Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ukraine: One Killed as Downed Rocket Hits Kyiv Building; Dozens Killed in Latest Russian Attacks on Ukraine; Lviv Mayor: Russian Missiles Hit Aircraft Repair Plant; CNN Investigates Mariupol Maternity Hospital Strike; Ukraine Surgeon Sees 100+ Patients a Day; Countries Around Ukraine Deal with Massive Refugee Numbers. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired March 18, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Max Foster in London following breaking news. More on the war in Ukraine just ahead.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We believe that Moscow may be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fighting is getting fierce, as Russians are getting desperate to cut Kyiv off for weapon supply lines.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is sick. Nothing will stop him.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's a murderous dictator. A pure thug who is waging an immoral war.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I want everyone who will try to join the occupiers on our Ukrainian land. This will be the worst decision of your life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

FOSTER: It's Friday, March the 18th 4:00 a.m. in Washington, 10:00 a.m. in Ukraine. We begin this hour with that breaking news.

At least one person is dead and four others wounded after debris from a downed Russian rocket fell on a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine. A fire broke out and a dozen people had to be rescued, according to Ukraine's emergency service. First responders are working now to put out the fire. The mayor of Lviv, Ukraine, says that several Russian missiles have been in aircraft repair plants in the city.

Video from the area shows large clouds of smoke coming from the direction of the airport. The mayor says work at the plant had been stopped and there are no reports of casualties right now there. Ukraine's armed forces say six missiles were fired at the city with two of them intercepted by air defense systems.

Lviv is largely been spared so far from Russian bombs and missiles, but that could be changing as Russia takes aim at supply routes from NATO countries to the west of Ukraine. Now we'll have a live report from Scott McLean in Lviv in just a moment.

But meanwhile, dozens of people have been killed in Ukraine attacks over the past 24 hours elsewhere in the country. Authorities in Kharkiv say Russian shells hit a sprawling market, causing a huge fire with plumes of black smoke that spread to nearby homes. Kharkiv's mayor says a rescue worker fighting the fire was killed.

Another Russian attack on a nearby school and arts club killed 21 people, according to local officials. In the southern coastal city of Mariupol, survivors are emerging from the rubble of a bombed-out theater. Authorities say more than a thousand people were sheltering inside when it was hit by a Russian bomb. It's not clear how many survived that attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden will speak to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in the coming hours, with a warning that Beijing must not support Russian aggression in Ukraine. On Thursday, Mr. Biden said some choice words, or had some choice words for the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Vladimir Putin has launched an unconscionable war against Ukraine, against the very pillars of international peace and stability.

Putin is paying a big price for his aggression of a republic, standing together against a murderous dictator. A pure thug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning mercenaries that joining Russia forces would be the worst decision of their lives. He also praised the efforts of the Ukrainian military.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translator): It is challenging, very, and we do everything, absolutely. Our army, police, SCS, humanitarian convoys, church, all our people, we will not leave, and we will not forgive them. You will be free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN has correspondents positioned around the world covering this story for every angle for you. We'll have reports this hour from Nada Bashir here in London, Natasha Bertrand in Brussels, Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong and Randi Kaye in Orlando, Florida. We begin though with Scott McLean live this hour in Lviv, Ukraine. Lviv, Scott, had been seen as a safe haven for Ukrainians, and it doesn't appear that's the case anymore. SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. There had

previously been a military strike about 11 miles or so from the Polish border, about 25 miles from the city of Lviv. This is the first time that we've had any kind of bomb hitting within city limits. Let me tell you where we are right now, Max.

So just beyond this wall here, is the airport runway, actually the tarmac. So, this road sort of leads along toward that area. Where you see that press van coming out as well. Just beyond that there's some train tracks that run along here. And then of course, where you see the traffic, that is a bridge that you can get a good vantage point.

We were on that bridge earlier and we saw smoke in the distance, not in the near distance, I should say, from a building there, it was thick black.

[04:05:00]

It seems to be starting to dissipate now as I can only imagine. They're starting to put out the fire since this happened, some four hours ago or so. Now, this, we understand, is a bus depot in the area. People here would have of course heard it. And this whole area has been filled with police, military, and territorial defense folks since this happened. Really, they're sort of restricting where exactly we're allowed to go. We were allowed to cross the bridge earlier.

