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Dozens Likely Killed in Strike on Mykolaiv Barracks; Gym in Lviv Turned into Shelter by Dozens of Displaced Ukrainians; How Aleppo Foretold Russia's War on Ukraine; U.S. Confirms Russia Fired Hypersonic Missiles into Ukraine; Biden Travels to Brussels This Week for NATO Summit; Spanish Taxis Make 3,000-Mile Trip for Ukraine Refugees; Friends and Colleagues Mourn Death of Ukrainian Dancer; Ballet stars unite for "Dance for Ukraine" Fundraising Gala; COVID Cases on the Rise Again in Western Europe. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 19, 2022 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Has drawn hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians seeking shelter away from the frontline of the war. Russia claims its action in Ukraine is a special military operation and that it isn't targeting civilians. Clearly the evidence proves otherwise.

I'm Pamela Brown. Your next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome. I'm Paula Newton at CNN center.

Ukrainian officials say another Russian general has been killed amid fierce fighting in southern Ukraine. Now the military says five Russian generals have now been killed since the invasion started. However, CNN cannot independently verify those claims, of course. Now, on Saturday officials in the United States did confirm that Russia launched hypersonic missiles against Ukraine. This could in fact be a game changer.

Russia says they were used to target an ammunitions warehouse on Friday. This is in fact the first time we know of that hypersonic missiles have been used in combat, and yet a new report from British intelligence says Russian forces still have not managed to gain air superiority over Ukraine. Meantime, officials in the southern port city of Mariupol say Russian troops are taking residents to Russia against their will.

The city council says thousands have illegally been taken to camps and some moved to remote cities in Russia. It comes as Mariupol now faces almost constant bombardment. And new satellite images meantime show the devastation after the city's theater was bombed on Wednesday. Officials believe hundreds of people were taking shelter inside when the attack hit, and despite Russia's relentless attacks, Ukraine's president says his people will continue to fight for their country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): Ukrainians have proven that they can fight more professional than an army that has been waging wars for decades in various regions and conditions. We respond with the wisdom and courage to the great number of their equipment and soldiers sent to Ukraine.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Now, we're also learning new details about a call between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkey's president on Thursday. According to Turkish officials Mr. Putin laid out his list of demands for a peace deal. Among them, Ukraine cannot apply to join NATO. And this is key as well. They're saying that their demands include a requirement that Ukraine undergo a disarmament process. Meantime in southern Ukraine officials believe dozens of soldiers were killed after a Russian strike on military barracks.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports now from Mykolaiv.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Potentially one of the largest losses of Ukrainian military life in this war so far that we know of and what we do know is still relatively slight. I'm hearing from Ukrainian officials that certainly 20, possibly 30 or 40 soldiers' lives may have been lost in this startlingly and devastating explosion at two separate military buildings quite close to the city center of Mykolaiv where I'm standing.

One of those buildings torn, frankly, in two by the blast. Another reduced to rubble. We met some of the soldiers who were injured in that devastating series of blasts in hospital, bewildered one man lying there reciting the names of his friends, asking how they were. Another man whose legs have been heavily damaged reduced to tears.

This was a military target certainly, but that doesn't reduced the human tragedy of those killed or injured there. We understand the injuries may be close to 40 as well. And this is I say a military target but a sign again of what we're seeing now as a pattern of Russia's behavior across the country. Using heavy weapons, often guided missiles at this stage in the conflict to exact heavy price against targets.

This one military but so often across the country and here in Mykolaiv it's been civilian targets that have been pounded by rockets. And we've seen in some of the residential complexes here the damage that has done. But that is despite the fact that Russia appears certainly here around Mykolaiv to be losing ground against Ukrainian forces. And we've seen that along the main road from here. Mykolaiv down to Kherson, which was the first city Russia captured and remains really the only city Russia has held but still against that Ukrainian forces are pushing back down a road away from here Mykolaiv.

