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Military Barracks In Mykolaiv, Ukraine Hit By Russian Strikes; Lviv On Alert Amid Fears Of Russian Sabotage, Espionage; Putin Stages Pro-War Propaganda Rally In Packed Moscow Stadium; Small Ukrainian Villages Prepare For Russian Attack; Tech Entrepreneur Returns To Ukraine To Help War Effort; Biden Leans On Long History With Putin To Cut Off Russia. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired March 19, 2022 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:100]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

And Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today stood in the streets of Kyiv to deliver a message to Russia. He says he wants peace talks now before it's too late for Russia to recover from its mistakes, but Russia won't publicly acknowledge those mistakes. At a rally in Moscow yesterday, it was another edition of Putin in wonderland. Vladimir Putin talked as if the invasion is going according to plan, which of course it isn't.

He conveniently left out the fact that thousands of Russian troops have died in just the first few weeks of this war and that Russia's attacks are targeting innocent civilians in Ukraine in many cases like in Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering without food, water, and heat, and when they venture outside to find it, they risk being hit by airstrikes.

Russia also continues to shell areas around Kyiv, although Ukraine's military says Russia's two main routes into the city are cut off. Ukraine's former president today told me President Biden should come to visit the Ukrainian capital as a show of support.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I know that President Biden plans to go to visit Europe next week. And I think that he analyzing the possibility. Why don't the very good friend of mine, very good friend of Ukraine, Joe Biden, the leader of the global world, to demonstrate now the leadership. Why don't he can visit Kyiv next week?

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: The scene further to the south in Mykolaiv looks bleak. Dozens of Ukrainian troops have died in a Russian strike on a military barracks there. That's according to reporters at the scene.

I want to start there in Mykolaiv where rescue operations continue after a Russian missile strike hit a Ukrainian barrack. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is there for us.

Nick, just incredible devastation. What's the latest that you're seeing?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, I mean, we saw ourselves the scene of these clearly two missile strikes. One tore a building in two. Split right down the middle by the blast. Another building in this military site reduced to rubble. The precise number of dead and injured is unclear still at this stage, Jim, and that's often in keeping with Ukrainian military practice. They have not been transparent about their losses they say for operational reasons.

We understand from various sources that we are certainly talking about 20 dead, possibly 30. Possibly 40. I hate to be flippant in that range of numbers, but it is simply the fact of what we're hearing from talking to people here. I also understand, too, that 40 people were injured as a result of that blast, too. These are soldiers, certainly, and we met some of them in hospital after the blast and talked about the emotional losses clearly they were feeling.

One man lay there disorientated, talking the names of his friends. Asking how they were. Another man had experienced significant damage to both of his legs and broke down in front of us describing the sheer violence of those blasts. These are military targets, I should point, but so often in Mykolaiv behind me, that has not been the case. We've seen residential complexes hit hard. We've seen cluster munitions remnants of those left in vegetable patches, in family cars.

So Russia's devastation here is pretty constant, frankly, and it often over the past week appears to match a pattern of them losing ground physically in terms of terrain here. Over the last weeks when we first came here, Jim, we've seen Russian forces trying to get in. Often a key roundabout just outside the city. That is no longer the case. They have been pushed back quite some distance. That's true to say and as much as today in fact, we saw on a key road from this city down to the one city that Russia first controlled, Kherson.

We've seen how Ukrainian forces have been pushing them further back down that road, but it seems that Moscow exacts a price for those strategic losses of theirs by using very heavy weaponry in these instances for what may be one of the largest losses of life of the Ukrainian military that we know about against a military target, but so often here in Mykolaiv and in other cities around Ukraine against civilians, too.

They are not winning the war on the ground here. Certainly not anything like at the pace they perhaps thought they were going to, if even at all in any meaningful way. And so what Ukraine is suffering as a result is high explosives delivered often on civilian targets but in this case against a military one -- Jim.

ACOSTA: And Nick, are you getting the sense that the Russians are getting closer to taking any major city in Ukraine?

[16:05:02] Or are they just stalled on all fronts, capable, as you said, of delivering devastating blows in the form of just incredibly powerful strikes, but at the same time not really achieving these very critical military objectives that they thought they were going to achieve days ago, weeks ago?