And on the other side of the bridge, there's actually a checkpoint there. And I was actually here a couple of weeks ago, Max. And this is a bridge that they were paying particularly close attention to, and the reason why, is because they figured that this would be an obvious target for Russian bombs. It runs over rail tracks. It's sort of a choke point in and out of the city, and it is literally right next to the airport, as well.

So, we understand that the building that was hit here was some kind of an aircraft repair factory. It's not clear whether that was the intended target or if it was something else, but it certainly fits with the pattern, especially given what we've seen in other western Ukrainian cities, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, and then now here in Lviv as well. Targeting specifically airports, airport infrastructure. This obviously matches with the pattern.

The worry here, Max, of course is that Lviv -- the point that you made clear -- has been a safe haven for a lot of people fleeing violence in other parts of the country. And people have come here and felt extremely safe. Life goes on pretty much as usual. The worry is that now this will send a whole wave of people headed towards the border.

I've spoken to a couple of people since I've been here, all of them men, all of them older men, who would likely be able to leave the country right now, and none of them, even after this, seem interested in going. One of them said, I could go to Poland, but it's not better there. Another said, why should I go anywhere. And so, people are making this sort of cost/benefit analysis of whether to stay or whether they should go, and for the moment, assuming that these targets stay at or around the airport, perhaps a lot of people will gamble that life in the rest of the city will be relatively safe -- Max.

FOSTER: We're looking at these images from the airport and the smoke bubbling up from there. The assumption many analysts are making here is that these are attacks on the infrastructure, which western countries have used to supply Ukrainian military, as opposed to a wider attack on Lviv right now. What are your thoughts?

MCLEAN: Yes, I mean, that's something that the Russians have said before. Something that they said that foreign weapons coming into the country would be fair targets, foreign soldiers, mercenaries, as they call them, would be fair targets. In fact, the Russians, when they hit the military base near the Polish border west of the city of Lviv, a while back, they were -- the Russians said that they had also hit a large cache of foreign-supplied weapons, something that the Ukrainians obviously have denied.

But to your point, Max, you're absolutely right. It is entirely possible that they're trying to go after certain weapons. It doesn't seem, at least at first glance, that there were likely any in that area. But again, we don't know what the target was. We do understand that there were six missiles fired, two of them shot down by air defense systems, and even there is a danger there, because for the last two days in Kyiv, we've seen the remnants of missiles. There's an ambulance just going across the bridge there. Because we've even seen the remnants of those missiles that have been struck down hitting apartment buildings in Kyiv. And in both cases, they have been deadly. So, even if the air defense systems are working as they should, there is still very much a risk -- Max.

FOSTER: Scott in Lviv, thank you very much, indeed. I want to dig a bit deeper now into one of the most horrific events of the war in Ukraine so far. This month, the Russian air strike hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol, killing at least five people and leaving more than a dozen injured. Russia claimed the attack was perfectly legitimate, but as Katie Polglase reports, a CNN investigation found no evidence to support that allegation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCHER (voice-over): Kharkiv, Melitopol, now Mariupol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (translated text): It happened on March 9 in Hospital Number 3 in Mariupol.

POLGLASE (voice-over): Despite being an apparent war crime, medical facilities have been repeatedly hit by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. And with each hit, a new justification. For Mariupol, Russia set the stage days before the attack happened.

VASILY NEBENZYA, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. (through translator): The armed forces of Ukraine have set up a fire position there.

MARIA ZAKHAROVA, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON (through translator): Expel the staff and patients from the maternity hospital and equipped combat positions in it. [04:10:00]

POLGLASE (voice-over): CNN has found zero evidence such military positions were present at the Mariupol maternity and children's hospital on the afternoon of March 9 and it was civilians that emerged from the buildings. Pregnant women injured and distressed. City officials say 17 people, including children, women, and doctors were injured. Since then, at least five people have died.

CNN built a model that revealed many signs that civilians were still using this hospital and therefore it was not a justifiable military target. This satellite image taken just hours before the attack shows cars parked outside. This is the crater left behind. War crime investigator truth hounds told CNN that it is consistent with a 500- kilogram high-explosive bomb dropped from an aircraft. Just meters away, this sign reads, "children's diagnostic consultancy unit." according to the hospital website, it housed children with immune diseases, among other illnesses.

