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Interview With U.S. Deputy Secretary Of State Wendy Sherman; Interview With Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk; President Biden To Travel To Europe; Civilian Death Toll Rises In Ukraine. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 15, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:42]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

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

President Biden just announcing he will travel to Europe next week to meet with other world leaders for a NATO summit. The alliance is strongly united against Putin's war in Ukraine, and says there are growing concerns that Russia could use chemical weapons in a false flag operation their.

Russian military attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine continued today. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says at least 97 children have been killed since the start of the war. A 35-hour curfew has just gone into effect in the capital city of Kyiv.

BLACKWELL: And residents are now only permitted to leave their homes if they are heading into a bomb shelter.

Today alone, several fatalities were reported after at least four residential buildings were hit by strikes. One of them was a 16-story apartment building that was shelled this morning. At least four people were killed there.

And a remarkable show of solidarity in the face of grave danger, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia headed to Kyiv today on a train to meet with President Zelenskyy.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Anderson Cooper is with us once again from Lviv. That's in Western Ukraine.

Anderson, it's been another horrible day of destruction and more civilians killed.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, it certainly has been.

And I want to bring in Scott McLean here in Lviv, who has been monitoring developments. We have seen continued attacks, and now this curfew, which is really

unusual to have. They did this once before, but to have a 35-hour curfew, that clearly is an indication they are concerned about events on the ground.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They're -- as you mentioned last hour, it's easier obviously to know if someone's out, maybe they should be suspicious.

The other potential reason that you might have a curfew, obviously, is just to keep people safe and off the streets if they're going to be expecting more shelling. We have seen a lot of it already. Four residential buildings were hit. It seems the Russians are not able to really penetrate into the city.

So, for now, they're content to just lob bombs into the city. And, obviously, they're landing. They're killing people. They're destroying apartment buildings. I find it a little bit hard to imagine that there's going to be a lot of people sitting there in their apartments, especially if you're in a high-rise. A lot of people probably are going to be sheltering in place in bomb shelters.

It also complicates things a little bit for the three prime ministers that are en route, as we understand, right now from Czech Republic, Slovenia, and from Poland as well, because the plan originally, according to the Polish prime minister's office, was to have them get into the city, meet with President Zelenskyy, and then get out of the city.

The train journey probably takes a minimum of seven or eight hours, though. So that makes for a long day. And, obviously, given what's going on in the ground right now, it's not entirely clear whether they will be able to get out, especially given the curfew. They say things are subject to change.

And I just want to mention one other thing, just because it's hard to overstate just how significant these three prime ministers are visiting this war zone.

COOPER: Yes.

MCLEAN: The Polish prime minister posted on Facebook earlier today explaining why they were going in.

And he said, in part: "It's our duty to be where history is forged, because it is not about us, but about the future of our children, who deserve to live in a world free from tyranny."

Pretty brave.

COOPER: There's also a situation that's developing in Mariupol at the hospital.

MCLEAN: Yes, that's right.

So this is a really strange one. A lot of questions still about this. And so this is according to the head of the Donetsk regional administration, who says that someone, an employee inside this hospital in Mariupol managed to get a message out to him.

And so what we understand is that, for the last two days, cars have not been able to get into that hospital. Doctors and patients have not been able to leave. This is not the same hospital that was bombed last Wednesday, the maternity ward. It's a different facility.

But it has, according to the employee, sustained significant damage on the upper floors. And so the doctors, the patients, they have been working on the bottom floors. They say that the Russians have sent people from the neighboring apartment buildings. Many of them have sustained damage as well and are in there. And it is not clear why, but according to, again, this local leader, they're not being permitted to leave, so maybe more questions and answers there.

COOPER: Have we heard from President Zelenskyy today?

MCLEAN: He actually gave an address to the Canadian Parliament, obviously, Canada, a member of NATO, steadfast supporter of Ukraine.

He thanked Canada for its efforts there. But his overriding message has been one that we have heard over and over and over again, and that is to close the sky. Listen.