And so there's two elements to this war, a persistent pattern on the ground that Russia is not gaining terrain. In fact, finding itself in a stalemate or even around here losing part of the terrain it had gained.

[23:05:04]

But at the same time they are exacting a vengeful cost through heavy weapons, sometimes against military targets, so much the time against civilian targets. And here in Mykolaiv causing utter devastation so close to the heart of the city.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: And so you just heard Nick there talk about the very human cost here. And we want to show you a picture that tells the story of how far Ukrainians have to go to protect their loved ones during war. It shows a woman named Olga, you see her there, nursing her 1-month- old while she recovers in hospital. The hospital says Olga shielded the child with her body after their home in Kyiv came under fire. The mother sustained multiple injuries and underwent surgery. Thankfully, you see the baby there, Olga is fine. Olga's husband, you also see him there, that attack apparently left him with wounds on his legs.

Now a former Ukrainian president is calling for sanctions on the Russians who do President Putin's PR bidding in his words. Speaking on CNN Saturday, Petro Poroshenko argued for sanctions against what we called propagandist who promote the invasion. He also asked for more weapons telling the West Ukrainians are fighting your fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: During the last two weeks Russian troops around the Kyiv did not move one single meter because we have Ukrainian armed forces which demonstrate and maybe they surprised not only Putin but they surprised the world. We here fighting for the European security, freedom and democracy and for the global security, and for you also, for the United States, because my request is, please, help us to save the world. Help us to save Europe.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Now, Poroshenko also urged U.S. President Joe Biden to visit Ukraine during his trip to a NATO summit in Brussels next week.

Joining me now Susan Glasser is a CNN global affairs analyst and a staff writer at the "New Yorker."

Susan, good to see you as we continue to try and follow these developments out of Ukraine. Now in a new message, we just saw it there, it was posted just hours ago to social media, the Ukrainian president reminded the world, right, that he believes what's going on in Mariupol is an act, he says, of terror that will be remembered for centuries.

And yet, Susan, shouldn't Ukraine and the rest of us really be braced for more? It does not seem a cease-fire is anywhere near reality right now. SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, I think there's no

indication at all of any meaningful intent on the part of Russia to stop this murderous war that they have launched. In fact, if you see President Putin in Moscow at this Nuremberg-style rally, Nuremberg for the 21st century style rally, you know, that's not indicative of someone who's about to declare victory and go home.

And so I think that, you know, the fear here is that Mariupol is just a beginning of the kind of brutal destruction of the cities that seems to be what is the Russian military playbook for this conflict.

NEWTON: You know, we already know, Susan, that 1 in 5 Ukrainians are displaced at this time either in their own country or outside of it. It's only been a month. I mean, how much worse could this situation get? And what are the implications more broadly even for Europe at this time? I remember when we had the refugee issue with refugees coming into Europe from Belarus, and people have said that, you know, Belarus was weaponizing refugees. At this point in time the scale of this is just so much to try and comprehend.

GLASSER: Yes. I think you're absolutely right to point out that the refugee crisis not only is it vast and I think already exceeding what anyone thought was possible, but this is just early days. And if the assault on the cities continues, I think you're likely to see not just thousands more or even hundreds of thousands more but millions more Ukrainians because remember there's a large number of Ukrainians who are already internally displaced who haven't yet left the country and gone onto Poland or other destinations outside Ukraine.

But there's I think the number I saw was as many as 10 million Ukrainians are already internally displaced as, you know, total. And so that just suggests that we're early days of this crisis. And again, what worries me the most is that Putin appears to be in an escalatory mode, number one. Number two, as his offensive has stalled I think, you know, what you've seen is the Russian military basically turning their artillery on civilian targets in the cities.

That seems to be their actual war plan is not to fight the Ukrainian soldiers but to fight the Ukrainian people themselves and instill terror in the cities.

[23:10:04]

NEWTON: Yes, and to remind people, you and I have seen this before in Chechnya. We understand where this is going and what it means when Russia says they're going to escalate.