WALSH: Yes, I mean, the only major city that they hold at this point is Kherson, which I have to tell you I mean it's not that big. It's very flat and you know, was to some degree surprised I think talking to locals that they would be considered a legitimate or interesting Russian military target. Kharkiv in the east has been subjected to utterly devastating shelling, but it's still in Ukrainian hands. Kyiv, the capital, likewise is still very much in Ukrainian hands and it does appear that the assault around that has stalled.

Odessa barely even touched despite attempts it seems by the Russian military to probe its defenses on the outskirts. Those are the three largest cities. And so we're left with something like Mykolaiv here which in theory would think would be sort of a steppingstone for a military as big as Russia or certainly is self-confident as Russia's, but they've been held back here intensely by what you think would be a lesser-equipped Ukrainian force.

And so I think it is definitely the case that Russia is not experiencing anything like the success it thought it would if not frankly losses. And what we're seeing is them exacting the price of that through heavy explosives -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you very much.

The Russian invasion is getting dangerously close to NATO territory. Russian missiles struck an aircraft repair plant in Lviv just over 40 miles from the Polish border. The city's mayor now pleading for a no- fly zone. And CNN's Scott McLean joins us now from western Ukraine.

Scott, what's it like in Lviv right now? I know a lot of folks there like yourself have been waiting for the moment when you would see some sorts of attacks perhaps on the outskirts and so on, but it does seem as though this war is moving into where you've been for some time now.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. Until yesterday, it seems like a lot of people had become a bit desensitized to the air raid sirens. They go off on a daily basis sometimes multiple times per day. Some people though now are suddenly rethinking their own safety here. Whether they should stay or whether they should go. But even before the bombs dropped, there was undoubtedly a lot of anxiety in the air.

Some of this new culture of fear and suspicion driven not just because of the war, but also because the government has been warning that the enemy is lurking amongst the population and even for native Ukrainian speakers, this is a new term for a lot of people, (speaking in foreign language) Russian saboteurs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCLEAN, (voice-over): Days after the invasion begin, this Lviv office was set up to help Ukrainians fleeing war. But not everyone who comes here is welcome. Shortly after we arrive, the man we're filming draw suspicion from staff. They tell us he has links to Russia. Police are called, documents are checked, questions asked. More than an hour passes. The man tells us his only link to Russia was a five-year-old passport stamp. They let him go.

(On-camera): Even here in Lviv, a city that is far removed from the front lines, we've had the police called on us twice. We've been asked to show our documents more than times than I can count and some people even say that random, ordinary citizens are asking total strangers to produce identification.

But if somebody asked you for your identification or your passport, you wouldn't think it was weird?

ANATOLII HRYHORIV, LVIV RESIDENT: I wouldn't think for now, I wouldn't think.

MCLEAN: Anatolii Hryhoriv says two weeks ago, he was walking home after sheltering in this bunker during an air raid alert.

(On-camera): And you saw two guys that looked suspicious.

HRYHORIV: Yes. And they were going to the bushes.

MCLEAN: They were walking through the bushes.

HRYHORIV: They physically grabbed them here and didn't let them go. Probably let them go, but if they could show us some documents or sample as that, but they didn't.

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. We have information that enemy sabotage groups have entered Kyiv.

MCLEAN: Ever since the president's warning, CNN found that in Mykolaiv, any man out after curfew gets special attention from police. And in Kyiv, even those fleeing through humanitarian corridoes don't escape scrutiny.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because we are afraid that Russians may have sent some of their own.

MCLEAN: Ukraine's rail chief says security has been beefed up to guard against saboteurs planting special targets to guide Russian missiles. Staff detained this man near Kharkiv.

OLEKSANDR KAMYSHIN, UKRAINIAN RAILWAYS CEO: Constantly cage them and send them to police.

MCLEAN (on-camera): How do you know for sure?

KAMYSHIN: Russian documents when they asked to stop.

MCLEAN (voice-over): A few days into the war, Volodymyr Lytvyn's wife says she spotted suspicious vehicles without headlights outside their home near the airport.

[16:10:05]

By the time he went to investigate, police were already there pointing guns in his direction.

VOLODYMYR LYTVYN, LVIV RESIDENT (through translator): It was an unpleasant experience for me but I'm happy that there such security measures. If you're an honest person and have no bad intentions, there's nothing to worry about.

MCLEAN (on-camera): Was the word saboteur in your vocabulary before the war started?

LYTVYN: (speaking in foreign language).

MCLEAN (voice-over): But finding links to Russia is complicated in a country filled with Russian speakers.

