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Dozens Feared Dead in Bombing of Ukraine Army Barracks; Putin Holds Massive Rally to Justify Ukraine Invasion; War Refugees Spread Out across Europe; Empty Strollers Mark the War Deaths of over 100 Children; U.S. and Chinese Leaders Speak on Ukraine; Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov Describes Days of Detention by Russian Forces; Many Ukrainians Head Home to Help War Effort; Photographer David Turnley Captures the Emotion of War. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired March 19, 2022 - 01:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HALA GORANI, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers around the world and in the United States as well this hour. I'm Hala Gorani, reporting live from Lviv, Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is giving Moscow a stark choice. He says it's time to hold talks to stop the attacks on his country or else, he says, Russia will face serious consequences.

Those comments come after the Ukrainian military reportedly suffered significant losses early on Friday. Russian bombers struck army barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv. No casualty figures have been released but it's feared dozens of Ukrainian soldiers may have been killed in this attack.

Swedish journalists, in fact, shot video of rescuers pulling one person from the debris, giving us a sense of the devastation.

In the besieged port of Mariupol, drone footage shows the utter destruction that Russian forces have unleashed in three weeks of warfare. What you're seeing there on your screen used to be a shopping mall. And it stands gutted and burned out, along with blocks of charred apartment buildings.

The Russian offensive has stalled without any major urban centers being captured. New satellite images show some Russian forces taking up defensive positions, digging earthen berms for protection.

Ukraine is claiming it's killed 14,000 Russian troops so far, though CNN can't independently verify that figure. Ukraine's president says Moscow needs to quit now before Russian losses escalate higher.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I want everyone to hear me now, especially I want them to hear me in Moscow. It's time to meet, time to talk, time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine or else Russia will face such losses that several generations will not be enough for it to rise back up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Well, in the United States, President Biden spoke for nearly two hours with China's president, Xi Jinping, warning of underspecified consequences if Beijing assists the Russian side.

Now Ukraine's military is, despite the losses it suffered and the devastation, it is claiming a major battlefield victory as it pushes back against the invading Russian army. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Another blow to Vladimir Putin's military, Ukrainian forces claiming they ambushed this convoy of Russian airborne troops.

While CNN cannot independently verify the information, Russian state TV, for the first time, acknowledged that a senior airborne commander and several soldiers have been killed.

While still outgunned, the Ukrainians feel they might slowly be turning the tide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

PLEITGEN (voice-over): "The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to deliver devastating blows, at groups of enemy troops, who are trying to consolidate and hold the capture defensive lines," a Ukrainian army spokesman says.

The Ukrainians say they are launching counter attacks against Russian troops, this video allegedly showing an anti-tank guided missile taking out a Russian armored vehicle. They also claim they've already killed more than 14,000 Russian troops and shot down more than 110 combat choppers.

CNN can't confirm those numbers. But the Russians haven't updated their casualty figures in more than two weeks, instead claiming what they call their, quote, military special operation" is going as planned.

Russia's defense ministry released this video of helicopter gunships allegedly attacking a Ukrainian airfield.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Still, Vladimir Putin, clearly feels the need to rally his nation, making a rare appearance at a massive rally at Moscow's main stadium, where a strange technical glitch cut off his speech but not before he praised Russian troops.

[01:05:00] PUTIN (through translator): The best proof is the way our boys are fighting in this operation, shoulder to shoulder, supporting each other and, if need be, protecting each other like brothers, shielding one another with their bodies on the battlefield. We haven't had this unity for a long time.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): But the Russians appear to be so angry at U.S. and allied weapons shipments to Ukraine they've vowed to target any deliveries entering Ukrainian territory.

And they're hitting strategic targets as well, firing several cruise missiles at an airplane repair plant near Lviv while a Russian cruise missile, dropped on a residential building in the capital, Kyiv, after being shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

Former world heavyweight boxing champ and brother of Kyiv's mayor, Wladimir Klitschko, pleading for more help.

WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO, UKRAINIAN FORMER PROFESSIONAL BOXER: This is genocide of the Ukrainian population. You have to act now. Stop passively observing and stop doing business with Russia. Do it now.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): The Biden administration has said more aid and weapons are on the way, as Ukrainian forces continue to put up a fierce fight, preventing Russia's troops from further significant gains -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: As the Russian ground offensive largely grinds to a halt, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says things are clearly not going according to plan for Moscow. He spoke with Don Lemon during a visit to Sofia, Bulgaria, on Friday and they started by discussing Ukraine's demand for more airpower.

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. has made it very clear that they don't want to be involved in the process of giving jets to Ukraine. Now do you support other countries doing it?

Or either courage or either encourage other countries to do it, as long as there is no U.S. involvement?

GEN. LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Don, what other countries do, I, mean that's their choice. The United States certainly does not stand in the way of other countries providing assistance.

But again, we're going to remain focused on those things that we know are making a difference. And what's making a difference, in this fight, for the Ukrainians is the provision of anti-aircraft systems, the provision of armored and armored systems. And also, things, other things that have been effective or, you know, the deployment of drones.

And so, you've heard the -- heard the president say most recently what we're doing, the kinds of things we are providing. He just -- we just signed, just provided authorization for us to provide an additional billion dollars --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: A billion.

AUSTIN: -- worth of security force assistance. That's remarkable.

LEMON: What is your assessment of Russian forces now?

Are they stalled?

Are they regrouping?

So that they can increase their assault or increase their violence in Ukraine?

What's your assessment of the Russian military?

AUSTIN: Well, it's hard to tell, Don. I think, you know, they have not progressed as far as quickly as they would have like to.

They, I think they envisioned that they would move rapidly and very quickly seize the capital city. They've not been able to do that. They've struggled with logistics, so we've seen a number of missteps along the way.

I don't see, you know, evidence of good employment of tactical intelligence. I don't see integration of, you know, air capability with the ground, ground maneuver.

And so, there are a number of things that we would expect to have seen that we haven't seen. And the Russians really have had some, have presented them some problems. So many of their assumptions have not -- have not proven to be true as they entered this fight.

LEMON: The President is speaking, with Xi Jinping. And we are getting reporting that Russia has been asking China, for drones and for help. What happens?

Do you think China will stay out of this?

And what happens if they don't?

AUSTIN: Well, again, don't want to speculate or get involved, in hypotheticals. I would -- I would hope that China would not support this despicable act, by Putin.

I would hope that they would -- they would recognize a need, to respect sovereign territory. And so, hard to say, what they will do. But we've been clear that if they do that, we think that's a bad choice.

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GORANI: Austin was in Bulgaria, as part of a trip that included a meeting in Brussels and a visit to Slovakia as well.

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GORANI: Refugees from Ukraine are spreading out across Europe. Hundreds of the displaced reached Munich aboard a train from Budapest on Friday. Most were women and children, others were elderly.

Germany has received nearly 200,000 refugees so far. According to the U.N., more than 3.2 million people have now fled the fighting. At least 2 million have crossed into Poland alone. And many of those people have now moved on to other European countries.

And those aren't the only tragic numbers coming out of this crisis. According to the U.N., as of Friday, nearly 110 children have been reported killed in Ukraine.

So local activists in Lviv, where we're reporting from, decided to create a powerful message to represent that awful number: a sea of empty strollers to symbolize the deaths of Ukrainian children killed since the Russian invasion began.

They set up the strollers to drive home the horrific human cost of the war and to remember its youngest victims. A Ukrainian woman who was moved by the display spoke of the suffering in her country, with her own baby in a stroller beside her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATERYNA BANDZHANOVA, UKRAINE RESIDENT (through translator): I feel completely in pain, pain for our children, pain for the future of the country because children are the future of the country. When they kill children, they kill the future of this country, its heart and its soul.

You wake up during the night when you hear the sirens. You hear any little sound. You start to shake because you understand maybe it was another explosion. Maybe I need to take my child and run away again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Joining me now from Romania is Dan Stewart. He's the head of news for Save the Children.

Thanks for being with us.

What's the situation like in Romania for the kids who are fleeing with their parents?

DAN STEWART, SAVE THE CHILDREN: Well, as you said, more than 3 million refugees have been scattered across the region in just three weeks. And more than half a million of those have set foot in Romania since the start of the conflict.