Susan Glasser, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Now giving shelter to the displaced both in and outside Ukraine is becoming a challenge as we were just discussing, but Ukrainian mothers and their young children were able to find refuge at a theater in a small Polish border town. Dozens of refugees are sleeping there side by side, you see them there, under borrowed blankets and fold-out cots. You know, this is just enormous. More than 3.3 million refugees have

already fled Ukraine. The U.N. as I was saying says another 6.5 million people have been displaced inside of Ukraine. Again, that's 1 in 5 Ukrainians at this point.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz looks at what life is like inside a shelter for some of those people driven from their homes by Vladimir Putin's war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): We're at a gym at Lviv University. In peacetime this gym would be where you would see wrestling matches potentially, but now it's being used to house dozens of displaced people. As you can see no privacy here. People right beside each other. Some of them have been here for weeks.

I just want to show you, I'm going to kneel down here and show you what their accommodations are like. This is just a basic wood pallet here. You can see that's just been laid down on this gym floor. And over it here is just very thin mattress, very thin bedding. By no means is this comfortable or ideal for any of the families who are here. Many of them fleeing from some of the worst affected areas like Kharkiv, Kherson.

And again they've been sitting here for weeks with nothing but what they could carry on their backs. I've also noticed a few pets here, people's dogs and cats that they were able to bring with them. I've asked some, you know, what's the plan? Are they going to move further west across the Polish border, try to make it into the rest of Europe? But some of them are just waiting it out hoping despite these horrific reports that we're hearing from eastern Ukraine hoping that they will be able to return home.

In the meanwhile, of course as they stay here they're fully reliant on volunteers, we're told by the coordinators here. It's volunteers that are bringing this basic bedding that you see. It's volunteers that are bringing food, water and basic supplies. The Lviv City Council has visited recently, we're told. And they're working to bring more aid, more assistance, but you have to wonder how much longer can people live under these conditions in a place like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: Our thanks to Salma Abdelaziz there.

Now still to come, Chechnya, Syria, now Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABDEL KAFI HAMDO, DISPLACED SYRIAN: The world is repeating the same mistake.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Why we should have known what Vladimir Putin's war machine would do to the innocent civilians of Ukraine. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:16:35]

NEWTON: You know, one of the questions about the war in Ukraine has been of course why did Putin invade? Now among his explanations was that Ukraine would join NATO which he framed as an existential threat to Russia, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson now claims there's so much more to the story. He says Mr. Putin's real concern was that Russians could take a cue from Ukrainians. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: He has been terrified of the effect of that Ukrainian model on him and on Russia. And he's been in total panic about a so-called color revolution in Moscow itself. And that's why he's trying so brutally to snuff out the flame of freedom in Ukraine, and that's why it is so vital that he fails.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Mr. Johnson was making those comments, in fact, at a Conservative Party conference. Now before Russian forces attacked Ukraine, they were bombing Syrian population centers like Aleppo. Years later survivors of the Syrian civil war are expressing empathy for the people of Ukraine.

Jomana Karadsheh has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Russia's vicious war in Ukraine has shocked the world. But no one should be surprised. For years Russia's ruthlessness played out so openly for all to see in Syria, where countless civilians paid the price for Putin propping up his ally Bashar al-Assad. Syria is where Russia boasted about testing more than 300 types of weapons. It's also where it tested the world's limits. And there seem to be none.

Its war has no rules. No one is spared. And no place is safe. Russia's bomb hospitals, markets and schools. The U.N. called them war crimes, but no one has faced justice. Russia denies it's committed these crimes, but its cruel attacks know no bounds. Even those rushing to rescue the injured have been targeted by its infamous double tap strikes.

ISMAIL ABDALLAH, WHITE HELMETS: I lost two of my team, my colleagues in one second. They were -- we will try to respond to save others.

KARADSHEH: Ismail Abdallah of the White Helmets survived one of Russia's most brutal campaigns in Syria, as it helped the Assad regime besieged, starve and bombard eastern Aleppo into submission.