[14:05:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): You all need to do more to stop Russia, to protect Ukraine, and, by doing that, to protect Europe from Russian threat. They're destroying everything.

We're not asking for much. We're asking for justice, for real support, which will help us to prevail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: We should also point out that we learned that a longtime photojournalist, Pierre Zakrzewski, for FOX News, his body was found. He has been killed in Kyiv.

MCLEAN: Yes, that's right, the second foreign journalist to be killed.

Pierre was working for FOX News. We understand the correspondent as well is in critical condition, according to FOX, I actually had opportunity to meet Pierre two years ago when I was in Kyiv. I can tell you he was extremely popular in the industry. It's a pretty small industry, especially on the road with international journalists.

Everybody seemed to know him. I don't usually drink a lot when I'm on the road because we're busy. But I can tell you, on our last night, I have a picture with him. And we were three sheets to the wind because he was just a lovely guy to hang out with. And we were just having a riot hanging out with the FOX guys.

I ended up running into him in 2020 a few months later, when we were in the lockdown in London, where he was living. And I just remember he was really trying to get out the door, trying to -- he was bored sitting around in London during the lockdown.

And so I know that he really loved his job, he really loved the travel, he really loved the adventure. Obviously, this is a tragedy, and it seems like he's universally loved in this industry. And I can tell you, from my brief experience with him, he was just a really lovely guy to be around.

COOPER: Yes.

Well, obviously, our thoughts are with his family and all of his colleagues at FOX News.

Scott, appreciate it, Scott McLean.

MCLEAN: You bet.

COOPER: We are also following the latest on President Biden just announcing his trip to Brussels next week to meet with other NATO leaders. He's also expected to attend a European Council summit.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins me now from NATO headquarters.

So, what more do we know about this trip?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Anderson, so a very kind of hastily arranged trip by the president to Brussels scheduled for next week.

He will be meeting with NATO leaders on Thursday, it seems. And then he will also be meeting with E.U. leaders that same day, all to have consultations about what is going on in Ukraine, obviously. And the big question that has lingered in the minds of everyone here over the last several weeks, and particularly over this last week, has been, what happens, of course, if Russia does launch some kind of provocation against a NATO member?

What happens if -- even if inadvertently, a Russian missile, for example, lands in NATO airspace? And that has become all the more acute over the last several days, when we saw that these Russian missiles did land very close and were striking targets very close to the Polish border.

So, one of the main things they will be discussing, we're told, is, of course, the consequences of something like that. How would the NATO alliance actually respond if Russia were to create some kind of provocation against a NATO member? Because, of course, an attack on one member of the alliance is essentially an attack on every member of the alliance, and they would all have to then come to that member's defense.

So, obviously weighing very, very heavily on the consultations here, and, of course, the questions of weaponry, of how we're going to get weapons -- how the U.S. and how the NATO allies are going to get weapons into Ukraine. Of course, they have been asking for heavier Soviet-made weaponry that they can actually operate, like S-300 surface-to-air missiles, like those MiG fighter jets.

NATO as a bloc is not providing those to Ukraine. But the NATO member states are. And they are kind of in a disjointed way sending those -- that equipment into the country there. So, obviously, keeping up that humanitarian assistance, keeping up the military aid is going to be top of mind here as well.

COOPER: Yes.

Russia today announced sanctions on President Biden and a number of other U.S. officials, while the U.S. obviously sanctioned Belarusian President Lukashenko and 11 Russian military leaders. What's the goal of the new sanctions?

BERTRAND: Well, the new sanctions that Russia imposed on the American officials is largely symbolic, right? They wanted to retaliate against the sanctions that the U.S. and the West have imposed against Russian officials.

And Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, actually kind of joked about it during a press conference earlier today, saying that it seems that they actually sanctioned the wrong Joe Biden, because they sanctioned the president, but they did not sanction Joe Biden Jr. They sanctioned Joe Biden, which, of course, is his father, and said, of course, that they -- the U.S. officials here don't have Russian bank accounts.