ROKSOLANA YOVORSKA, UKRAINIAN SECURITY SERVICE SPOKESWOMAN (through translator): It is simply impossible to consider every Russian speaking person a saboteur. A saboteur who may have a characteristic Russian accent not just be a Russian speaker.

MCLEAN: The Ukrainian Security Service in Lviv says only soldiers and law enforcement can demand a person's documents, but in wartime --

YOVORSKA (through translator): To detain or not to detain a suspect with your own hands is the decision of each person.

MCLEAN: Despite all the hype, she says not a single person in Lviv has been charged yet with sabotage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCLEAN: And I also asked the security service about the very real risk of innocent people getting caught up in this frenzied witch hunt for Russian saboteurs and they say that they have a filtration system for suspected saboteurs that involves a polygraph test and even if they believe someone is a genuine saboteur, they will still get their day in court. Even, Jim, under martial law.

ACOSTA: All right, Scott McLean, thank you for that eye-opening report. We appreciate it.

Up next, a former Russian opposition politician who survived not one, but two poisoning attempts, gives us his insights on the Russian propaganda machine. What life is like under Putin's rule.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:51]

ACOSTA: Russia's Vladimir Putin has taken his obsession with the Soviet glory day to a new level. Staging a massive pro-war propaganda rally at a packed Moscow stadium on Friday. Several Russians tell CNN that authorities pressured people to attend the event, which was meant to commemorate the eighth anniversary of Russia's takeover of Crimea.

Here to discuss is a Russian opposition politician who survived two poisonings in Russia, Vladimir Kara-Murza.

At this rally, Vladimir -- thanks so much for being with us by the way, we appreciate it. At this rally in which you saw this --

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN, SURVIVED TWO POISONING ATTEMPTS IN RUSSIA: Good to be on your program.

ACOSTA: Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine as he stood in front of a banner that read "For a world without Naziism." Again, I mean, with this Nazi talk, it is just so terrifying because it is so deranged that so many Russians are believing this crazy nonsense.

KARA-MURZA: The style of rally that we've all seen yesterday, of course this is not the first of its kind that Mr. Putin has staged to try to sort of put out this facade of supposed popular support that he wants to claim. There is so much in sort of harkening back to not only the Soviet past and, you know, the rallies that took part in the Soviet Union, but also frankly, and this makes it doubly hypocritical.

And I mean, I would use the word ironic had it not been so serious the topic of our conversation today. But, you know, this banner "For a World without Naziism," but so much of the style, so much of the substance of what Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia now represents actually has echoes with Naziism in Germany in the 1930s. I mean, just a few days ago, Mr. Putin gave a speech on national television where we described his political opponents inside of Russia, you know, people like myself and my colleagues in the Russian opposition, as quote, "national traitors."

This is a term directly borrowed from Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in Germany. And of course this stylized letter Z that has been used by the Kremlin propaganda as sort of a symbol of support for this aggression on Ukraine. I mean, it really does look like a stylized swastika. So Vladimir Putin's regime itself as it sort of tries to make this bogus and outrageous claims of somehow they're fighting Naziism in Ukraine acquire more and more traits frankly of at the very least a fascist regime in Russia itself.

But I also think it is very important for our viewers not to be fooled by the smoke screen, not to be fooled by this propaganda. Vladimir Putin would like the whole world to think that all Russians support him. That all Russians back this criminal aggression that he's engaging in with regard to Ukraine, but that is not at all the case. And in fact, since this attack began on February 24th, thousands of people all across Russia have gone out into the streets to try to protest.

I say try because most of them are immediately arrested and herded away to police stations. It is now a criminal offense in Russia, not just to speak out against this war, but even to call it a war. You can get up to 15 years in prison if you call what Putin is doing to Ukraine a war. But despite this fact, there have been thousands of people all over Russia who have demonstrated to say that this is not our war, this is not being done in our name. And I think it is very important for the world to also hear those Russian voices, not just the voices of the Putin propaganda machine.

ACOSTA: No question about it and you're right to raise that point and we have reported on that extensively. But I have to ask you, how do you think it got to this point and how does your experience I guess provide maybe a lesson or warning sign missed along the way? It seems as though and we were talking to the widow of a Putin critic who was poisoned and died, Mr. Litvinenko, and you know, it seems as though what she told us is correct.

There were so many warning signs missed, ignored by the world because it was just convenient perhaps to let Putin's aggression just pass in previous episodes. What are your thoughts?