ABDALLAH: We are forced to leave.

KARADSHEH: His beloved Aleppo was reduced to rubble. ABDALLAH: Aleppo was like doomsday. I saw buildings collapse on their

-- on the heads of their -- on the heads of the families, member of the families, children, by using the bunker buster bombs. Now, this kind of weapon is used for the basement, military basement, that weapon was used on civilians to target the shelters for the civilians.

KARADSHEH: In the little that's left of rebel-held Syria, the White Helmets are on alert. There's a fragile ceasefire here. They also want to help Ukraine. They know Russia's playbook all too well.

ABDALLAH: They would bomb everything. And their media will say that we targeted, we targeted a place for soldiers, we targeted Ukrainian armies.

KARADSHEH: So many here feel the pain Ukrainians are going through, pain inflicted by the same aggressor who shattered too many Syrian lives.

[23:20:02]

HAMDO: This is my daughter Lamar (PH).

KARADSHEH: English teacher Abdel Kafi Hamdo with his baby girl by his side appeal to the world time and time again to save Aleppo in 2016. But the world looked the other way.

HAMDO: I mean, I don't know why the world is not learning. I mean, not stopping Russia in Syria is affecting -- affected Ukraine. I mean, not stopping Putin in Ukraine will do the same in many other countries.

KARADSHEH: It's been more than five years since Hamdo was forced out of his home. Life is not the same, he says, but life does go on. Right now he says he just can't stop thinking of Ukraine.

HAMDO: None can understand Ukrainians, none of the world but Syrians. None can understand them more than Syrians. We will understand -- we understand them more. And this is why I cannot nowadays, I cannot teach well, I cannot do anything because I'm just following what's going on Ukraine. In fact, what's affecting me a lot that all the world is repeating the same mistake.

KARADSHEH: The mistake of letting Putin get away with it all, the impunity in Syria that may have emboldened him to invade Ukraine. Many here feel their fate is now tied to Ukraine. If Putin is not stopped they fear Russia will unleash hell here again to help Assad reclaim what's left of this devastated land.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Istanbul.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: So with losses mounting on both sides after nearly a month of fighting Russia has now unleashed an advanced weapon never used before in modern warfare. Our military analysts will explain what that means for the war in Ukraine. That's after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:34]

NEWTON: And welcome back. I'm Paula Newton in Atlanta. Ukraine says a fifth Russian general was killed last week in southern Ukraine. CNN cannot independently verify that claim. According to the Ukrainian military the general died in fierce fighting when Ukrainian troops attacked Russian forces occupying an airfield near the city of Kherson.

Now the U.S. now confirms in fact that Russia struck western Ukraine with hypersonic missiles similar to what you see there. Last week's attack is believed to be the first time such a weapon has been used in combat. Russia says it targeted an ammunitions warehouse. And there are now disturbing reports of the besieged city of Mariupol as residents are being apparently forcibly taken to Russia.

The city council claims thousands of Ukrainians have been rounded up by Russian troops over the past week and taken across the border to remote locations in Russia in so-called camps. Ukraine's president says history will judge Russia's actions harshly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translator): The besieged Mariupol will go down in history as an example of the responsibility for war crimes. What the occupiers have done to Mariupol is an act of terror that will be remembered for centuries.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: OK, we want to get some perspective on this now and of course on the military situation on the ground with retired general and CNN military analyst Wesley Clark.

Thanks so much for joining us. You know, we keep hearing that the Russian campaign is not going according to plan, and yet this is really only resulted in Putin escalating further. Now as we just learned apparently with hypersonic missiles, are they a game changer? And in your opinion does this signal a new phase in the war?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the truth is that the Russian game plan hasn't worked. Their plan Alpha to run in and seize Kyiv failed. Their plan Bravo to move into the country and take other cities is also failing. So maybe they're onto plans Charlie right now, which is to bombard cities humanitarian crises and by the way show off some advanced weaponry to strike precision targets if they can find those targets.

