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Officials Say, NATO Unable to Reach Russia Via Deconfliction Hotline; President Biden Demands Faster Drop in Gas Prices as Oil Tumbles; Flood of Misinformation on Ukraine Creates Digital Fog of War. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired March 16, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

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ERICA HILL, CNN NEWSROOM: This morning, CNN has learned that NATO has tried unsuccessfully to connect with Russia the deconfliction hot line, even writing letters as Russia intensifies its assault in Ukraine.

I want to get straight to CNN's Natasha Bertrand who is in Brussels. So, Natasha, what more do we know about these failed attempts at communication?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Erica. So, obviously, as Russia's onslaught in Ukraine has moved further and further west, as they have tried to take over the entire country, NATO also made some attempts to contact Russia via this deconfliction hotline that they have set up and also tried to set up to write letters to them to try to open that channel of military-to-military communication, right, to prevent some kind of unwanted escalation.

But they told us today, senior officials at NATO told us today that they have not received a response. They have tried to reach out but there is no one essentially on the other end. And they said while the military channels are open and they are working, it takes two sides to communicate, and so far only one side is really doing the talking here.

So, what this really demonstrates is how precarious the situation is, right? There are a lot of fears here and a lot of concerns that this could potentially spiral out of control because obviously the war in Ukraine is just so close to NATO's doorstep.

Now, I did ask these senior NATO military officials what they thought of a proposal by Poland to send in some NATO forces that could do some sort of peacekeeping mission in Western Ukraine to perhaps lessen that risk of an escalation there, and this is what they said. They said we are looking at two nation states that are in a war, and if they agree and are reliable on a robust peace settlement, I do not see the need for a peacekeeping mission. But if you're looking at the other version of peacekeeping, which is actually peace reinforcement, I mean, that is war with Russia.

Now, the implication there, obviously, is that if they're going in and doing peacekeeping, that that would suggest that the war is over, that there is peace to be kept. This is something they emphasized to us. But if they're going in there to actually enforce peace, which would involve trying to deescalate and trying to basically subdue the Russians here in their war against Ukraine, then that would essentially mean that NATO forces would be firing on the Russians to facilitate that.

So, that is not something they see as tenable at this point, but, of course, they say that they are still intent upon helping Ukraine defend themselves against Russia in any way they can. Erica?

HILL: Natasha Bertrand with that latest for us there, Natasha, thank you.

Well, right now, President Biden facing more direct calls to do more to help. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just a short time ago, urging Biden to act as the world's, quote, leader of peace.

Joining us now to discuss, Senior CNN Political Commentator David Axelrod. Good to see you this morning, David.

You tweeted after Zelenskyy's speech that it was, quote, brilliant, searing and pointed. He has been widely praised as meeting the moment. Is Joe Biden meeting the moment?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, first of all, let me say about Zelenskyy.

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Everyone, you can't help but be impressed by his courage, but as a practitioner, I'm just gob smacked by his oratorical skills and his sense of the moment, and he met it again today. It was such a brilliantly constructed presentation, multimedia presentation.

Look, I think that President Zelenskyy has a responsibility to his people, and he is fulfilling it with great, you know, zeal and effectiveness. But President Biden has a larger responsibility as the leader of the free world, which is to do everything he can without plunging the world into a world war that might involve nuclear weapons.

And I think that's the balance that he has to strike. And it's not an easy one. And obviously appeals like this put pressure on him. The White House anticipated that, because in a few minutes, we're going to hear from the president upping the ante and adding another $800 million in security assistance. So, they knew that this was going to be a direct and pointed appeal, and they want to respond to it.

But, again, I think that part of being a leader of the world, the free world, is to take into account the ramifications of every move you make, and that's the line the president is trying to walk.

HILL: President Zelenskyy saying if you were the leader of the world, this is about being a leader of peace, were the words that he chose. Do you expect -- yes, we know we're waiting, as you pointed out, in just a little over an hour, we're waiting to hear from President Biden. We'll hear about that additional security assistance. Do you think President Biden will also likely directly address those comments which were made in English at the end of that speech after that very moving video, speaking directly to him?

AXELROD: Yes. My thought was that, as I heard those words, that speechwriters in the White House were running back to their computers to add some language to the president's remarks. And I think what he will do is honor Zelenskyy's passion and courage and desire to save his country and to preserve democracy in his country, and then explain what he feels the next appropriate steps are. I don't think he's going to confront Zelenskyy in any way. I think he'll embrace the spirit of his comments.

But, again, part of being the president or the leader of the free world and fighting for peace is not plunging the world into a war in a rash way. So, it's a tough line to walk. It's a really tough line to walk.

And you also have to hold your coalition together, which Biden has done very well. The NATO coalition is stronger today than it was a month ago, and Vladimir Putin is now confronting that which he was most concerned about, which is encroachment. And so, you know, I think that Biden will try and meet the moment by adding, you know, a huge amount of money for additional weaponry.

HILL: David Axelrod, we'll have to leave it there, but always good to have you with us. Thank you.

AXELROD: Good to see you. Thanks.

HILL: Well, the waves of sanctions from the west may force Russia to default on its debt. So, what does that mean? Up next, we'll take a look at how global markets are reacting.

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HILL: New this morning, President Biden putting big oil on notice, taking to Twitter to call out the painfully slowly declining gas prices during an oil selloffs that we've been seeing despite that skyrocketing pace on pricing when oil was spiking.

