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Russia Fires on Lviv; Biden Speaks with Xi Today; Kim Dozier is Interviewed about Biden's Call with China; Russian Elite Airborne Commander Dead; Cedric Leighton is Interviewed about the Russian Attack on Ukraine. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 18, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:24]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Pushing west, Russia attacks an airport near Lviv, just miles from the Polish border, pulling the western city, one a safe haven for those fleeing the violence, closer to conflict.

Good morning, I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Happening right now, the Biden administration is preparing for what could be a tense phone call between President Biden and the Chinese president Xi Jinping, as the question remains, will China support or resist Russia's invasion of Ukraine or try to remain neutral. We will be live at the White House in just a moment.

Back on the ground in Ukraine, intense shelling by Russian forces pushes the Russian army significantly west.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: An air raid siren has just gone off here in western Ukraine in Lviv.

We're hearing some explosions here in the background. There was an air-raid siren that went off just a few minutes ago. So we're going to have to wrap it up from our location here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: At least six munitions, possibly missiles, rained down near the city of Lviv in the west of Ukraine. The mayor there says several of them struck an aircraft repair plant. We should know, Erica, this just miles from the Polish border.

HILL: Yes, absolutely, and an area you know well having spent several weeks there, Jim.

In the capital city of Kyiv, meantime, at least one person is dead, several others injured as Russian forces continue to target residential areas. We also have new details this morning about the first U.S. citizen

killed in Ukraine. James Whitney Hill's sister says he was known as a helper. Jimmy Hill was in Ukraine for medical treatment for his partner. He was killed as Russian shelling slammed the northern city of Chernahi (ph).

SCIUTTO: The civilians bearing so much of the cost of this war.

We are covering every angle of the breaking news as only CNN can. Our reporters, correspondents, analysts standing by to bring you the latest from across the world.

CNN international correspondent Scott McLean is in Lviv, Ukraine.

And, Scott, you and I there for a long time, and really seldom did the missiles reach that far. But now, now more and more, they're coming in that direction. What did you see? What did you hear?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're absolutely right, Jim, you'll remember, air-raid sirens were a daily occurrence, sometimes several times daily occurrence. But it seems like people here were pretty desensitized to them. If you're out on the streets, no longer do you really see people shuffling off to the shelters as quickly as you can, as you did in the first few days of war, because nothing has hit inside this city, that is until today.

The air-raid sirens went off early this morning. It was minutes later that an explosion was heard even from here in central Lviv. And then, of course, we could see the thick black smoke on the horizon. We were quickly able to figure out that it was near the airport. We went out to that area. And early on we were able to get a good vantage point from a bridge right at the end of the airport runway there, and you could see that there was a building on fire just beyond that runway.

That, we understand from local officials, is that airport or that airplane repair facility that was hit. Incredibly, the governor's office says that only one person was hurt, but not even badly.

So now the question is, now that you have so many people who have been fleeing violence elsewhere in the country, ending up in Lviv, the question is, will people start to leave? I spoke to some of the people who were on the scene. One man who witnessed the bombing early this morning. Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMAN DEMKO, LVIV RESIDENT (through translator): There were some explosions. I heard the noise, and then I looked right away and I saw a column of smoke rising.

MCLEAN: Even with bombing, you feel safe to stay here?

DEMKO: Well, I don't know. Where would I go?

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCLEAN: And that is the question a lot of people are asking. And, Jim and Erica, I just want to point out quickly where I am right now. So these strollers or buggies or prams, they are here for a reason. They have been put here, we understand, by a Ukrainian group that is advocating on behalf of displaced people and refugees. And each of these strollers represents one child that has been killed in the conflict. According to the Ukrainians, there have been well over 100 of them. And if you can just imagine each one of those strollers could be your own kid, could be your niece, your nephew. This -- there is a very profound human impact of this war.

The local governor said that the Russians ought to have known that Lviv has become a safe haven for so many people in this country. And he said that it just goes to show you that the Russians aren't fighting a war against the military.

[09:05:04]

They are fighting a war against ordinary civilians, as we're seeing more and more of them killed.

Guys.

HILL: Yes, we are certainly seeing those attacks directly on civilians repeatedly.

Scott, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Amid the ongoing attacks, President Biden set to hold a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping this hour. Our team is covering both sides of the critical conversation.

We want to begin here in the U.S. with White House correspondent Arlette Saenz.