We're going to have a seesaw back and forth battles. Over the last couple of days Ukrainian forces have taken the offensive northeast of Kyiv. They've pushed the Russians back. They've captured and destroyed a lot of Russian equipment. They attacked the airfield at Kherson, destroyed a lot of helicopters. On the other hand, the Russians struck the barracks in Mykolaiv and killed, news reports, a couple hundred people. This is what's to be expected right now. This battle is in the undecided phase. It's going to be decided based

on the strength of reinforcements that go to Russia versus how much replenishment can come from the United States and NATO allies. And if the countries of the West are not committed to putting those replenishments and those anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems and I hope moving forward on the MiG issue to get Ukraine some air support, then eventually the weight of the Russian reinforcements, the 40,000 Syrians and whoever else they're bringing in or whatever China does, it's going to weigh against Ukraine. And there's no really good peace solution, no diplomacy looks promising at this point.

NEWTON: Yes. And that is sad but true. That is the evidence before us that really Putin and Russia are in no mood to talk. I want to look ahead with you to that NATO meeting next week, though. And if you could please take us inside that room. You have been the NATO commander. What could they be looking at in terms of trying to deter Putin or even strike back at him especially if he ends up, you know, making moves in Ukraine or outside of Ukraine?

You know, when you're a military planner, that's what you did, what kind of options could they be looking at because you know they're going to look at them next week.

CLARK: I'm sure those options have already been worked out by the NATO military staff and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Those options would include limited retaliation, it might include artillery strikes, some limited missile strikes, maybe even a couple of air sorties if Russian forces in Ukraine or in Russia strike onto NATO territory. But I think the biggest issue that's going to be just, I hope it will be discussed, is how much risk we're willing to take to keep Ukraine in this fight. Because in truth, the best defense for NATO is a strong Ukraine that's resisting Russia, and bleeding Russian forces down to nothing.

If Ukraine goes, it leaves, just the thin red line of NATO. And that front is four or five times larger than it was during the Cold War. There are already plans published by Russia on how they're going to take the Baltic states. And so this is -- there's no easy answer by saying oh, well, I just don't worry about Ukraine. Let's just worry about NATO. That's not an acceptable answer for European security. And I hope this is the issue that's really going to be on the table in the private session at the -- at the head of state level.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN HOST: And we'll see if we get more news out of that summit. But just keeping on that topic that you've spoken so forcefully about in the last few days, you know, we keep talking about Putin's moves. Well, what about the United States and its allies? What are NATO's next moves? I mean, we've spoken about sanctions?

Sure, you and I both know, look, that's the long game of Putin right now is on a very short, tight schedule. It's less than a month, and he's nearly annihilated two major cities, several towns, we have one in five Ukrainians displaced, do you think that those facts will be brought to bear at that NATO table to perhaps make them a little bit more aggressive in the days and weeks to come? CLARK: Well, I hope that when those facts are brought to NATO, and there's an evaluation of it, that the NATO military authorities, and the intelligence community will take a more realistic view of the risk.

There's a long, long way to go between sending some fighter aircraft into Ukraine and nuclear exchanges. And we just have to be able to see into this problem, because if we can't, then we'll say face the prop, same problem in NATO, or in Taiwan, or any other place against anybody who has nuclear weapons.

Mr. Putin thinks he's found a loophole in the concept of deterrence that's used by the West, which says, don't start a conflict and so forth. Because it might go, it might escalate to nuclear, his view is, hey, I'm going to start the conflict. And if you get involved, and I'm going to use the nuclear weapons. Well, that's his loophole. We have to think our way through this. I'm sure that's being done in the White House and other places in western capitals, but it's urgent, and it must be discussed, I hope, at this NATO summit.

NEWTON: I don't have a lot of time, General Clark, I'll say again, you were in the shoes, what would you say to convince them if that's the route, you want it to go as NATO commander?