KARA-MURZA: Well, you know, frankly don't even get me started on this because it's, you know, I cannot, I express the feelings of frustration and frankly rage that a lot of us in Russia feel these days because we have been trying to tell the world for 22 years now just who Vladimir Putin was.

[16:20:11]

It wasn't any kind of enigma, it wasn't a secret. I mean, one of the first things Vladimir Putin did when he came to power in the year 2000 was reinstate the Stalin-era Soviet national anthem as the national anthem of the Russian federation. And Russia is the country of symbols and this is as powerful a symbol as you can get.

And of course, you know, very early years of his rule, Vladimir Putin engaged in an intensive crackdown against democracy and civil society inside of Russia and very quickly turned the imperfect democracy that we had back in the '90s to the perfect dictatorship that we have today.

You know, one after another, destroying independent media, opposition parties, going after his political opponents, imprisoning opponents, then murdering opponents. We recently marked the seventh anniversary of the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov who was literally gunned down in front of the Kremlin in February of 2015. And, you know, all this time, Western leaders continued to shake Mr. Putin's hand and invite him to high level summits and try to find ways of dealing with him.

You know, and looked into his eyes and got a sense of his soul and declared resets with him and so on and so forth, and this is where we are today. Facing a large-scale war in the middle of Europe. Facing war crimes. And what I would argue are crimes against humanity that the Putin regime is conducting. And this was so predictable. This is what's enraging about it because there's only one way that the appeasement of dictators ends. And we are seeing this now.

And yes, it is also the fault not just of those people in Russia who chose to stay silent over the years in the face of the regressions by Mr. Putin, but frankly there's also significant responsibility by Western leaders who chose to turn a blind eye when Mr. Putin was destroying democracy in Russia and then engaging in aggression against other countries.

ACOSTA: And so what is your answer in terms of the larger question in all of this, which is how do we expedite the end of Putin's stranglehold on Russia and his attempt to essentially continue to bully the world? Do you have a clear and concise answer that I suppose a lot of people can agree on? I guess that is part of the problem is that there are just so many different points of view as to how to accomplish this without World War III breaking out.

KARA-MURZA: First of all, to state the absolutely obvious, only Russians in Russia can change the situation in our country. Nobody is advocating any kind of regime change from outside. You know, only Russians in Russia can affect political change. And this will happen and Mr. Putin has really accelerated all these processes in the last four weeks with his aggression against Ukraine.

I mean, he's had a lot of problems with Russian public opinion, especially among the younger generation in any case because, you know, this man has been in power now for more than 22 years. Many people are simply getting tired of seeing the same face on their television screen for such a long time. And so political change can only come from within Russia itself, but it is important that the free world, the community of democracies, stands in solidarity with those people who want to see a free and democratic Russia.

A Russia that would respect the rights of our own people at home and that would also behave itself as a responsible citizen on the international stage. It is very important, I think this should be one of the highest priorities for the West right now, to provide the truth to the Russian people in the Russian language to open the eyes of Russian society on these heinous crimes that Putin's committing supposedly on behalf of our country because as mind boggling as it sounds, many people in Russia do not even know that there is a real war going on in Ukraine.

They do not even know about the targeting of civilians, the cluster bombings of residential areas, the bombings of maternity wards, for God's sake. People do not know about this and of course, as you know and as you've reported, in the last four weeks, the same time that he's launched an aggression against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has also destroyed what remained of independent media inside Russia.

And so there's a total information blockade and a sort of censorship all that's been erected, and I think it is important for the free world to help breach that censorship wall, and also very important not to let up those, especially those targeted sanctions against those high level oligarchs and human rights abusers around Putin who have for years gotten used to being able to steal in Russia and then stand and stash away that stolen money in the West and for such a long time, the West has enabled this behavior.

We have seen this finally stop in the last four weeks. It has taken a war in the middle of Europe to make it stop and it's really important now that the West stand firm. Stand in solidarity with the millions of people in Russia who want our country to become a normal, modern democracy. I have absolutely no doubt that this day will come.

ACOSTA: All right. Well, Vladimir Kara-Murza, thank you very much for your time. As you were telling our team, a current opposition leader to what is going on in Russia right now. Thank you so much for your time, Vladimir. We appreciate it.

[16:25:04]

KARA-MURZA: Thank you so much.

ACOSTA: Good luck to you.