What we're seeing every day is thousands of mostly mothers and children coming across the border at a number of different points. They are exhausted. They've been through horrendous, traumatic experiences, many of them.

They're also bitterly cold. You know, it's absolutely freezing here. The temperatures plummeted to as low as -10 just a few days ago. So what we're seeing is, yes, mothers and children, who really are just looking for somewhere safe and somewhere to recover.

GORANI: Yes. One of the things you told my producer is that the psychological effect of having to run away, for younger kids, is very severe on them.

How do you deal with that?

How do you talk to a child and try to lessen the just -- the psychological impact of what they're going through?

STEWART: Yes. We're incredibly worried about the long-term emotional and psychological impact of the horrendous traumatic experiences that children have been through.

I spoke to one family a couple of days ago, who told me that they had hid in a basement for six days while their town was bombarded. When they emerged, they saw their home was almost completely destroyed and they were forced to flee for the border.

Another family I spoke to told me they had two minutes, literally just two minutes, to pack up and abandon their home, abandon their lives, when one of their friends suddenly had a car that could take them to the border.

And the youngest daughter of that family actually was just 9 years old. And she was there. You could see just how quiet and withdrawn she was. Her mom said that sometimes she just starts crying.

So what's vital is Save the Children and the government here and other governments are there to start providing those emotional support which children need to bounce back and recover.

They are incredibly resilient and, in the right environment, where they can play and just be children again and where their parents can start to process what they've been through, they can start that journey of recovery.

GORANI: And this is obviously the short-term needs of these children. Longer term, kids need to go to school. I mean, we saw with the war in Syria, for instance, some kids out of school for years sometimes. And this does not prepare them for the future.

How do you deal with the longer-term needs of the youngest of the refugees?

STEWART: Well, absolutely in the long term, children -- making sure that all children are able to get into school and continue their education or start their education is vital.

[01:15:00] STEWART: Not only because of, you know, how important it is that they can learn in order to be able to thrive in their futures but it also provides that sense of routine and really starts to help children to recover.

It's so unpredictable right now. Things are changing by the hour. What just about everybody I've spoken to has in common is they would love to go home. They haven't left their homes because they want to. They hope to return to Ukraine.

And until we see a complete cessation of hostilities inside Ukraine, until we see safety, you know, that's the only thing in the long run that will help children recover.

GORANI: And how concerned are you about these reports that some people could take advantage of these refugee flows to deal in human trafficking or to abuse children, you know?

I mean this happens in all these war situations where you have these massive flows of humanity.

How much of a concern is that specific danger on small kids?

STEWART: Well, you know, tragically, wherever you have this amount of chaos and this amount of turmoil and, like we said, 3 million people fleeing across borders in three weeks, you know, there will be people who are looking to take advantage of this.

And that means trafficking. It means exploitation and abuse. It's a very real risk. It's something that we're very worried about.

So that it's vital that, across all of the borders with Ukraine, we can work with the authorities to ensure that any children who might be traveling alone or who have been split up from their families in the chaos are looked after and cared for straightaway so that they don't have -- so that, you know, people don't have the opportunity to make those risks a reality.

GORANI: Thank you so much, Dan Stewart, head of news at Save the Children for joining us from Romania this hour. We really appreciate it.

The leaders of the top two economies in the world spoke on Friday. U.S. President Joe Biden laid out in no uncertain terms the consequences of China helping Russia in Ukraine. What was said in that nearly two-hour phone call -- after the break.

Plus the mayor of a Ukrainian city was held by Russian forces for nearly a week. We speak exclusively to him about his captivity.

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GORANI: Well, unsurprisingly, Ukraine was the main topic when the U.S. and Chinese presidents spoke by video link on Friday.

President Biden wanted to make it clear to the Chinese president that, if his country provides support to Russia, there will be consequences. The White House, though, didn't give any specifics, nor did Chinese state media. But it did release this quote from Mr. Xi.

"The world is neither peaceful nor tranquil. The Ukraine crisis is something we don't want to see."

Now could that mean he wants to be a peacemaker in this conflict?