CLARK: What I would say at the summit, if I were given a chance to speak as gentlemen, ladies, you got to take greater risk. Got to get aircraft in, you've got to get more systems in. Look, when Israel was in trouble in 1973, President Nixon ordered the Pentagon to tell the forces in Europe to give up their anti-tank weapons, move them to Ramstein Air fighters and they'd be flown immediately in Israel. We did that even though the Russians had escalated their nuclear status. We did that to save our ally, Israel.

Today, as far as I can determine, we're going through an elaborate paperwork process to transfer weapons, make sure their serial numbers are accounted for, make sure that their charges are weighed against the budget, and you're worried about everything. Let's get those weapons in. It can be done. Let's get them into Ukraine so they can make a difference on the battlefield now.

NEWTON: Yeah, and we just gave our viewers a stark reminder of what's at stake when we showed them what had already happened in Syria. General Clark, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much, as always.

CLARK: Thank you.

NEWTON: Now, a group of taxi drivers in Spain wanted to do something right to try and help refugees, thousands of miles away in Ukraine, so they organized a convoy that crossed the continent and return to Spain, the 130 Ukrainian refugees they transported had found a safe refuge from the terror of war, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Horns blaring, people cheering, it's a hero's welcome for these bleary eyed taxi drivers and their war weary passengers. The end of the line for this convoy are about 30 taxis in a 40 hour round trip that covered more than 3000 miles from Madrid to Poland and back.

But it's also the beginning of a new chapter for the roughly 130 refugees from Ukraine arriving in the caravan. Some had tears in their eyes and shouted where words of gratitude as they entered a shelter in Madrid even the drivers themselves say they were surprised by the reception.

[23:35:10]

As one driver says, we are all very moved because of the welcome we had. We didn't expect it. He also says we're very tired. We have been driving nonstop.

The convoy began as an idea by a group of taxi drivers waiting outside the Madrid airport for customers on how they could help the people fleeing Ukraine. Taxi drivers raised about $50,000 for the trip to cover fuel costs, and volunteered their time to bring supplies to Poland and return with as many refugees as they could.

The convoys organizer says they are proud to bring so many people to Spain. But disappointed there are still so many people who need help. Organizers say the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid helped to select the refugees for the convoy and the drivers say they hope to do another run soon.

For many of them, it's a ride they won't forget. One man says while on the road, a commercial plane passed overhead in a frightened child looked at the sky and threw himself on the ground and his hands on his head.

When it came for the final drop off, there were plenty of hugs and thanks for the lift out of a place of hardship for the lift in spirits and the hopefully new roads ahead for these passengers in need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: I only imagine the relief there. Ahead for us here on CNN, we're following a surge of COVID 19 cases right across Western Europe that has health officials here in the United States on high alert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:33]

NEWTON: Ukraine's national opera houses mourning one of its top dancers, Artem Datsyshyn, friends posted on social media saying he died after being injured by shelling. Several international dancers, including one of Datsyshyn's old dance partners are now trying to raise money to help Ukraine. ITN's Rishi Davda has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RISHI DAVDA, ITV NEWS: Effortless elegance and palpable passion, Ivan Putrov is one of Ukraine's finest ballet dancers. Born in Kyiv and a member of the National Ballet before spending many years with the U.K. is renowned Royal Ballet Company.

IVAN PUTROV, UKRAINIAN BALLET DANCER: All of my family saying the same thing that it's surreal trying to escape, driving Russian bombs, falling on Kyiv is impossible to understand. My father choose to stay back in Kyiv. My mother, I'm so happy that my mom has made it to London after more than a week and several attempts to escape Kyiv. So she will be here for the show.

DAVDA: Even teamed up with Alina Cojocaru, born in neighboring Romania. Alina trained in Ukraine and knows all too well the devastation of war. Her former dance partner Artem Datsyshyn killed off the shelling by Russian forces.