Coming up, CNN visits a village where locals are using any supplies they can find to prepare to resist Russian troops, including a 71- year-old grandmother who says if it came down to it, she will strangle Putin with her bare hands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Residents of many towns and villages in central Ukraine have been spared Russia's brutal military assault at least for now, but they know it's likely coming and they're preparing to defend themselves.

[16:30:00]

Ordinary people, firefighters and electricians, farmers and grandmothers, ready to stand their ground.

More on their determination to fight back from CNN's Ivan Watson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(AIR RAID SIREN)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dawn breaks over the city of Vinnytsia with an air raid siren.

(AIR RAID SIREN)

WATSON: The ground war has yet to reach this city in central Ukraine. But locals aren't taking any chances.

This is the entrance to a village on the outskirts of the city. A checkpoint protected by volunteers, an ex-cop, a fireman, and an electrician.

WATSON (on camera): Looking how this village is protecting itself, homemade tank traps, which the locals call hedgehogs. They've sewn netting and put up sandbags.

And around the wall here, of this checkpoint, they've got boxes of Molotov cocktails ready. This is all locally-made. These are improvised defenses. And this is

just one Ukrainian village.

(voice-over): Just down the road, I meet, Nina Chataluuk, who seems like a sweet 71-year-old grandmother.

NINA CHATALUUK, LOCAL RESIDENT: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WATSON (on camera): (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

By the way, Nina says that if she saw Vladimir Putin, she would strangle him with her own hands right now.

CHATALUUK: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WATSON (voice-over): "I'm ready," she says. "If, by God, the Russians come here, I'll shoot them all, and my hands won't even shake."

CHATALUUK: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WATSON: "I'll throw grenades at them."

There is seething anger here at Moscow's invasion and, at the same time, examples of tremendous generosity.

Stacked inside a garage, humanitarian assistance trucked in from Europe, personal donations of clothes and food for the struggling people of Ukraine. Aid that will then be shipped off to frontline cities.

VLADYSLAV KRYVESHKO, DISTRICT HEAD OF VINNYTSIA CITY TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY: I want to say thank you for the rest of the world, tor the world. I want to say that we need help. We need and we will need help.

WATSON (on camera): Is Vinnytsia ready, if the Russian military--

KRYVESHKO: Yes.

WATSON: --comes to the city?

KRYVESHKO: Yes. Another cities give us the time. We have two weeks to make good defense. Today, we're ready. But we don't want this.

WATSON (voice-over): The war effort extends to Vassily Solskiy (ph) and his farm, where workers labor, listening to news of the war.

Vassily donates free food to self-defense forces.

VASSILY SOLSKIY (ph), FARMER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WATSON (on camera): Vassily Solskiy (ph) says he's doing his part to help with the war effort. He says he's planting more crops and he's going to try to grow more food to feed Ukrainians who may be in need in the weeks and months ahead.

WATSON (voice-over): One of Vladimir Putin's stated objectives for his war on Ukraine was to demilitarize the country.

Instead, he has mobilized farmers, grandmothers, and electricians to form a grassroots resistance against the Russian invasion.

Ivan Watson, CNN, outside Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: My next guest left his life in the U.S. to support his birth country of Ukraine by not picking up a rifle.

Instead, he's using his experience as a tech entrepreneur to scour networks on four continents and keep Ukrainian fighters supplied with everything from food to socks to shoes.

I want to bring in Andrey Liscovich with us. He's joining us now.

Andrey, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

You were living and working in San Francisco, but there you are, you're in Ukraine. You decided to go back to your home country when the war started.

Talk to us about this. Tell us what you're seeing on the ground and how your efforts are going to help your people of your homeland.

ANDREY LISCOVICH, TECH ENTREPRENEUR HELPING PROVIDE SUPPLIES TO VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS IN UKRAINE: Thanks for having me, Jim.

You've probably seen by now a lot of footage of war, destruction, carnage. None of this is here at this point.

What's much harder to see is the atmosphere, how people are with each other. How they behave in the dangerous situations.

And the level of unity I'm seeing here is something I've never seen before. It's absolutely incredible, spanning the entire society from civilians to the military.

There's an incredible amount of determination to do everything that's in every person's power to resist the invasion.

I guess the closest comparison for American audience might be the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in New York when people were unified across all social strata.

And they felt that the entire society was challenged by an atrocity and they had to muster unified response. And that's what I'm seeing it here everywhere.