They don't plan to travel to Russia anytime soon. So this is really not going to affect them.

But in terms of the U.S. sanctions on Lukashenko, those are significant, because those are, of course, a response to Belarus allowing Russia to use its territory as essentially a staging ground, not only for troops to enter Ukraine, but also allowing aircraft to take off from Belarus, as we saw earlier last week.

So this is just another step that the U.S. is taking to hold Russia's allies here accountable. Of course, we saw that they are also monitoring any potential activity that China might take in support of those Russian operations in Ukraine and will respond accordingly -- Anderson.

[14:10:13]

COOPER: Natasha Bertrand, thanks very much.

Victor and Alisyn, as you know, President Zelenskyy here has continued to push the U.S. and European allies for more sanctions, for more economic penalties against Russia to try to do everything possible to stop this invasion.

BLACKWELL: As we heard from him today, as he spoke to Canadian Parliament, likely what we will hear from him tomorrow as he speaks to Congress.

Anderson, we will get back to you.

Let's bring it now the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He served as prime minister from 2014 to 2016 during Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Mr. Prime Minister, welcome back.

I want to start here with these three European leaders who are en route to meet with President Zelenskyy, the leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia. They say that this is a show of solidarity to show Europe's unequivocal support for Ukraine.

As a former head of government there, the government leader, is this what you need from these countries? Now, I mean, what's the meaning from the Ukrainian side of this visit?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER: You know, it resembles May 2008, the war in Georgia that was actually waged by the Russian Federation.

Ukrainian president and three Baltic presidents, they paid the visit to Georgia, to Tbilisi, in order to stop the Russian aggression. So this is a very clear-cut sign of solidarity.

But let me, first of all, express my deepest condolences to the families of two American journalists, the journalist of "The New York Times" and the journalist of the FOX News. Our hearts and our prayers are with you. This war already affected the United States. And we have to realize that, right now, we are actually in the Third World War.

And I want to be very clear about this. This is a new type of war. This is not a conventional war that we had as the First and Second World War. Putin waged the war, the Third World War, against the free world, against Ukraine, against the United States and against Europe.

So, all these signs of solidarity, that's not the lip service. This is a clear-cut action, how to save and support Ukraine, and how to save the free world.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it does feel as though it's hitting close to home everywhere. And we take your point.

President Zelenskyy today begged the Canadian Parliament to do more to impose a no-fly zone to help stop the Russian flights that are bombing various civilian targets. Do you understand why NATO doesn't want to do that?

YATSENYUK: Well, NATO was very explicit that they are saying that, look, this could drag us into this so-called Third World War.

If, for example, American fighter jets with American pilots will counterattack or attack Russian fighter jets, this would be a stance of war between the U.S. or NATO and the Russian Federation. But let me reiterate once again, we are living in a completely

different world. The Third World War is ongoing right now, with the cyberattacks, with the disinformation, with the political and economic activity in the U.S. and in the European Union against the U.S. and against the European Union.

With these so-called sanctions against the U.S. and the European Union, with the unity between China and Russia, this is another very important point, because look what's happening right now in this bloody world.

All these autocrats and dictators, they decided to unite against the democracies. So, once again, I want to reiterate this message. We are in the Third World War, which is a new type of proxy war.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But, Mr. Prime Minister, the difference is -- I mean, everything that you have laid out there, yes, makes sense, except for nuclear. That's the difference.

YATSENYUK: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: And so NATO is trying to prevent the nuclear option.

YATSENYUK: Well, Putin, he's unhinged. He's maybe completely partly crazy.

But I don't believe that Putin is ready to launch a nuclear arsenal. And, look, let's be frank, NATO, the U.S., the E.U., I mean, the alliance is very, very strong, much stronger than Russia and China together. So, we don't have to fear Putin.

The stronger we are, the bolder we are, the more chances for the free world to win this righteous fight of freedom and liberties in the world. We are just stronger.