ALINA COJOCARU, ROMANIAN BALLET DANCER: Artem was one of the first partners I danced to when I was 15 in Kyiv. We both had the same teacher when I joined the theater. My memory goes to how I knew them, how we've met and how we dance together. I could not comprehend that that's a reality right now happening.

DAVDA: Ballets best from around the world have donated their time to be a part of the dance for Ukraine, a gala to raise money.

PUTROV: The show that we're putting together Alina, has given platform, a voice for others to join in. Everyone is desperate to do something. Something that usually takes six months to two weeks. So it's a 20 hour day trying to put this together. And yet it's really worth it because it will save lives.

DAVDA: If you had a message to the people of Ukraine, what would it be?

COJOCARU: We just have to get through this hard times because there is light on the other side. There are people willing to help and open their doors and their hearts in support in any ways we can.

DAVDA: Show proceeds will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee, Ivan and Alina hope to help those suffering through the brutality of war with the beauty of ballet. Rishi Davda, News ITN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: That's the world of arts and culture but there's also been solidarity with Ukraine in the sports world and emotional finish at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Ukraine's top high jumper took gold and Italy pays tribute to the Six Nations Rugby championship. Patrick Snell has our details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: A golden moment of courage and inspiration at the World Athletics Indoor Championships this weekend, Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh ceiling victory in a women's high jumper. And this as reported by Reuters after spending day sheltering in a cellar before making a three-day trip of nearly 2000 kilometers by car from her war torn homeland to get to Belgrade. The 20 year old, a bronze medal winner of last year's Tokyo Olympics, winning the gold medal with a sensational first time clearance at 2.02 meters.

YAROSLAVA MAHUCHIKH, UKRAINIAN HIGH JUMPER: I was much awaited for win the medal. But now it's gold medal and it's gold medal for all our Ukrainian people for all Ukrainian. I want to say thank you, for all our military who protect our country because you protect country and I come to hear protect country on the track. Thank you.

SNELL: Meantime, the message from Yaroslava's compatriot the Pole Vaulter Yana Hladiychuk was clear with the word stop war displayed on her face.

And a further show of solidarity for Ukraine, in the men Six Nations Rugby tournament this weekend, the Italian team putting blue and yellow hearts in a jersey numbers and how the Italians were inspired shocking defending Champs Wales in Cardiff elite tribe from Edoardo Padovani before Paolo Garbisi sealed off famous victory with the final kick. Italy's one point victory ending a seven year, 36 games Six Nations losing run. This win meaning so much to their ecstatic players.

[23:45:13]

And huge celebrations in Paris as France overpowered England to win not just this year's coveted Grand Slam, but also their first six nations triumph since 2010. Patrick Snell, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: And we will be right back with more news in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEWTON: A surge of COVID-19 cases across Western Europe has health experts on alert for another wave in the United States as well. CNN's Polo Sandoval has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: COVID cases in Western Europe are ticking up yet again. This week, the United Kingdom and Netherlands saw cases jumped nearly 50% over the week before the use case roughly 55,000 new cases a day is only a fraction of what the country experienced during a previous COVID peak.

And on Sunday, Germany will begin lifting most COVID measures in spite of new cases hitting a record seven day high more than 1700 in that country. The rise in cases abroad has the attention of American health experts who are asking if COVID statistics overseas may offer a preview of what's to come for the United States.

[23:50:08]

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Throughout this pandemic, we have followed the United Kingdom in Western Europe by about three weeks. So what happens there typically happens here.

SANDOVAL: Dr. Jonathan Reiner interprets COVID upticks elsewhere as a clear sign that the virus is coming back.

REINER: What they're seeing is not a sort of resurgence of the original BA.1 omicron variant. What they're seeing is a second peak now of BA.2, the more transmissible variant. And that is now slowly starting to rise in the United States. And I expect that we will see pretty definitive evidence of an increase in cases in the United States, probably by the end of this month.

SANDOVAL: Other health experts caution the U.S. may not be as prepared for a potential BA.2 variant surge. In the U.K. 86% of eligible people are fully vaccinated with 67% boosted those figures significantly lower in the U.S.