[16:34:58]

I can give you one example just from today. This morning, a two-day curfew was announced because of the imminent Russian attacks. It was announced at 4:00 p.m. so people had a few hours to go stock up on groceries because they didn't want people to leave their homes. I was doing a big run for groceries with the army, buying a large

batch of groceries for them.

The entire line, the super congested store, there were lots of people, stepped aside, welcomed them, asked them to get everything they need checked out first.

In that line, there was this elderly, frail lady probably in her 70s holding a shopping cart with half a loaf of bread, just half a loaf of bread.

I asked her whether it was sufficient for two days because that's the duration of the curfew. Her response was that she didn't need much. That her son died and she would be able to make it last for a long time.

I literally pulled out a bill, which is about 40 bucks, half of her pension probably, gave it to her and she refused the bill, saying, "Please keep it and make sure that our boys are fed."

You see this level of selflessness, this level of commitment to the common cause. And it's completely unprecedented.

And I feel every Ukrainian must do what's in their power and does it very willingly because they know their future depends on these actions.

ACOSTA: Andrey, I understand you're helping to provide supplies to volunteer soldiers in Ukraine. Talk to us about why you're doing this.

I have to imagine maybe you were just not going to be able to stay home and watch all of this unfold on your TV screen and see just everything that's happening to the people of Ukraine and not be able to help, not be able to do your part.

Is that it? Can you talk about that?

LISCOVICH: I don't want Ukrainians could just be sympathetic victims. We all have things that we could do personally.

I did not want to be a passive spectator seeing horrible things happen to my hometown, my country. I didn't know exactly how to help.

I came here knowing there would be plenty of problems and I could probably find something that would be highly important for me to focus on with my background, network, experience.

And it became clear on day one that the biggest problem was not the lack of people willing to take up arms to defend the country. It was the complete lack of supplies that the army could provide for them.

You could picture a young guy, probably 20s, coming in with sneakers, shoes, a sweater, a very civilian look. And all they get is an A.K.-47 and some, maybe two, three magazines of spare ammo.

Obviously, to be effective at the battlefield, you need to have a lot more than that.

Just picture a U.S. soldier that has a lot of gear besides a gun and wears seven layers of tactical clothes, a helmet, body armor, backpacks, and kinds of supplies.

Those are the things we're trying to provide. We're focusing on supplies that are completely lacking for the enormous number of people that have stepped forward to defend the country.

Initially, it was a very basic operation. I was driving around town with my personal credit card buying all of this gear for the army, just handing it over to the volunteers.

Since then, a lot of my former colleagues and friends have stepped forward to volunteer their time, their money, to scale this effort.

We've now set up an organization called Ukraine Defense Fund that focuses on a very simple mission. What they're trying to do is help Ukrainians defend themselves.

We're buying supplies, either locally when it's possible, or in other countries when those supplies are not available locally and ship them to the front lines in as little time as humanly possible.

To make sure that these volunteers that are here on the ground have a fighting chance.

ACOSTA: Andrey Liscovich, it is just inspiring what you're doing for the people of your country and that you made this journey all the way from San Francisco to Ukraine.

Thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate it. Good talking to you. And best of luck to you.

LISCOVICH: Thanks for having me, Jim. I really appreciate the attention to this.

And we invite everyone who's interested in this effort to follow us at "UKR Defense Fund" on social media.

Thank you very much.

ACOSTA: Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Still to come, President Biden's decades in the U.S. Senate and eight years as vice president prepared him for dealing with Vladimir Putin.

[16:39:42]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: If you want to understand the strategy President Biden has been pursuing with Vladimir Putin, consider a meeting he held with the Russian leader at the Kremlin more than a decade ago. As Biden tells it, he told Putin, quote, "I'm looking in your eyes and

don't think you have a soul."

This week, with the war in Ukraine intensifying, Biden did not hold back either.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are you ready to call him a war criminal?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, I think he is a war criminal.

A murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: He has not been holding back.

CNN recently conducted a dozen interviews with White House officials, members of Congress and others about Biden's strategy for handling Putin.

[16:45:02]

And joining me now, CNN senior reporter, Isaac Dovere.

Isaac, you've been learning some interesting details about how Biden has approached these conversations in the past with Putin.

And you know, he doesn't hold back. There aren't any diplomatic niceties it seems between Biden and Putin.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Remember, Biden was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was vice president. Now he's president. He's actually had 20-plus years of dealing with Putin.