[14:15:00]

BLACKWELL: Mr. Prime Minister, what, I guess, justifies that confidence that Vladimir Putin will not use nuclear weapons?

There are people who said he doesn't want to invade, he will not fight an urban war. What's that confidence that he will not use nuclear weapons based on?

YATSENYUK: Look, I also shared the take of the U.S. intelligence and of the Western intelligence that Putin will invade. And I was very vocal, even despite the fact that the majority of people actually disagreed with this.

But in this particular issue related to the nuclear arsenal and nuclear war, this won't happen. This is my take. I don't know whether the U.S. intelligence shares this take or not. But my take is that he completely understands, he and his cronies, his accomplices, Nazi- style friends, that the U.S. and NATO is 100 percent stronger than Russia.

So this is the clear-cut threat for Russia and for his -- for Putin's tenure.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Mr. Former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, thank you. We always appreciate talking to you.

YATSENYUK: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: The U.S. has information suggesting that China has expressed openness to providing Russia with the requested military and financial assistance.

The deputy secretary of state joins us to discuss the implications.

CAMEROTA: And European countries are trying to absorb millions of Ukrainian refugees. The U.S. has only taken in hundreds. Will the U.S. do more?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:50]

CAMEROTA: Today, Russia hit President Biden with sanctions just as the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia.

The U.S. says it's imposing further sanctions on longstanding Putin ally the president of Belarus, and his wife. The U.S. also sanctioned 11 Russian military leaders for suppressing freedom of expression, as Moscow is cracking down on anti-war protesters.

Let's bring in the deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman.

Madam Secretary, thank you so much for being here.

It sounds like diplomacy is deteriorating. Are there any talks going on at the moment between U.S. officials and Russian officials even behind the scenes?

WENDY SHERMAN, U.S. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Alisyn, we support -- first of all, it's good to be with you.

Secondly, we support any effort at diplomacy. So far, all of those efforts, all coordinated with the United States, have not brought us a return.

There are reports today that some cars have been let out of Mariupol, and that there are other cars waiting to leave. And if indeed this is the beginning of humanitarian corridor to allow people to escape a city where they have been deprived by the Russians of food and water and medicine, and no electricity, and a very cold time of year, then this will be a step forward.

But we have a long way to go. The United States wants to do everything we can to support the Ukrainian people and to impose consequences on Vladimir Putin, who has done this -- this premeditated, unjust and unprovoked war of choice to invade Ukraine. CAMEROTA: I had heard you say on Sunday that you were starting to see

some signs that the Russians were interested in real, serious negotiations. Has that changed? And what were those signs?

SHERMAN: Well, at the end of that paragraph on Sunday, I also said, so far, Vladimir Putin has not shown any sign but that he wants to continue this war of carnage.

So, unfortunately, I think any of those little signs have disappeared, though if, indeed, cars can get out of Mariupol, that will be a positive step forward.

CAMEROTA: We have been reporting, as I think you know, that Russia has reached out to China for assistance, and that China might be willing to help. If China were to help in some way, would the U.S. sanction Chinese government entities?

SHERMAN: I'm not going to go through in detail how we would in fact exact consequences on China if it transferred military weapons to Ukraine or backfilled on sanctions or provided cash to help bail out Putin.

But I can assure you that, when the national security adviser met with Yang Jiechi in Rome just the other day for nearly seven hours, we were quite clear that any country that takes these kinds of actions will face consequences.

CAMEROTA: Madam Secretary, let's talk about the refugee situation. Roughly three million Ukrainians have had to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighboring countries.

The latest numbers that we have are that Poland has taken in 1.8 million refugees, Romania more than 400,000, Moldova more than 300,000. At last count, the numbers that we can find is that the U.S. has admitted only 514 Ukrainian refugees. And I think that is since January. Will the U.S. be doing more?

SHERMAN: Well, the U.S. is always ready to help people who are in need. We are in fact the largest humanitarian donor to Ukraine.