The President saying, in part, as you see here, the last time oil was $96 a barrel, gas was $3.62 a gallon, it's now $4.31. CNN's Matt Egan joining me now to lay this all out for us. So, okay, this isn't anything new. There is always a lot of back and forth. There's always a lot of people outraged, right, at the profits from oil companies. Is the president right here with this callout in terms of those numbers, and where does it go?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes. Well, it's a great question. I think the timing here is interesting, because, as you said, this isn't new and yet the White House is calling it out. I think there is a few reasons. One, they're trying to change the behavior, trying to hope that maybe gas prices will actually go down faster. Two, they realize that the longer that gas prices stay high, the worse the inflation is going to look. And also there is clearly deep frustration within the White House about high gas prices, which have weighed on the president's approval rating. And so that's why they're using the bully pulpit here.

I know many people, including the people on my Twitter feed, are very frustrated with the price of gasoline. Oil prices, they have collapsed by about 28 percent since the recent peak on March 6th. Gas prices, though, the national average is just down by two pennies from the record high. It's standing at $4.31 a gallon, down by one cent overnight.

Now, it makes sense for there to be a little bit of a lag here, because, remember, the gas that you might be buying at the station today could have been purchased by the gas station days ago when prices were higher. The complaint, though, is that it feels as though when oil prices go up, gas prices go up like a rocket.

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HILL: Yes. There's no lag time there.

EGAN: Exactly. And yet when oil prices come down, they come down like a feather. And that's the big issue here that they're trying to call out.

HILL: It's like when you make a charge on your credit card, it's there immediately, and then when you return something, it takes days for that money to come back to you, and that's the frustration.

EGAN: Exactly.

HILL: We'll see if this does anything to change it. My guess is probably not.

EGAN: Probably not.

HILL: Thanks, Matt.

Well, they are cut off, as we know, from western media, but are there ways to break through Russia's propaganda bubble? We're going to take a look at how activists are doing their best to get around that information blockade. Stay with us.

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HILL: More disturbing images coming in to CNN this morning, this time from the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. We want to warn you, the video is graphic. Again, it is disturbing.

Officials say at least ten people were killed by Russian shelling there. Well, they were simply waiting in line for bread. They were waiting to get food.

The video has been geolocated by CNN. As you can see here, we have blurred some of this for obvious reasons, but this video shows bodies on the ground. It also shows someone being carried to a vehicle nearby.

The city is currently surrounded by Russian forces. It's been bombarded repeatedly over the last week.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: To be clear, these are images that Russia explicitly does not want you or I or particularly the Russian people to see, and that's been a consistent issue throughout this war. What, if any, true information is getting through to Russian audiences in the midst of new and greater, greater restrictions?

We're joined now by Alina Polyakova. She is the president and CEO of the European Center for Policy Analysis. Alina, it's good to have you here. We have seen occasional moments where the truth or some of the facts break through to Russian audiences. But, in general, Putin has a very tight grip over information there and has made that grip tighter over recent weeks. Is any truth, are any the facts of this war getting through to the Russian public?

ALINA POLYAKOVA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR EUROPEAN POLICY ANALYSIS: Well, that's right, Jim. We've seen a very aggressive move from the Kremlin to really bring down what is a new iron curtain in Russia. That's where we are today very, very, unfortunately. On top of that, most of Russian media has now completely controlled by the Russian government, which means Russians, as you rightfully said, are not seeing these horrible images, and that's why, for that reason alone, many support Mr. Putin in this war, which, of course, you're not allowed to say that on Russian television anymore.

And it's very difficult to now see a path for how to get truthful information to those Russian people, how to reach them effectively as we ascend to join the cold war. But I do think that we just have to be creative, and there are ways to do it if we put some effort and also significant resources into it.

HILL: So, give us a sense, Alina. What are some of those ways that you believe could work and how do we know that it is, in fact, working? What is the measurement for that information getting through?

POLYAKOVA: Well, that's the big million-dollar question. I think, certainly, if we start to see Russians' public opinion polls changing, of course, we have to be very careful what we make of that. It is an authoritarian state. But there are still channels out there. Telegrams are still used by many, many Russians. These encrypted channels are a way to get information into Russia. We can access those.

But I think most importantly, there have been hundreds of independent Russian journalists, the trusted messengers that many Russian people have known for a long time, they have watched and read, and now they're no long able to access those independent sources because all of these people have been forced to leave Russia. And they're very much also victims of Putin's war.

I think the most important thing we can do is support these people, give them an opportunity to still write, to reach their local audiences as bloggers, as video bloggers, all of these kinds of things. This is something we can do today as the United States and our allies, and it's going to be critically important to ensure that Russians are getting information from people they know and trust. And these are the journalists who are leaving in huge numbers from Russia today.

SCIUTTO: As you mentioned, you could say that the iron curtain is back, and you could even argue that it is thicker than it was even during Soviet times. During Soviet times, there were western news organizations, and there are many -- most of them have left as well because of concerns about this new law that criminalizes reporting facts about the invasion or the military. What does Russia look like today and after this war?

POLYAKOVA: I'm sorry to say that it's a really sad and depressing picture for Russia. I mean, we have to remember that with this war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin is also victimizing his own people economically, in all kinds of different ways. Russia is not going to come out stronger from this for obvious reasons, for this egregious and brutal act.

And I think, unfortunately, what we're going to see in Russia is a North Korea-like environment. That is where we're heading. It is going to be, I think, significantly worse than what we saw during the cold war, when we had BBC Russia. We still have that but it's been cut significantly.

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In the U.S., we had Radio Liberty. Again, it's (INAUDIBLE) but it's been cut significantly. So, it is a really sad picture that we're going to see in Russia in the years ahead.

HILL: Yes, it certainly is. Alina Polyakova, good to have you with us this morning. Thank you.

POLYAKOVA: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And thanks so much to all of you for joining us today. I'm Jim Sciutto here in Washington.

HILL: And I'm Erica hill in New York.

Stay tuned. At This Hour starts after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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