That story you were telling, the meeting between Biden and Putin at the Kremlin, where he says, you don't have a soul, that's Biden actually playing off the famous moment with George W. Bush where he said, I looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul and there's something trustworthy there.

Bush later said he regretted that. But Biden, years later, is still playing off that.

The way he tells the story is that Putin looked back at him and said, "You said I don't have a soul, we understand each other."

So that's the dynamic that Biden's been leaning on.

ACOSTA: Yes. I don't think Putin knocked that one down, did he? And Biden was vice president when Putin invaded Crimea in 2014. There

was criticism at the time that the Obama administration didn't do enough, with Biden as vice president.

Did Biden take any lessons away from that experience?

DOVERE: Sure. Look, if you remember part of what happened there's that there were weeks, then months of countries trying to figure out what kind of sanctions are they going to pursue, what could they do?

In the end, the sanctions that were put in then, not that severe, especially compared to what's happened in the last couple of weeks.

What Joe Biden looked at, that experience and saw, was that, in order to really put pressure on Putin, there needed to be a united front among -- between countries and they needed to move quickly.

That's part of the reason you see that Biden has not given Putin what he thinks and what other White House aides think Putin wants, which is a one-on-one Washington-versus-Moscow, Putin-versus-Biden dynamic.

But instead, it's all the countries come together.

Biden, even as Washington officials have been pressuring and leading the way behind the scenes on these sanctions, not making it seem like America is telling them what to do.

ACOSTA: Isaac, Biden has to deal with the domestic politics of this as well.

And even though he's essentially a president trying to aid another country that is just in the middle of a war with Russia right now, Republicans have been pretty severe in their criticism of the president.

That they're doing things like criticizing Joe Biden while they're voting against aid for Ukraine, yes, part of a larger budget package but voting against that Ukraine aid at the same time.

How's the White House handling that? How's the president handling that?

DOVERE: You go back to what happened with the invasion of Crimea. At that point, remember, there were a lot of Republican leaders who were saying, listen, look at Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. Putin's a real leader. He's a strong leader. He's decisive.

Really critical of Obama. In part, because they felt like there was a political gain in that.

What Biden has done is try to depoliticize this argument and not make it about saying Republicans are soft on Russia, things that other Democrats actually wish he would say more of for their own political reasons.

But to give that space for unity at home to exist, Biden thinks it's really important that part of what Putin is trying to do is not only divide the world, but people in America, too.

ACOSTA: That's been the Putin playbook for years now.

DOVERE: Sure.

ACOSTA: The president appears to be well aware of that.

All right, Isaac Dovere, great reporting as always. Thanks so much.

DOVERE: Thank you.

ACOSTA: Appreciate it.

And we'll be right back. Back in a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISETTE TITRE-MONTGOMERY, ART DIRECTOR, DOUBLE FINE PRODUCTIONS: I'm Lisete Titre-Montgomery. And I want to break barriers by including more women in the gaming space.

When I first got into the studios, I started to really understand how few women are there.

One of the challenges I have experienced is, when you are one of the few women on the team, it can seem like you are just not heard.

I'm art director here at Double Fine. And my role has been to focus not on making the game beautiful but creating an environment that helps women speak up and vocalize what their ideas are.

It's really important to me more women see themselves in the games they want to make and to play. Having female developers develop their own characters, develop the stories for women, by women.

I've been focused on working with game heads over the past few years so that we can increase the representation. And what we do is we work with youth or teenagers up to 25 years old to help them make their first game.

Because I think that's a really good way to distinguish it.

I really want to break down barriers so that other women can see that this is possible and that you can make games. It is the medium of the 21st century. How are we going to be represented in the future?

[16:50:42]

I think that there's a lot of work to be done to make sure we bring more women on board across the industry. But I see a lot of hope and change happening in this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:55:03]

ACOSTA: Flags at the White House currently flying at half-staff in memory of Republican Congressman from Alaska, Don Young, who died Friday.

President Biden remembered Young as larger than life in a statement today.

At 88 years old, Young was the longest current serving member. He was in his 25th terms, winning his first back in 1973. And he was the only representative from the great state of Alaska.

Young, who was dean of the House, served on the House Natural Resources Committee.

His office remembered him as a fierce defender of Alaska, who died with his wife at his side. And our condolences go to the entire Young family.

That's the news. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you back here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

Up next, my friend, Wolf Blitzer, anchors a special weekend edition of "THE SITUATION ROOM."

Have a good night.

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