And in the refugee situation, we have provided assistance to all of the countries that are accepting refugees right now and helping them, through both our own efforts and through nongovernmental efforts, to find their way to a permanent home.

Right now, folks who want to come to the United States go through the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees and that process, which we understand can take some time. We will look at this on a day-to-day basis. We are a country of immigrants. We have always welcomed refugees, even if sometimes it takes a while to get here.

[14:25:15]

CAMEROTA: Is there a way to expedite that process to welcome more refugees sooner?

SHERMAN: Well, I think we will have to look at this as we go forward here.

Right now, our immediate interest is to help people who want to leave Ukraine for safety. We have all seen just horrifying reports of mothers with children leaving their husbands behind. We have seen children as young as 11 leave all by themselves to cross the border with only a passport and a plastic bag.

So our hearts are breaking for all of these families as they seek shelter and seek a way forward. Many of them would hope to return to Ukraine and want to remain in Europe, so that it is -- they are able to return to Ukraine.

But, in any event, Alisyn, we will do whatever we can to help people find safety and security and a strong and prosperous future.

CAMEROTA: President Biden just announced this afternoon that he will be traveling to Brussels to this NATO summit next week.

What could come out of that? What's the goal for that?

SHERMAN: I think it's a very important trip that the president is making. The solidarity with NATO, the solidarity with the European Union, the solidarity with our allies and partners all around the world has been absolutely unprecedented.

And I'm sure the president, among other things, will thank our partners and allies. This is one of the great advantages we have vis- a-vis Russia, who has very few, if any, allies or partners. And I think if, in fact, the PRC is a partner, it is a partner of just transactional relationship, not of true interests.

And that solidarity has meant that we have joined together to make Putin bear consequences of the choices he's making. That solidarity has supported the Ukrainian people. That solidarity is supporting the refugees that you and I were just talking about.

So I think it's important to maintain that solidarity going forward. We have a long road ahead, even if this were to end tomorrow.

And we all would wish that it would. We all would wish that Putin would understand that body bags are coming back to Moscow, that mothers and fathers in Moscow are going to see their sons returning in those body bags, that the Russian people are suffering with no food on the shelves and the ruble being useless and The stock market closed indefinitely, and that there's currency flight out of the country, that corporations are leaving in droves.

So we hope that all of that comes together and gets Putin to make the decisions that are necessary. But even if it were to end tomorrow, we have to maintain that solidarity to support the Ukrainian people to recover after what is a devastating and continues to be a devastating war of carnage.

CAMEROTA: As you know, President Zelenskyy spoke live today to Canada's Parliament. And he once again is asking for help in the skies over Ukraine. He basically rejects the rationale that their -- that NATO can't help

with a no-fly zone because that would be escalatory. And what he said was basically that Article 5 of the NATO treaty has never been as weak as it is now because of this.

What's your response to that?

SHERMAN: My response to that is, if I were President Zelenskyy, standing up for my country and facing death every single day, I would ask for anything and everything.

That said, the United States is in fact supplying enormous amounts of support to Ukraine. The president signed the omnibus today, $13.6 billion for Ukraine. He will talk tomorrow about the security assistance that we have provided, that we are providing. It's just unparalleled in amounts, anti-tank, anti-aircraft, anti-armor, all kinds of support that the Ukrainians have asked for.

The Pentagon assessed that our supporting the delivery of planes from other countries not only would be potentially escalatory, but wasn't what, in their estimation, was most needed by the Ukrainians, that it would be hard to match Russian aircraft, but what we could do is help Ukraine to shoot them down.

And, in fact, the weapons that we have given to Ukraine, that we will continue to give Ukraine allow them to do exactly that. Now, any country is free to deliver whatever weapons or planes they want to, to Ukraine, and we will not stop a sovereign country from making their own decisions.

CAMEROTA: Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, thank you very much for all the information. Great to talk to you.

SHERMAN: Great to talk to you too. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: A Russian TV presenter for one of the nation's most popular channels leaves the country and resigns.

She says that she was afraid that