That is a question. Phil Mattingly takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There's been probable and increasingly public concern raised by U.S. officials about potential Chinese actions to aid Russia, either through economic or military support.

So much so that the issue was raised to the absolute highest level. Presidents Biden and Xi holding their first phone call in four months. A secure video call that lasted nearly two hours and focused, according to officials, almost entirely on Ukraine.

In that call, President Biden didn't make any explicit asks. But he did lay out the U.S. view of what has transpired over the course of the last four weeks as well as the scale of the united Western response when it comes to sanctions, military assistance, other issues.

The implication very clear: China needed to be warned about what could happen if they decide to engage. The concern, however, still remains. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have that concern. The president detailed what the implications and consequences would be if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians. And that is something we'll be watching and the world will be watching.

China has to make a decision for themselves about where they want to stand and how they want the history books to look at them and view their actions. And that is a decision for President Xi and the Chinese to make.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And that unified Western response will be on full display next week. President Biden heading to Europe for a hastily called meeting of NATO partners. He will also participate in a European Council meeting, will also participate in a G7 meeting called by Germany.

Again, it is that united Western front that the U.S. officials believe has provided so much power in terms of their response to Russia's actions and also could serve as a deterrent to China, particularly when it comes to European partners China has tried to establish relations with over the course of the last several weeks.

That, more than any other bilateral issues or maybe even singular sanctions threat, is what President Biden was attempting to convey to President Xi Jinping.

The question now is what will China do next?

U.S. officials made clear they will be watching very closely -- Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Russian forces have released a Ukrainian mayor that they detained earlier this week. According to local officials, the Russians kidnapped the mayor of a village just outside of Kharkiv on Thursday.

A statement from regional officials says that mayor Viktor Tereshchenko is being treated in a local hospital. He had set up a logistical aid center after Russian forces blocked the delivery of aid along humanitarian corridors.

Several days earlier, you'll remember Russians grabbed Melitopol's mayor, Ivan Fedorov. That is them at the top of the screen, hustling him away. He was freed Wednesday in a prisoner swap and gave his first English language interview to Anderson Cooper. Here's a portion of that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Were you worried?

Were you scared when you were taken?

[01:25:00]

IVAN FEDOROV, MAYOR OF MELITOPOL: Of course I'm -- of course, it was scary. But I need to do it because my citizens elected me and I must show them that we must help our citizens and they elected me as a mayor from democracy Ukraine civilian country. That is why we must help them.

COOPER: You were released, Ukrainian officials say for nine Russian captured soldiers. There was an exchange in prisoners.

FEDOROV: Yes. Yes.

COOPER: Did you know that was taking place?

Did they just let you go? FEDOROV: Yes. I was told these nine soldiers, its very young soldiers. But I think that agents don't take any information because the soldiers come to our country to kill our children, to kill our women, to kill our civilian peoples in Ukraine and that's why as these soldiers come to Ukraine to kill and it's the soldiers, it's not young peoples.

COOPER: A replacement mayor was appointed by Russian forces. They've taken down the Ukrainian flag. They've tried to disband the city council. What happens to you now?

FEDOROV: Yes, it was principal position for our team because Melitopol was Ukrainian flag because Melitopol is Ukrainian city. But when they hold me on second day is they put down the Ukrainian flag on Central Square for Melitopol and they show their power for all civilian people in Melitopol.

Now Melitopol is in dangerous situation because we have many humanitarian problems. There are less food in Melitopol, less food, less pharmacy and too many medical problems. Our team now don't walk in Melitopol because Russian Federation, Russian soldiers fully control this situation.

But as I spoke with President Zelenskyy, he promised in a few time, Melitopol again will be Ukrainian city, as all sieges in Ukraine once exit by Russian Federation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: The mayor went on to say that Ukraine doesn't want anything from Russia and that Russia shouldn't want anything from Ukraine.

After the break, the flow of Ukrainians across the country's border doesn't go just one way. Some feel compelled to return from abroad to do what they can for the war effort. My story on them is coming up after this.

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GORANI: Welcome back. I'm Hala Gorani live in Lviv, Ukraine.