So, Arlette, the White House has said, look, this is going to be direct, it will be candid, and they expect it could get tense. What are the assurances that President Biden is hoping to walk away with this morning?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erica, President Biden's goals in this call with Chinese President Xi Jinping are two- fold. One, he wants to send a warning that there will be consequences if China does aid Russia in any way amid its invasion of Ukraine, but also the call will give President Biden an opportunity to glean more information, more insight into China's viewpoint when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. This will be the first time that Biden and President Xi Jinping are speaking since November. And it comes as U.S. officials have really been watching this relationship between Xi Jinping and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, with growing concern as China has yet to denounce Russia's actions when it comes to Ukraine.

Now, the U.S., one area that they are watching very closely is whether China might comply with Russia's request to provide assistance, military assistance, to the country amid its invasion. U.S. officials have told allies that they have seen indications that China may be willing to do so in small forms, things like providing meals or ammunitions.

Additionally, the U.S. is watching whether China will try to help Russia economically amid those punishing sanctions from the west. Yesterday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that President Biden would make clear to China that China will, quote, bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia's aggression. He also said that the U.S. would not hesitate to impose costs on China if it does so, but officials so far have yet to outline what those costs might amount bottom.

But bottom line here, this is not -- this is a consequential call not just for what's happening between Russia and Ukraine, but also the fate of ties between the U.S. and China, two of the world's greatest global powers.

SCIUTTO: Thanks so much, Arlette.

Let's go to Shanghai now. Our David Culver is standing by.

Publicly Beijing has tried to strike something of a balance here, though at times it has endorsed Russia's positions in Ukraine. Do we expect Beijing to clear up where it stands on this war?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, they're trying to play this neutral ground. But the reality is that the longer this war goes on, the more difficult it is for President Xi in holding that position. You know, China's frequent target in all of this has been one country, not Russia, not Ukraine, the U.S. And they've repeatedly acknowledged, as you pointed out, Russia's so called legitimate security concerns.

And, domestically, when you look at propaganda here, it's essentially the Chinese version of what the Kremlin is putting out. So, they're helping each other spread disinformation, but what China is now navigating very carefully is feeling the economic pressure from sanctions that have been put on Russia. And that might help explain some recent actions taken by China that, quite frankly, are probably not sitting well with Putin.

I want to show you some of them right now, including China's doubling the ruble trading range against the Chinese yuan. That essentially allows the ruble to continue plummeting. China also reportedly refused to send aircraft parts to Russia. And Beijing based investment banks have halted programs in Russia and Belarus.

But Washington and the EU, they want to see more done. And how they engage China is going to be key in all of this because, Arlette laid out that they're going to relay some of the consequences if they were to help Russia, but China does not respond well to being told what to do, especially when they're balancing this idea of betraying their neighbor, their ideological allegiance to a fellow autocracy so as to side with the west. But in siding with the west, Jim, we know they may also be protecting the Chinese economy, which has slowed dramatically. Right now there are more lock downs in place, including what we're in right now here in Shanghai.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CULVER: So, they're feeling the economic pressures. And if there would be more of that economic instability, as you well know, is perhaps social instability. So they're navigating this very carefully.

SCIUTTO: It's a great point. No permanent allies, only permanent interests. Economic interests primary to China.

CULVER: Right.

SCIUTTO: David, great point. Yes.

HILL: David, Arlette, thank you both.

We want to bring in now CNN global affairs analyst and "Time" magazine contributor Kim Dozier.

Kim, as we look at this, if we pick up where -- you know, where David left off, this very delicate threading of the needle, which is going to happen in the conversation today, China doesn't like to be told what to do, and yet there are the potential for these serious consequence. We don't have the details on those. We did hear, though, from the Chinese ambassador to Ukraine saying, we will never attack Ukraine. We're here to help.

How do we balance all of this?

[09:10:00]

I mean what do you realistically expect to come out of this call?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Beijing is going to try to maintain its either/or status, and Biden is going to push them to choose a side. And as the weeks go on in this battle, it's going to get harder to stay with a foot in both camps because, think back to the Olympic when China and Russia announced a limitless relationship, surely behind closed doors, when Putin briefed Xi on this upcoming military operation, he described it as a special military operation that will be over and done very quickly. He looked like a rising, savvy leader who could be part of the new offensive ideologically against the United States and the west. Now, he's becoming a global pariah, economically, and embattled, it seems, even if his own country the way he's lashing out at people who were his allies in that recent speech.

So, now Beijing has to measure, is it going to be worth the potential economic pain? Secondary sanctions haven't kicked in yet, but those could really impact China. And Europe, the U.S., and Asian (ph) countries who largely are honoring these moves against Russia, they're China's largest trading partners.

So, what I'm watching for is when China starts distancing -- well, if it starts distancing itself from Putin, then he's really politically finished. SCIUTTO: Kim, you look at these measures that David Culver was

delineating there, allowing the ruble to fall further, denying aircraft parts to Russia, and keeping its banks, at least one of its banks, out of Russia and Belarus. Those sound to me like sanctions. I mean certainly nothing close to the degree of U.S. and western sanctions on Russia. But those aren't just neutral steps. Those are negative steps, are they not, from China towards Russia?

