just had some great news from Natalia. She tells me that a few hours ago, her mother was successfully evacuated from Irpin by one of the volunteers. Yet another family saved by ordinary citizens doing extraordinary work -- Clarissa Ward, CNN, Kyiv.
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GORANI: We'll be right back. Stay with us.
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GORANI: All right, welcome back. My colleague, Salma Abdelaziz, recently arrived in Ukraine to work on CNN coverage of the war. She joins me now from another part of Lviv to talk about what we have seen in the last 24 hours.
And even though Lviv in Western Ukraine is considered to be relatively safe, a few hours ago air raid sirens went off and the Russian bombing has expanded into western parts of the country.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And really this is a city that didn't expect to be in this position. I was in Lviv a few years ago, three or four. Now this is a kind of cute European city, a place tourists come to, known for coffee and food and wine bars.
It's now essentially a forward operating base for the Ukrainian effort here. You have thousands of refugees, now sleeping on the floors of schools. And the local theater giving the stage now so families have a place to sleep. The local church is serving the military.
Another interesting aspect, we talked about this. Alcohol is banned in the city because authorities want everyone to focus on the war effort, to focus on helping those civilians who have been displaced.
So you have the swanky wine bars now serving food for refugees. You really can't walk through the streets of this city without hearing someone, without seeing someone trying to help.
I'm looking outside my balcony here. There's sandbags outside. The city over, as we stretch into the third week now, of the conflict, this city has been considered a safe haven. But as you mention, the war is expanding.
We're seeing Russian troops escalate their efforts here, especially across the west. Yes, in the last two days we have been hearing more air raid sirens. Last night, we were woken up by sirens here as well.
For now of course, the fighting still appears to be far. People here feel relatively safe. But it's the nature of the attacks that we're seeing. Remember the maternity hospital that was attacked, refugees say it's events like that, horrific attacks like that, that start to make families feel like no one is safe here.
GORANI: Right. And then you mention the sandbags. You are reminded on every street corner that this is a country that's been invaded. Usually, it's official administrative buildings are protected with sandbags and sort of the metal barricades.
But there are so many internally displaced people in Lviv. Even authorities here are saying we don't know how we can cope with the number of people who need our help.
ABDELAZIZ: Absolutely. And there's definitely a sense of unity, a sense of strength. Ukraine is a very large country that oftentimes has a sort of division between east and west.
But right now you have people from all over the country here, everyone pitching in to help. There's nothing anyone else is doing but taking care of the families. The stories you hear on the streets are absolutely heartbreaking, orphans who had to flee war and essentially now looking for safe places. Families that have been separated and everybody is volunteering and
helping as best they can. But there's the question of how much can people sustain. I'm telling you, every public building, even the local library here is making camouflage.
How much more can it sustain not just in term of refugees but also the sense of unity?
It's being harmed by the fears that we're seeing from these indiscriminate attacks, ferocious attacks spreading across the country, impacting more lives, more cities.
GORANI: Yes. Thanks so much. Salma Abdelaziz in Lviv.
I'm in Lviv as well.
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GORANI: Thanks for watching. I'll see you very soon. But we continue our coverage with Paula Newton in Atlanta.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Thank you for your perspective on the ground.
And, of course, the war in Ukraine is being felt all the way in the United States as well. Some small business owners facing anti-Russia backlash, including vandalism. That story after the break.
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NEWTON: It is far too early to say relief is on the way for Americans paying record high gasoline prices. Here's the thing, the price of crude oil fell 5.5 percent this week. Now it is still hovering around 14-year highs. And the weekly decline has been driven in part by those tentative signs of more supply that may be coming from OPEC.
Turmoil has continued on the stock market. The Dow has now notched its fifth straight week of losses. The Nasdaq and S&P were both down as well. The selloff was driven, of course, by President Biden calling for suspension of normal trade relations with Russia. It is the latest in a line of sanctions designed to try and isolate Moscow economically.