Over here is where people began emerging after the strike. Women heavily pregnant, being carried with arms draped over the shoulders of others, helping them get out of the chaos. And here, firemen can be seen running inside, assisting people to escape. The internal devastation is significant. The voice you're hearing is of one of the survivor speaking to associated press, who gave birth shortly after.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (translated text): We were lying in wards when glass, frames, windows and walls fell apart. We don't know how it happened we were we were in our wards and some had to cover themselves, some didn't.

POLGLASE (voice-over): Another seen here being stretchered out later died alongside her newborn baby. These women's stories have epitomized the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, and yet even their suffering has been questioned, with Russian officials claiming on Twitter and in news programs that they must be actors.

ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH SHULGIN, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO NETHERLANDS: This is only one woman, rushing down the stairwell. Here she changed clothes and she's been brought on the stretcher --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're showing this to me, but if you have any real evidence --

VASILIEVICH: Yes --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- that it's not as been stated, why do you show to me. I'm just a journalist in the Netherlands. Show it to the United Nations.

POLGLASE (voice-over): While Foreign Minister Lavrov returned to the original line, this attack was justified.

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): This maternity hospital had already been seized by the Azov battalion and other radicals. All the pregnant women, all the nurses, all the service personnel were already expelled from there.

POLGLASE (voice-over): As these attacks on hospitals, clinics, even ambulances continue, CNN is tracking each one. In total, we have verified 14 incidents across Ukraine. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has confirmed at least 31. And with each hit, the ability of people in Ukraine to get medical help during this conflict is made more and more difficult.

Katie Polglase, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: With every passing day, the scars of war are evident across Ukraine. In Kyiv, rescue crews are assessing the damage in an apartment building was hit by a Russian missile.

There are also scars in the hospitals, which are filling up. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited patients at this Kyiv hospital on Thursday. I want to get some perspective on what's happening inside hose hospitals right now, directly.

We're joined my Dr. Kostiantyn Kopchak, a surgeon at the Dobrobut Clinic. Thank you for joining us. Just describe, you know, what you're dealing with currently there. How would you, you know, articulate the work?

DR. KOSTIANTYN KOPCHAK, SURGEON, DOBROBUT CLINIC: Well, actually, thanks to our army in Kyiv, a much better situation than in Mariupol or some other cities that are already captured by Russians. So really, it's more or less quiet. We hear bombing attacks, but no Russians are in Kyiv.

The main problems are not from these rocket attacks, but there are patients from other hospitals from the territory, which is already occupied by Russians. Because there, we see really a dangerous and very bad things, what they are doing with people, with children, with sick people. It's really awful.

Just to remind that we fighting not with people but with pure evil empire was said about the USSR now we are fighting with. There aren't many, many civilians whose trauma included children and it's really awful.

[04:15:00]

Not really the numbers of combatants are much less.

FOSTER: How are you able to do your work. Have you got the supplies, presumably, you have some supplies and they're running out, and in terms of the pattern of your day, presumably, there are each time you hear a siren, you've got to leave the space, leave the patients? How does it even work?

KOPCHAK: Well, we have a shelter where all the patients who can go, they go there. Those patients who cannot go and be transported to the shelter, they are transported to more safe places. And for sure our surgeon, nurses will stay with our patients.

It is really hard to work, psychologically, because we stay in hospital since the war begins. We do rotate, but we live here, we sleep here, waiting for probably critically situations when we'll need all the stuff.

From the other point, thanks to all the good people who help us with the supply of medications, it is a little bit harder to get everything we need, but if you have an information, there is really great support from inside the country and outside from our partners, so we can get everything we need to probably with some medications with logistics.

FOSTER: Have you been able to tell us -- well, are you just dealing with civilians, or are you also dealing with military?

KOPCHAK: Both with civilians and military. But it is not allowed to say the numbers.

FOSTER: No, but I think that -- I mean, the reason that I asked that question is that it speaks to the bravery of everyone working in these hospitals to not only put your, you know, lives on hold for the patients of your country, but by, you know, treating the military, you're also making yourselves a target.