Fighting is ramping up for control of the southern port city of Mykolaiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI (voice-over): You're looking at the aftermath of a Russian strike there on a Ukrainian base Friday. Soldiers are working to pull people from the rubble. But dozens, unfortunately, are feared dead. One of the surviving soldiers told Swedish journalists from our affiliate that it appears most people inside were killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Meanwhile, we're getting new images from Mariupol, one of the worst-hit cities in this conflict so far. Much of it lies in ruins after days of nonstop Russian shelling.

And France says the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, made yet another appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday to stop the siege on Mariupol to allow humanitarian access.

And the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has a new message for Moscow, saying it is, in fact, in Russia's best interest, according to him, to negotiate for peace. He spoke after Vladimir Putin appeared before a large crowd at a Moscow stadium to mark the anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Just imagine, 14,000 dead bodies at that stadium in Moscow and tens of thousands of wounded, maimed people. That is how great are the Russian losses already as a result of this invasion. That's the price of a war in a little of three weeks.

The war must be stopped. The Ukrainian proposal is on the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Well, Ukraine says more than 320,000 citizens have returned home from abroad to help in the war effort against Russia. That aid ranges from picking up guns to delivering supplies and really everything in between. I spoke with several people who tell me their decision to come back to a war zone was an easy one.

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GORANI (voice-over): We've all seen images of Ukrainians fleeing the war but there is a lesser told story: those Ukrainians who travel in the opposite direction.

LES YAKYMCHUK, RETURNING UKRAINIAN: We're trying to do this also to show people that it is possible not only to leave the country but also to come back to the country and to fight for this country, because it's worth it.

GORANI: Les and Olena were students at Ohio University, a Ukrainian couple, who decided to head into the war zone when Russia invaded their country.

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GORANI (voice-over): They took first aid classes in America, collected donations, flew from Columbus to Warsaw and drove to Kyiv, not even telling their parents so they wouldn't worry.

OLENA ZENCHENKO, RETURNING UKRAINIAN: When I was at the door, so I called them and said, don't freak out, please open the door.

GORANI: Oh, my gosh --

ZENCHENKO: They freaked out. This was a really combined feeling.

So my father was crying on me, like, you're an idiot.

Why are you doing it?

But at the same time, he was smiling.

GORANI (voice-over): They now drive the roads they've known since childhood, delivering supplies. Les is conscripted, so he could be drafted at any time.

YAKYMCHUK: It is my choice. It was my choice to stay here because this is my place where I grew up. I was raised, I was born, so it is something more than just like, you know, be safe and study and trying to protect everything I can. Everything that I am. I mean, I am these places. I mean, this coffee shop is downtown of Kyiv.

GORANI (voice-over): There are those who fled in the first days of the war, like Marc Wilkins and his wife, Olga. But after a few days, safely re-settled in Berlin, they say something didn't feel right, so they drove right back to Ukraine.

GORANI: What was that like, what was your frame of mind that day?

MARC WILKINS, FILMMAKER: It felt good. We felt determined, certain and happy to be back, finally to be able to make ourselves useful.

GORANI (voice-over): A British Swiss filmmaker who moved to Ukraine in 2016, he is now using his skills to create profiles of ordinary Ukrainians who have become resistance fighters overnight --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's my city, I need to defend the --

GORANI (voice-over): -- all to raise funds for the war effort.

WILKINS: I'm not a soldier. I don't know how to handle a gun. But I'm a filmmaker, I'm a communicator and this is what I'm doing now.

GORANI: Now the couple has decided to stay in Ukraine, not yet back to their home in Kyiv but in the relative safety of an apartment in Lviv, in the western part of the country.

And then there are those like Ilyash Bolyenski (ph), settled in Berlin with his wife and three kids. He knew from day one of the Russian invasion that he would head back to his home city of Mykolaiv.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

GORANI: Bolyenski (ph) starts his day at dawn, distributing basic supplies like medicine, gloves, boots, sleeping bags, walkie-talkies: what troops need to keep up the fight. His hometown is in the crosshairs of the Russian assault between Kherson and Odessa. Fierce bombardments and shelling have caused devastation throughout

the region but the Ukrainians are pushing back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

GORANI: Three stories, three journeys, all one destination, back home to a country at war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Well, Joe Biden may call Russia's president a thug but Vladimir Putin is trying to portray himself as a man of the people. After the break, my colleague, Paula Newton, will bring you that story.