Another Western bank says it's getting out of Russia, despite saying just the day before that it wasn't practical to do so. Germany's Deutsche Bank announced Friday it's planning to shut down business in Russia a day after Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan revealed plans to wind down operations.
In 2017, Deutsche Bank was hit with over $600 million in penalties over a multi-billion dollar Russian money laundering scheme.
Those are just some examples of the dozens of companies that have abandoned or scaled back their operations in Russia. You can see here, the companies range from airlines like Delta and food chains like McDonalds and Starbucks, Netflix and social media like Twitter.
The expanding exodus affects every corner of the economy. And Russian restaurants in the U.S. are feeling the wrath of bigotry, prompted by Vladimir Putin's military incursion. It's not just thousands of miles away but the entire situation is very complicated.
Many of the business owners fled oppressive regimes for a safer life in America. But now, some are seeing their storefronts vandalized. CNN's Jason Carroll reports owners and employers are wondering whether it's time to rebrand.
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VLADA VON SHATS, CO-OWNER, RUSSIAN SAMOVAR RESTAURANT: I'm going to show you the table that is called the Brodsky table. This is a special table. There are people that actually calling for reserve just this table.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But not these days. Russia's invasion of Ukraine increasing worries about empty tables and fewer bookings at this restaurant in New York City's theatre district.
SHATS: Sixty percent of businesses down. Overnight, just wake up one day and the business is gone. Nobody's here.
CARROLL (voice-over): Vlada Von Shats is co-owner of Russian Samovar with her son. It has been in the family for three generations. Her family defected from what was then the Soviet Union to New York when she was a child. Her stepfather co-founded the restaurant with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.
VON SHATS: Everybody escaped the same evil and they all found a little piece of heaven here.
CARROLL (voice-over): But now this little piece of heaven is facing the wrath of hell on Earth, half a world away.
VON SHATS: Calling us Nazis, fascists.
CARROLL (voice-over): People leaving messages.
VON SHATS: Leaving messages on our machine. It's never nice. Our sign has been kicked in.
CARROLL (voice-over): Never mind Von Shats is married to a Ukrainian and many who work here are Ukrainian. All, she says, people see is the word "Russian" and lash out.
And it's not just here. In Washington, D.C., the famous Russia House vandalized; threatening messages left at the Pushkin Russian restaurant in San Diego. The restaurant owner is Armenian and most of the staff are Ukrainian.
Similar messages sent to Chicago's Russian Tea Time restaurant, where, just like the other restaurants, some of the employees are Ukrainian.
VADIM MUCHNIK, PARTNER, RUSSIAN TEA TIME: We really feel pain. We have a waitress whose mother's hiding in bomb shelters in Kyiv.
CARROLL (voice-over): Some Wisconsin supermarkets have discontinued sales of Russian vodka. In Las Vegas, one bar owner is dumping Russian made vodka.
And back in New York, there is no more McPutin's. His children changed the name of their takeout restaurant and delivery business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe they're calling it Chi-Chi Chicken.
CARROLL (voice-over): But the Von Shats say they will never change the name Russian Samovar.
CARROLL (voice-over): You think you can survive this?
VON SHATS: Yes. There's a lot of help from our friends. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time will tell. This place has lasted through a lot.
CARROLL: Vlada's son also wanted to make this a teachable moment.
He said he wanted to teach people that, oftentimes, if they are lashing out at Russian businesses, they are also lashing out at the people who work there who might be not only Russian but Ukrainian or Romanian, some of the same people who actually support Ukraine --
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CARROLL: -- Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
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NEWTON: And closing here with a glimmer of hope in the horror. A pregnant woman who survived the Mariupol hospital bombing has given birth.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Here you see her right after the blast. She is bloodied and injured. Then she fled the destruction.
The great news is that she has given birth to a baby girl in newly published photographs, her husband there, holding that baby. The Ukrainian ambassador announced at the U.N. Security Council that the baby's name is Veronica.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: We, of course, wish them well through all that hardship. Now this wraps up our hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton. Stay
tuned. Kim Brunhuber will be here in a moment with more breaking news from Ukraine.