DOZIER: Negative steps, but doable. It's not cutting China off -- cutting Russia off entirely. It's trying to give Beijing a midway, a middle ground so that they can side with Ukraine without totally cutting Moscow off.

HILL: When we look at it, as Arlette pointed out, we don't know exactly what these, quote, costs would be to China, the consequences that the White House has warned about, but what's interesting is what worked very well, right, is bringing all of these allies and partners together when it came to sanctions against Russia and getting everybody on board. It's not clear yet, as we heard from Wendy Sherman earlier this morning, it's not clear who else may be on board for these, quote, consequences for China.

How important is that?

DOZIER: Well, the problem is, as sweeping as the sanctions sound right now, Europe is still buying a billion dollars' worth of fuel from Russia every day. That is keeping this war machine going. So, it's going to take weeks, if not months, for Moscow to really feel the pain from this concerted effort across a number of allies and partners. And we don't know if Ukraine has that long. Yes, Russian forces are stalled, but reinforcements are apparently on the way. And with a new group of Russian soldiers, they could start pushing ahead again. Meanwhile, what the Ukrainian military has to do is buy time for those sanctions to bite, and for something to happen in Moscow so that Putin relents.

SCIUTTO: Kim, question, going into this, the concern had been, what message does China take regarding Taiwan from Russia's invasion of Ukraine? We've seen the world come together with punishing economic sanctions on Russia for the invasion, as well as military support to Ukrainian forces.

Is -- does this give China pause about any ambitions it has for invading, taking over Taiwan?

DOZIER: Well, Beijing is probably wary watching this, although I'm sure Chinese politicians are telling themselves Taiwan is a different case. But that's another thing that -- you bring that up. They've got to try to keep Russia on side to vote with them in the U.N. Security Council in case of a move on China, on Taiwan in the future.

SCIUTTO: Kim Dozier, alarming prospect, thanks very much.

DOZIER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: We do have this news just in to CNN. Russian state television is confirming the death of five of its soldiers, but this notable, including a commander of an airborne division, a very senior commander of an airborne division. We're going to have the latest on a series of heavy losses for Russia, what they add up to, and we're going to speak to a military expert about what that means for the war going forward,

Plus, the international committee of the Red Cross tells CNN what they need most to help refugees and many citizens trapped in the crossfire.

HILL: And a bit later here, U.S. and Russian astronauts scheduled to leave the International Space Station together in just a few weeks. We'll be joined by the NASA administrator about that, and also the next step in the mission to Mars.

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[09:19:22]

SCIUTTO: Right now, Ukrainian military officials are claiming that more than 14,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of the war. The U.S. military has no way to confirm those numbers. They also say they've destroyed hundreds of Russian tanks and aircraft. CNN unable to independently verify those claims. However, the U.S. military has estimated at least some 10 percent of Russian hardware destroyed or inoperable in this war.

This as we're learning that the commander of an elite Russian paratrooper unit, as well as four of his top lieutenants, killed in the last 24 hours.

HILL: CNN's Natasha Bertrand joining us now from EU headquarters in Brussels.

[09:20:00]

Those losses -- there's a lot of talk about how those losses may be impacting the situation on the ground in Ukraine right now, Natasha.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erica. And what western intelligence and military officials are telling us is that they believe that the losses have contributed to sagging moral within the Russian troops. That they believe that this has -- because of how many troops they've lost, up to 10,000 in some estimates, they believe that this has become kind of difficult for them to maintain.

We've seen them stalling around certain areas, including in their attack on Kyiv, which has been stalled for a number of days and weeks now, and as well in the eastern part of the country as they try to move westward they have stalled. So this is having an impact on the ground, they believe.

But it's important to remember that this is not only a ground operation, right, this is also a Russian air -- they are conducting air strikes. They are launching missiles. So whether or not this -- the losses are actually impacting the moral, it remains unclear how that's actually going to affect the overall Russian military operation in the country. Now, we are also told that this, you know, has had an impact on their

ability to actually resupply forces. They're having difficulty kind of replenishing their troops. And they are trying to get new troops from as far afield as the Pacific. They are recruiting from Syria. They are recruiting certain mercenary groups. So they clearly are having some trouble resupplying here.

