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Pentagon Press Conference On Russian Attack On A Ukrainian Military Facility Near The Polish Border; Pentagon: Appears Russians Broadening Their Targets Into West Ukraine; Pentagon: Lots Of Different Ways U.S. Getting Supplies To Ukraine; International Criminal Court Begins War Crime Investigation In Ukraine; Biden Blames Putin For Inflations Spike, Rise In Gas Prices. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 14, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I think we're going to be careful her at the Pentagon in terms of providing a qualitative report card assessment here and putting a name on it, stand still or what have you. What I would tell you, David, is that Ukrainians continue to fight back very bravely and skillfully. And you've heard me use the word "creatively" and I would say that that's continues to be the case.

They are making good use of their own knowledge, their own situational awareness, their skill sets and certainly they are making good use of the material that they are getting. Not just from the United States but many other nations as well. And they -- if you just look at the map and you just look at how little progress the Russians have been able to make in the two plus weeks now that they've been at this. Yes, some of that is due to their own stumbles and missteps and logistical problems but a lot of it, a lot of it is due to the Ukrainian resistance and how adaptive they are proving to be on the field and frankly, in the street. Travis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, in regards to these Russian strikes in western Ukraine and close to the Polish border, as we know the Russians aren't always particularly precise with their strikes. And I'm just wondering if there's been any change in the status of U.S. forces deployed to the eastern flank. Is there any heightened alert or change of posture or any additional preparations that have been made since we've seen the strikes move farther west?

KIRBY: Without getting into the details about the force posture. I can tell you that everybody that's serving and bolstering NATO's eastern flank is pretty alert, pretty vigilant as you might expect. I know of no specific changes that have been made or planning to be made in the coming days just based on the fact that this training facility in western Ukraine was hit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two questions, one, when the U.S. publicly states what it will not do like enforce the no-fly zone for the Polish mid transfer. Does that the not harm Ukraine and get Putin carte blanche? And secondly, often you say that Russia does not have air superiority. However, if Russia's flying 200 sorties a day and Ukraine is flying 5 to 10 and can't fly its combat aircraft because Russia has complete SAM him coverage, how is that not air superiority?

KIRBY: I'm not going to get into the data metrics here with you. We still assess that Russia does not have air superiority over Ukraine and that the Ukrainians are defending their air space ably. It doesn't mean that it's not contested, Abraham. Of course, it is. I mean, you can see that for yourself on some of the video footage that gets put out there. But it's contested because the Ukrainians are finding ways to continue to try to defend their airspace and to preserve their own mobility and maneuver space. I'm sorry. Was there another --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, the first question about when the DoD publicly states -- when the U.S. publicly states what it's not going to do. Doesn't it harm Ukraine because it gives Putin a carte blanche?

KIRBY: I think if you were to -- I can't speak for Mr. Putin. I doubt Putin would after making as little progress as he has made in this unprovoked war of his, would be hard pressed to say that somehow, he's been aided by statements that we are making about what we will or we to won't do. What I think is important, Abraham, is not just talking about things that we don't believe would be helpful because of escalatory nature of it. Such as a no-fly zone.

But let's talk about what actually is happening. And I just talked a little bit about how hard the Ukrainians are fighting for their country. But we to our providing them and continue to do it over the course of the weekend, and now there's a new drawdown package and we will continue to fill that out and send material to them in concert with their needs after talking to them about what those needs are. As fast as we can and as effectively as we can. And it's not just the United States, 14 other nations are doing this, bilaterally of course, we're helping coordinate some of that security assistance. But they're making good use of it. So, there's a lot being done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to ask you just going back to the airstrike in that it's believed that Moscow has come yet to the polish borders. So, what are taking as? Is this Putin testing the West in any way? And how are we kind of showing response to that?

[15:35:00]

KIRBY: Yes, I think we just need to be, you know -- first of all, I don't have granularity on the Russian targeting process. They hit a Ukrainian military training facility. They also it some airfields in the previous few days in western Ukraine. They are clearly expanding some of their target sets here. I can't get into their heads and to tell you exactly what has behind that target on that day with that many cruise missiles.

I don't want to reduce this to some sort of signaling. If Mr. Putin was trying to signal his displeasure about a strong united NATO with his war of his, then he's failed. Because he's getting exactly what he says he doesn't want. A strong united NATO on his western flank. Just over the last few days, we moved some patriot batteries from Germany to Poland. And we're going to continue to look at potential repositioning if we need to -- to defend NATO's eastern flank. So, I can't -- again, I can't speak for Mr. Putin and what messages

he's trying to send. Sending it with cruise missiles on a training facility. Again, I think that's basic generous to him if that's in fact all he did was try to signal. All he has done, with that and everything else he's doing in Ukraine and please, let's not get focused only on a weekend strike on a training facility.