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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm Paula Newton here in Atlanta.

Russia is warning its military may go after any arms shipments that enter Ukraine from abroad. The statement came from foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who spoke on state TV Friday.

The Tass news agency quoted him as saying, "We have made it clear that any cargo that will enter the territory of Ukraine, which we will consider as carrying weapons, will become a legitimate target."

Now a number of NATO countries, of course, have been sending arms to Ukraine, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as military drones.

Now while the current war in Ukraine is on everyone's minds, of course, Russian president Vladimir Putin is, in fact, celebrating the last time he came up against Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON (voice-over): Thousands packed a Moscow stadium -- you see them there -- to celebrate the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Mr. Putin at the event again said the current invasion is, in his words, all about the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): To free the people from suffering and this genocide is a main initiating reason and goal for Russia starting a special operation in Donbas and Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Nina dos Santos now takes a closer look for us.

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NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR: Just one day after issuing a menacing television message to Russians who he accused of having a Western mindset, people he called traitors who weren't with the rest of the Russian people, Vladimir Putin put on a very different performance.

This time he appeared in a packed football/soccer stadium inside Moscow, celebrating, alongside tens of thousands of other Russians, the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Putin used this as an opportunity to update Russians on how the so- called "special military operation," as Russia refers to its war in Ukraine, is going. And he hailed his troops who were there as heroes, ostensibly saving some Ukrainians from neo-Nazi factions and genocide.

[01:45:00]

DOS SANTOS: In a rare technical glitch, as the Kremlin later on explained it, Putin was coming to the climax of his speech, when he appeared to get cut off and it switched to something else, a Russian pop star.

Later on, the Kremlin explained that that was down to technical error and they released the full performance and speech in its entirety later on.

Either way, though, this was a highly choreographed event, designed to show Putin as a man of the people with many Russians supporting him.

It was a very different performance to the one that he put on, when he directed a menacing message against oligarchs and Russian emigres, of which about 200,000 have recently left the country since Russia invaded Ukraine -- Nina dos Santos, CNN, in London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: We want to bring you up to date on some other stories making news.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, visited the United Arab Emirates Friday. It is his first trip to an Arab nation since the start of a Syrian uprising more than a decade ago. He met with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

The U.S. says the UAE was attempting to, in its words, "legitimize" Mr. Assad and said he remains responsible for the death and suffering of countless Syrians.

COVID cases, meantime, in Western Europe are ticking up again. This week, the U.K. and Netherlands saw cases jump nearly 50 percent over the week before. On Sunday, Germany will begin lifting most COVID measures, in spite of new cases hitting a record seven-day high, more than 1,700 in that country.

Health experts are keeping an eye on Europe to see if COVID statistics offer a preview of what could be ahead here in the United States.

So space buffs got a good look at the next frontier of U.S. space flight when NASA's next generation moon rocket recently rolled out its launchpad. The megarocket stands taller than the Statue of Liberty and costs -- get this -- some $37 billion.

It is part of NASA's Artemis program, which will send astronauts back to the moon and then eventually to Mars.

So they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, if that's true, we have a long story to tell you with nothing but images of people, suffering through the impact of the war in Ukraine. You'll get that next.

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NEWTON: Now we want to take a step back and really take a look at the big picture in Ukraine. We've been doing that as much as we can with the military campaign. But at this point in time, it's important to look at the people affected by this war, those forced to flee their homes, those saying goodbye to loved ones who are staying behind.

And those, of course, as you saw from Hala's piece, stepping up to offer a helping hand. David Turnley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, who is capturing some very emotional images of the harsh realities in Ukraine. I must admit, at this hour, it is all ongoing. Here, though, are some of his unforgettable photographs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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NEWTON: And we thank Peter Turnley for that. It has only been a few weeks.

That does it for us this hour. I am Paula Newton. Our breaking news coverage continues live from Lviv with Hala Gorani. We will pick it up after the break.