White House officials also detail this week that COVID-19 relief funding from the American Rescue Plan is running out. Official say more funds would be critical if a second booster shot is required. On Thursday, Moderna announced that it could seek FDA approval for a second booster shot for all adults. Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.

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NEWTON: For more on this, we want to bring in Dr. Eric Topol, he's a cardiologist and Professor of Molecular Medicine with Scripps Research.

Good to have you in again, for your expertise. We definitely need it once again. OK, BA.2, we just heard that likely that means there could be more of a surge of it here in the United States. What do we know about this variant? And are the vaccines still effective against it?

ERIC TOPOL, CARDIOLOGIST: Right, well, good to be with you, Paula. The BA.2 is a sister of the original BA.1 Omicron. It has a lot of different mutations. But the good thing is that vaccines with a booster are just as protective against it as the original strain or BA.1. The problem is that it's about 30% more contagious. So even though it doesn't cause more severe illness, it's going to get to a lot more people, as we're seeing in a lot of countries in Western Europe.

NEWTON: Now, if you've already had Omicron, can you still get this subvariant?

TOPOL: That's right. There's some antibody response to the Omicron BA.1 that cross reacts to this BA.2 but it's not great. It's a relatively weak antibody response. So yes, there can be infections that come, you know, after BA.1 with this second lineage of the Omicron.

NEWTON: So given that we could see quite a substantial surge. And this is at a time when restrictions are just beginning to lift right in some places, especially when you point to things like schools. Do you think we have to look at this again, and believe me, you know, better than anyone the kind of COVID fatigue there is around the world right now?

TOPOL: Right. There's no question about the fatigue. We're so sick of this. And there are some countries that have gone through BA.2 transition, including South Africa and India and others that didn't have a surge. So we can hope for a bit of that. But as you point out, aptly, the loosening of restrictions, along with the waning of immunity from our vaccines also contributes to making that spread of the BA.2 worse. So we have to be careful about just loosening all restrictions, because that's just going to feed into the BA.2 spread.

NEWTON: Yeah, and we heard in Polo's report there how stark it is that many people in the United States remain unvaccinated. I have to tell you, Doctor, anecdotally, I've heard from several people who have this new variant, and yet they've had -- they're fully vaccinated, even boosted, they're quite sick, not sick, that they're ending up in hospital but still quite a severe kind of flu like symptoms. How much should we worry then about what this could still do to vaccinated vulnerable populations, the older people that we've all been trying to shield for so long, those who are immunocompromised?

TOPOL: Right, it's such a great point. The 95% protection from hospitalization. That's the key, that's where you draw the line between getting sick or mild illness. The protection from that third shot is really the essential point. But yes, there's no question that illness can occur with these Omicron variance. And 94% protection from death or having to be on a mechanical ventilator in the ICU. So that booster is sensuality. We can't be emphasized enough. And here in the United States, we're at a very major disadvantage because we only have 29% of our population boosted and as you mentioned the older people, we have 65% whereas many countries in Europe that we just touched on are at 85 -- for booster 90% and overall 65%, 70%. So here in the U.S. were much more vulnerable.

NEWTON: And, Doctor, I don't have a lot of time left, but do you believe that we will be talking about this a lot more here in the United States in the next two or three weeks, given the data that you've looked at?

TOPOL: It seems to be inevitable at this point. Unless we're extremely lucky. I wouldn't want to count on the odds are against us here. Every other time that is five other times that Europe and U.K. warned us, it came here. So it looks like it's going to do that again.

NEWTON: Yeah, and that that is your blunt and necessary assessment, Dr. Topol. And we certainly admire your perseverance, the rest of us that are distracted, you are there steady as you go and keeping us informed. I really appreciate it.

TOPOL: Thank you.

NEWTON: And I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. I'm Paula Newton, stay with us. Our coverage begins right after the break with our live continuing coverage from Ukraine.

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