Look at the damage and the death he's causing in places like Kyiv and Kharkiv and Mariupol. And you know, people losing their lives and their homes. He clearly has more than a message in mind here. He clearly has the occupation of Ukraine in mind. And he also clearly has diplomatic options available to him that he is obviously not proving willing to take. Now we have heard talks about talks and we obviously would love to see them succeed clearly. But there hasn't been much progress in that regard. So again, I want to be careful here that we're not reducing the kind of damage and death he's causing to some sort of message signaling. I think this being way too generous to what the Kremlin is trying to do inside Ukraine.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Pentagon press secretary there, John Kirby, answering some questions focused a lot on that attack yesterday west of Lviv. Saying he would not look at that strike as an effort to attack the ability to bring in security assistance. And there are lots of ways to bring in assistance to Ukraine.

Let's bring in now retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges and CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. General, let me start with you. What did you hear there as the admiral said that we're seeing them broaden their targets, Russia moving west?

LT. GEN. BEN HODGES (RET.), ARMY: Of course, John is doing a good job of trying to convey a message without revealing too much information about specifics of this logistics effort, which clearly the Russians want to be able to hits. So, he's being prudent. But you could feel a little bit of frustration there.

Look, I think that the U.S. is the best in the world when it comes to logistics but it takes us a few days to get going. Probably in the next few days you're going to see something much more quantity as well as an accelerated pace. But I am myself a little frustrated. We talk too much about what we can't do and what we're not going to do and you don't feel the energy of what the full power of the United States getting behind Ukraine, doing everything we can to give them the ability to destroy Russian rocket and artillery and cruise launchers, cruise missile launch sites. I'm not feeling that energy right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: But general, tell us a little bit more about that. What should the Pentagon be saying or doing differently?

HODGES: Well, first of all I would quit saying we're not going have boots on the ground, we're not going to go into Ukrainian air space even if we don't ever intend to do it. One of the questioners was asking about that. To me there's no value in doing that. The administration has done a good job of diplomacy with our allies, keeping is altogether. That's enough messaging on that. The specific things that we need to get to Ukraine immediately are more intelligence about where the rockets and cruise missiles are coming from so that the Ukrainians can hit them. More counter fire radar, so that they can determine point of origin themselves. The ability to strike back long-range rockets and artillery of our own that they could use. And then especially these doggone Black Sea fleet vessels floating around in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov launch a cruise missiles into Mariupol.

[15:40:00]

We need to help Ukraine figure out a way to put one of those on the bottom.

BLACKWELL: him there Barbara, to you. Your top line from what we heard from Admiral Kirby.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there was an attack over the weekend. A Russian strike on one of these bases deep in western Ukraine just miles from the Polish border. It is a training base. Kirby took great pains to say it was not one of the bases that the U.S. and the allies were using to ship weapons into Ukraine. And why did he do that? He did that because everybody knows that is topping really good deal of the Russian target list right now.

The Russians want to target those -- they call them rat lines -- those rat lines of weapons that are being shipped across the NATO borders into Ukraine. So, they are stepping up their attacks in western Ukraine trying to get to some of that.

So, right now, the challenge remains getting those U.S. supported security assistance packages. The anti-tank, the anti-air weapons into Ukraine as fast as they can before the Russians can get to them. General Hodges is quite correctly, of course, points out one of the big dilemmas then for the Ukrainians is targeting. You want to use those weapons to target the Russians as fast and as precisely as you can. Always a challenge. The Ukrainians are having some success in it. The Pentagon contends that the Russian advance is slowed on almost, not all but on almost all fronts. So, we will see just how much more the Russians are going to throw at all of this in the coming days. There may of course be much more to come.

CAMEROTA: Lieut. Gen. Ben Hodges, Barbara Starr, thank you both.

BLACKWELL: So earlier we brought you that update on the pregnant woman from a bombed Mariupol hospital who later died along with her newborn baby. With us now David Scheffer. He was the first U.S. ambassador at large on war crime issues in the 1990s. He also led the U.S. delegation to the U.N. talks establishing the International Criminal Court. So good to have you, Mr. Ambassador. Let's start here with what we've heard from the administration, from the State Department to the Pentagon, the White House, they have not been speaking with one voice on whether what we are watching qualify as war crimes. Some are going further than others in that declaration. Is there anything question in your mind that war crimes are being committed in Ukraine?