KOPCHAK: We also think that all hospitals in Ukraine are targets. I told him right now the proven numbers of the targeted hospitals are, I think, more than 40. Our hospital was also a target for attack during the first week of the war. You know, we can compare this current situation only with Syria and Aleppo, where the civilian targets were most preferable for Russians. They do attack hospitals, recreation machines. They attack schools, not our military forces.

Why they want to probably make a psychological problems in our people, but indeed, what we are feeling is just hate and what we do want is only victory. But just remember, during the last days, we are trained to how to deal with patients during an attack, because now we understand it's absolutely real that we will face the problem, same problem that Syrians have faced during a Russian chemical attacks in Syria. Hopefully, they will not, but we are ready now for the worst situation.

FOSTER: Dr. Kostiantyn Kopchak, in Kyiv working as you always have done, incredible work. Incredible work of your staff and our thoughts are all with you. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EKATERINA HERMAN, REFUGEE (through translator): I think that if all countries woke up and helped us, then some solution would be found. Otherwise, I think if Russian President Vladimir Putin is sick, nothing will stop him. Neither peace negotiations or anything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOSTER: Refugee numbers are growing as more Ukrainians flee to safety. Poland alone has taken in nearly 2 million of them. Refugees have been describing the dangerous conditions they've been escaping.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, REFUGEE: In our markets, we have no food, we have no water. It's very bad situation in Kharkiv. Kharkiv.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, REFUGEE: They bomb us something like, so it's also hard. So not so big now, but we go, because it's too dangerous for children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: According to the U.N., more than 3.1 million people have fled Ukraine to other countries. Countries dealing with a massive flow of refugees, they're having to figure out what to do with them. Romania has already taken in nearly half a million displaced Ukrainians and more are coming every day. CNN's Miguel Marquez is in one Romanian city that is having to scale up its services.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Who are all these people?

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Friends, fellow citizens and colleagues she says, family too, all from Donbas in eastern Ukraine, refugees after the war there in 2014. Refugees again.

Some people crossed the border on foot, she says, two borders.

[04:25:00]

Not everyone is lucky as 86-year-old Antonina Mikhailova, who had arrived. She survived World War II. Now she's in an apartment in central Romania with her daughter and lots of friends and her cat named Mucia.

My childhood was spent during the war, she says, now in my old age, there is war again. And for what, in the name of all people. God, please stop the war.

The mediaeval city of Brasov not far from Dracula's castle is preparing a 1,000 beds for Ukrainian refugees, those beds in a hotel and its historic center, a business development center and a brand-new apartment building in a new part of town.

ALLEN COLIBAN, BRASOV, ROMANIA MAYOR: The main challenge is how to scale it up because this is only the first wave of refugees.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Olga Keeper from Odessa is here with her two daughters.

MARQUEZ: How do you feel being here? OLGA KEEPER, FROM ODESSA: Oh, perfecto, at least.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Other than perfect, she says, they gave us medicine and new beds. They fed us, then added it's very, very, very good.

The city of Brasov preparing for even more refugees where the mayor believes will need even more support and possibly stay for a long time.

COLIBAN: If you're a mother with a child, you can come to Brasov, we can offer you a job, we can offer and we are discussing about solutions for daycare for children, how to integrate them in the educational system.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The city planning the future but meeting basic needs too. Coordinating with local restaurants, providing thousands of meals. Today on St. Patrick's Day, prepared by Deane's Irish Pub. Luck of the Irish.

ALINA COLCERU, DEANE'S IRISH PUB AND GRILL: It's more than just providing meals and we're kind of providing hope to them. And they do need that and we can see that on their faces and I think that's really important.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Tatiana Kiriukhina and Natalia Zhivilka, mother and daughter from Mykolaiv got here only three days ago.

"If not for the help here," she says, "I don't think our nerves could have taken it. There were air raids day and night. We couldn't eat, we couldn't sleep." "In Mykolaiv," she says, "the planes were flying right over our heads. Flying, flying, flying. I can't find words to explain. It's very scary."

Antonina Mikhailova has a simple wish.

"In my old age, I only wanted peace and prosperity," she says. Then added, "I like everything to be OK. But for now, it's not."

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Brasov, Romania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

If you would like to help people in Ukraine who may be in need of shelter, food and water, please go to CNN.com/impact. You'll find several ways you can help there. Our breaking news coverage continues after this break.