But, you know, at the same time, it's not only the Russians that have suffered losses, obviously. It's also the Ukrainians. And there's no real good picture of how many Ukrainians have -- soldiers have lost their lives over the last month of this war either. It's been difficult for the intelligence community to pinpoint one way or another how many of those forces have actually died. But, ultimately, what the U.S. and western intelligence officials tell us is that they believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not deterred. That he still believes, despite all of these losses, that he can retake -- or take, I should say, the entire country of Ukraine.

Jim. Erica.

SCIUTTO: Natasha Bertrand in Brussels, thanks so much.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN military analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Cedric, good to have you on this morning.

So, the conservative U.S. estimates are somewhere in the range -- in the middle of that range, 6,000 to 7,000. That as I keep noting to folks is the sum totally of U.S. personnel losses in Iraq and Afghanistan in 20 years. So, Russia facing similar personnel losses in the span of three weeks in Ukraine. Plus, the U.S. military, an this goes back more than a week, so you have to assume this number has come up, estimates some 10 percent of Russian hardware either destroyed or inoperable.

Where does that leave the Russian invasion force today?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Jim, it's in dire straits. I would say the Russian military has some real problems. And it really shows the difference in philosophy between American forces who try to protect their forces, their service members as much as possible, and the Russians who don't have that as part of their doctrine. Not that Russian soldiers don't want to survive, they obviously do, but these casualty rates are exceptionally high for the kind of operation that they're conducting. And it harkens back to historical battles, you know, all the way back to World War II when you start seeing large numbers of casualties like this. Obviously, we're nowhere near those exact totals. Those were immense totals that, you know, hit the millions during the course of that war. But in this particular case, you know, with modern weapons and with the ability, you would think, to resupply forces under normal circumstances, this should not be happening.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Should not.

It's also interesting I think -- you know, CNN has just confirmed, as we noted there, one of Russia's top para trooper commanders was killed. The fact that on Russian state TV they're talking about the deaths within that unit. What does that tell you about not only who was there in country but the fact that this is being broadcast I think sends an important message as well in Russia.

LEIGHTON: It does, Erica. And it's really interesting because, you know, this is couched to the Russian media as a peacekeeping mission, and a de-Nazification mission, you know, using Putin's words.

But what is really happening here is the elite forces of Russia, the parachute regiments, this would be something like losing a colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division. This is the kind of thing that really gets to the core of a professional military in Russia. And it's decimating their ranks. And it's basically a waste of their military talent.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, because you can read this two ways, that this either cows Russia, right, the loss is so severe, it thinks about pulling back, or the opposite, and it pushes forward and harder and more ruthlessly. And the fact is, the ladder seems to be the response so far, particularly as Russia has attacked more and more civilian targets, and then, of course, the U.S. taking the threat of a chemical weapons strike very seriously now.

Where do you see and how do you see Russia responding to this because folks have made the point, Putin cannot let the Russian military be embarrassed in Ukraine.

[09:25:00]

LEIGHTON: Yes, and that's the difficulty that he's put himself in. He's basically boxed himself in and the Russian people along with him. And so I believe the response will be, let's toughen up, let's toughen our resolve. You know, the colonel who was killed is a hero of Russia, therefore we will move forward in his name. That's the kind of message that I think they will, you know, seek to disseminate among the population in Russia.

And a lot of the population is going to buy that message. They're going to see these people who have given their lives in this operation as heroes and they are going to celebrate them and they're going to seek vengeance.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: We knows the messaging from Ukraine far different for obvious reasons, but the president of Ukraine trying to appeal directly to Russian mothers, as we've heard in recent days, in amplifying these losses on the Russian side.

What's interesting is we're not hearing a lot about Ukrainian losses, which I would think, Colonel, is also part of a very carefully planned message from Ukraine itself. LEIGHTON: It is. And the Ukrainians are using I think the tenets of

operational security, in other words, keep sensitive information out of the press as much as you possibly can. They're using that technique to great effect. Of course, they have some difficulty getting exact counts, I would think, of, you know, people in their service who have been killed or wounded. But on the other hand, they don't want to spread panic in their population, and they also want to make sure that nothing that they say diminishes the resolve of the Ukrainian forces, and, of course, the civilian population.

So, in this case, I think, Erica, what we're looking at is a -- kind of a dichotomy. On the one hand you have them revealing a lot about what's happening in -- with the Russian forces to great effect. The Russians responding, admitting to some of these losses, the Ukrainian side not admitting to too much. And it seems as if the Russians don't have that kind of knowledge of what's happening with the Ukrainian forces, or, if they do, they're not publicizing it either for -- you know, for whatever reason.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Colonel Cedric Leighton, always appreciate it. Thank you.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Erica.

HILL: Still to come here, what we're learning about James Whitney Hill, known as Jimmy, the first American killed in Ukraine. His sister says he had just gone out to get food when he became the victim of a Russian shelling.

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