DAVID SCHEFFER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR AT LARGE FOR WAR CRIME ISSUES: Well, there's no question whatsoever. War crimes as well as crimes against humanity most likely. Remember, this is all under the rubric of the war of aggression which itself is illegal. So, on a sort of a state responsibility level, everything the Russian military is doing in Ukraine right now is illegal on its face. Now, if you look at individual strikes then you get into sort of the microscopic view of war crimes investigations as to whether or not there was intent, was there a mistake by an individual soldier or officer in the field.

But the responsibility goes all the way to the top. The generals and Mr. Putin himself. And they are not doing what they are supposed to do to preserve the integrity of the law. Namely they should be preventing war crimes from taking place. They clearly are not doing that. And they should punish those who actually do commit the war crimes. And we've heard no information that they doing that.

This is such a highly publicized hit on Ukraine in terms of video, audio, print. It is impossible that the generals and Mr. Putin are not aware of what is occurring on the ground during this war of aggression. And yet, we do not hear them exercising their responsibility as commanders and as the president of Russia, Mr. Putin, to actually prevent these from occurring or to punish those who are committing them on the ground. And that's -- you know, they're implicating themselves every day. They're incriminating themselves every day. Their footprints are all over this.

BLACKWELL: So, this sends me in several different directions. You mentioned President Putin, obviously, the generals obviously. Who else could face potentially charges from the ICC?

SCHEFFER: Well, officer who is are closer to the combat in Ukraine itself could face indictments in the future. The ICC may take a strategy at times of working from the bottom up from both the low- level officers all the way up the chain of command to Mr. Putin.

[15:45:00]

I think the point I'm making is that in sort of a unique way here in the Ukrainian situation, there is so much from the top down that is publicly stated and articulated by the Russian government that it's not necessarily going to be a bottom-up investigation. It might actually be a top-down investigation. One example was the hospital that you just indicated. They could have of claimed that that was a mistaken hit which is a typical defense in war crime litigation. Instead, they actually doubled down and said, no, we actually wanted to hit the hospital because we think there's a military personnel there. Which of course, would never stand up in the court of law.

BLACKWELL: So then how long do you expect this will go on? We know that some of these investigations can go on for years. What's your expectation on a potential indictment if one comes?

SCHEFFER: International criminal justice is the long game. It's not the short game. So therefore, it could take years. However, I think the indictments could come down within a few months.

BLACKWELL: All right, David Scheffer, Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for your time. CAMEROTA: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Ukraine's President

Zelenskyy will address the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. Ukraine's former first lady joins us next.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: According to the officials, Russia has launched more than 900 missiles against Ukraine since it first invaded.

BLACKWELL: The besieged southern city of Mariupol is now surrounded by Russian and Russian-backed separatist forces. New video shows Russian tanks firing at apartment buildings there. Thousands of people in the city are feared dead.

With us now is the former first lady of Ukraine Kateryna Yushchenko. Thank you so much for being with us. We saw these apartment buildings that have been hit. Of course, over the weekend that military base west of Lviv. What's your reaction as things are escalating from the Russians there in Ukraine.

KATERYNA YUSHCHENKO, FORMER FIRST LADY OF UKRAINE: Well, it is a great tragedy, and you know, we need not to give in until this stops. It is a tremendous tragedy. You know, every day I think a few moments, that this is a nightmare. I'll wake up. It is not true that we're bleeding, that there are barbarian attacks destroying our towns and that thousands are dead. But I want to say that we're not defeated. We're fighting for existence, our identity, our statehood. We'll continue to fight and I'm sure we will win because there's no other way. But how many losses it takes depends on how much -- how much support we receive.

CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that. Because as you know, President Zelenskyy is going to now deliver a virtual address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. What more can he say to get more help from the world?

YUSHCHENKO: Well, I think there is a lot more that the world needs to do. And we're very grateful, tremendously grateful for everything that has been done. But we need to have the incremental approach to providing weapons and enacting sanctions stop. It will only lead Putin to cause greater catastrophes in our country. We need the means to continue to fight, to protect our skies. You know, we need aircraft, air defense missiles, missile defense, and our leaders have said, that if we have had had those airplanes one week, two weeks, three weeks ago, hundreds, thousands of people would be alive today. There's so much more that can be done with sanctions that have not been done.

BLACKWELL: So, I wonder what goes through your mind when you hear President Biden say that the U.S. will not be putting offensive resources into Ukraine. No jets are coming. Because that would lead to World War III. When he says something like that, what do you think?

YUSHCHENKO: Well, I think that every time they say what they can't do, that gives Putin the opportunity to, the go-ahead to do what he wants to do. And what he is doing is trying to completely destroy our country. And this is something that's been going on for centuries. It's been going on for the last decades and he will continue to do that as long as the Western world does not put limits on it.

CAMEROTA: Sorry to interrupt. One of the things that we just heard from our Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby, he said clearly the occupation of Ukraine is what Putin has in mind. But how would that be possible? I mean, we've already seen the bravery, the resistance, the tenacity of the Ukrainian people. How could he ever occupy -- how could be have enough forces to occupy Ukraine?

YUSHCHENKO: You know, he will not. We will not be defeated because we're fighting for our existence, our identity, our statehood. We will continue to fight and we are sure we will win. There is no other way. We have no off-ramp as some people are saying. But how many losses, how many thousands of people will die depends on how much support we get from the West. And every time the West gives a limit to what they'll do, Putin knows that he can do something else.

[15:55:00]

And I want to very much stress that he will not stop at Ukraine. You know, he will go further. It's very much up to the world where he stops.

BLACKWELL: As we look at these pictures and we just talked about the pregnant woman who died, lost her child, that attack on the maternity hospital in Mariupol. We know that there is a huge humanitarian need for the people of Ukraine. What can you tell us about what people need? Those basic necessities that they're doing without right now.

YUSHCHENKO: You know, there are -- the attacks have been barbaric and the needs are tremendous. You know, my family lives in Poppas now, which has been attacked by chemical weapons. There is just so much.

Right now, the Ukrainian government does not have resources it needs and it's very important for people to contribute to the payment of -- for the government to be able to pay social costs, to be able to pay its army, there are so many organizations that are working both on the ground and internationally that have to be supported. We're tremendously grateful for everything that has been done. But there are so many organizations that need support right now.

CAMEROTA: Former first lady, Kateryna Yushchenko, thank you very much. Take care of yourself and we'll talk again.

U.S. oil prices are plunging amid record high gas prices. So just moments ago, President Biden blamed Russia's Vladimir Putin again for high inflation and the jump in gas prices here in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've seen the price of gas go up over a dollar just since he put his troops on the border. On the border of Ukraine. A big part of that reason is Putin began amassing troops on the border and then crossed. And guess what, the world took notice. The market anticipated it prices went up. And then Putin invaded. Make no mistake, the current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Matt Egan is here now. So, this drop in oil prices a huge change in the trend we've watched for the last couple of weeks.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, that's right. I think it is an encouraging development for everyone who's cinching when they go to the gas station right now. We did see the oil prices fall sharply today, briefly dropping below $100 a barrel for the first time in two weeks. Trading around $101 right now. That is not cheap but remember, as you can see on that chart, oil prices spiked. They went up to about $130 a barrel just eight days ago. So, the fact that they've come down to $101 is good news for consumers.

It's going to ease some concerns about an oil shock hurting the economy. Causing a recession or a slowdown in the U.S. And yes, it should drive down gasoline prices if it lasts. And that's a big if. But we've already seen gas prices stop going up. They are basically flat in the last few days, 4.33 a gallon nationally. Again, that's not cheap but it is a step in the right direction. A veteran oil analyst, Tom Kloza, told me that if oil prices stay around here, we could see a 20-cent decline in the national average. That would be welcome. That's good news.

The reason why oil prices were down though wasn't necessarily good, that was in part because of concerns about COVID in China. They're resorting to these lockdowns because of a major outbreak there. That could hurt the economy, mess up supply chains. That was weighing on oil and also the stock market today. Nasdaq is closing probably at its lowest level since the end of 2020 which is a negative about the economy. But good news on the energy front.

BLACKWELL: OK. Matt Egan, thank you.

EGAN: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: An independent human rights group monitoring the protests says reports that more than 14,000 protesters have been arrested across Russia since the invasion began.

CAMEROTA: Also, this just into CNN. An anti-war protester interrupts one of Russia's major state television broadcasts. This protester first shouts, stop the war. Then she says, no war. I mean, it's incredible that she was able to even get in there with her poster.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And we've seen obviously these protests not anything like this before but protests there across Moscow. And that image of the elderly woman who was taken away will stay with me for this entire war.

CAMEROTA: Me too, but I shudder to think what is about to happen to that protester. Because obviously, we've seen them hauled off. We've seen them jailed and then we don't know what happens to them. So that was a real act of bravery to do it so publicly there on that broadcast.

BLACKWELL: Antiwar protests are growing around the world.

[16:00:00]

Squatters in London today took over the mansion of a Russian oligarch and a Putin ally there. You see the sign that says, this property has been liberated.

CAMEROTA: All right. We'll see you tomorrow and "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.