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Russian Military Hit Nursing Home, Art School, And Ukrainian Barracks; Hypersonic Missiles Used By Russian Military; President Zelenskyy Warns Of Third World War; Putin Pushes War Propaganda In Russia; Gun Deaths In The U.S. This Week. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 20, 2022 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning a World War III if peace talks fail. He tells CNN Ukraine is open to negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin but Putin has so far shown zero signs of backing down.

CNN has learned that Russian tanks opened fire on a nursing home in eastern Ukraine. Officials say 56 elderly residents died in that attack. Overnight, Russia bombed and art school in Mariupol where about 400 people were sheltering. People are still trapped in the rubble there.

Russia also claiming to launch for hypersonic missile strikes on Ukraine last night and earlier today as the crisis grows more urgent. President Biden travels to Europe in the coming days to meet with world leaders. Of the 10 million people who have been forced to flee their homes, nearly 5 million of them are children.

And this is what life looks like right now for some of them, 71 children are safe after being evacuated from an orphanage in Sumy. Their caregivers spent two weeks hiding them in bomb shelters. Look how little they are. And this photo shows an injured mother who used her body to shield her 1-month-old daughter as their home was shelled in Kyiv. The love of this mother and families across Ukraine stronger than Putin's best efforts to destroy it.

We begin in southern Ukraine in the coastal city of Mykolaiv and CNN's Nick Paton Walsh. Nick, what's the latest on that strike of a Ukrainian barracks there? Just utter devastation on your end as well.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes. Look, this is part of a pattern that we're seeing certainly, Jim. When it seems like Putin's forces are losing on the ground, which is certainly the case around Mykolaiv where we've seen ourselves either being pushed back from this port city towards the first port city they took, the first city they took in Ukraine actually, Kherson, they exact vengeance, frankly, through intense fire power.

Now, we saw that on Friday morning when a dawn strike hit military barracks here tearing one building in two, causing another one, frankly, to be demolished and possibly as many as 30 deaths and 40 injuries according to officials we've spoken to here. That's the largest publically known toll we think against the Ukrainian military at this stage.

But also, too, just in the last hours on the horizon here, we've seen again distant signs of explosions and also, too, Russia claiming they used one of their hypersonic missiles against an arms depot to the north where I'm standing near one of the towns called Voznenesensk where in fact, actually does appear Russia had quite a significant military defeat inflicted on again a couple of weeks ago.

These hypersonics missiles, well, it's unclear, frankly, what their technological advantage is. It does make for a press release for Russian military that have shown themselves to not be that technologically advantaged, frankly, in the past three to four weeks of this war. They're struggling to get petrol and food to their troops on many occasions.

But we are now seeing them relying slightly more on this kind of heavy distant fire power, what U.S. officials have called long fires. That's distant fired projectiles. An important of element though, Jim, in the last hours or so, there's a siege happening to further east of where I'm standing, on the Sea of Azov. That's Mariupol that's been grossly besieged now for weeks.

There's been an air strike on a theater there, another attempt to bomb a school. Both where individuals have been sheltering possibly in their hundreds. Now, the Russian defense ministry has said that it calls what it refers to as militants in that city to surrender, to give themselves up.

That is obviously the Ukrainian military defending Ukrainian civilians inside of that besieged city. And I think there is now fears for possibly a new phase in Russia's, frankly, grotesque besieging and shelling of that city, if that call to surrender is not honored.

A deeply troubling series of events inside Mariupol today including a suggestion that in fact people who give themselves over, give themselves up or surrender or try and leave, are in fact being moved in the direction of Russia. Deeply troubling scene for 21st century Europe, Jim.

ACOSTA: No question about it. Does not sound like the 21st century what we're seeing on the ground there. Nick, thank you so much for that report. We appreciate it.

As Nick mentioned, the Russian military claiming that last night and this morning's air strikes on the southern port city of Mykolaiv including more of those so-called hypersonic missiles. I want to go right to CNN's Barbara Starr who's at the Pentagon for us. Barbara, I know you've reported often on these hypersonic missiles as Nick was mentioning, they sound good in a press release, but what can you tell us about them? What are you learning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is now the Russian reliance as Nick was just saying on long-range fires, firing from hundreds and hundreds of miles away with advanced air weapons, hypersonic missiles. So they travel extraordinarily fast, five times the speed of sound or more through the air making it very difficult to track them, making it impossible, really, to shoot them down.

[17:05:01]

The Russians now according to U.S. officials we've spoken to, have used them. They are confirming those Russian accounts. Not able to confirm here at the Pentagon exactly what targets the Russians were going after. Not really knowing exactly what did happen on the ground there, but that they did use them. Now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today declined to speak publicly about confirming the use of the hypersonic missiles but he had some deep perspective about what it all means.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I wouldn't see it as a game- changer. I think, again, the reason that he's resorting to using these types of weapons is because he's trying to re-establish some momentum. You kind of question why he would do this. Is he running low on precision guided munitions? Does he have like complete confidence in his ability to -- the ability of his troops to re-establish momentum? But I don't see this in and of itself, a game changer. I cannot confirm or dispute whether or not he's used those weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Look, what we do know is that Vladimir Putin is sending the Pentagon a message by using these weapons because the U.S. military has tried now for several years to develop similar missiles and has not been successful. None of the tests have worked out for any U.S. effort to develop hypersonics. Putin knows that. And so there seems to be little doubt that he's sending a bit of a message that he can reach out and touch and destroy as he chooses. Jim?

ACOSTA: And Barbara, yesterday we spoke with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Without even us asking the question, he called on President Biden to visit Kyiv. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Barbara, what's the administration saying about this? I can't imagine that kind of a visit would go over all that well over at the Pentagon? STARR: Well, look, the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and

others are making it very clear when the president goes to Europe in the coming days, no indication, no plan. Look, he is not going to go to Ukraine. That is every message that the Pentagon is delivering.

Let's remember, of course, people might recall previous presidents have gone to war zones. Afghanistan and Iraq. Very dangerous for them. But a big difference in those cases. The adversarial force did not control the airspace in any way. Did not fly aircraft missiles in Afghanistan. You had the Taliban in Iraq. You had an insurgency almost entirely limited to the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. Military controlled the skies. Could shut things down while a president came in and out. Dangerous as it was, they were able to minimize and at least try and control the risk as best they could. What you see on the ground in Ukraine, so tragically, is an inability to control anything to predict anything. A president is not going to go into Ukraine.

ACOSTA: All right. Barbara Starr, thank you very much for that perspective and your reporting as always. We appreciate it.

And now to a CNN interview with President Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader opening up about whether he would be open in negotiating with Vladimir Putin and how the raging war is affecting his young children. Here's more of that interview with my colleague Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: -- has call called Vladimir Putin a war criminal and yet you have called for negotiations with him. Will it be hard, will it be a painful for you to have to sit down with Putin where you to agree and negotiate with him?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translation): I am ready for negotiations with him. I was ready over the last two years. And I think that -- I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war. I think that all the people who are -- who think that this dialogue is shallow and that it is not going to resolve anything, they just don't understand that this is very valuable.

If there is just 1 percent chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance. We need to do that.

[17:10:00]

I can tell you about the result of this negotiations. In any case, we are -- we are losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground. Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us, and we can demonstrate that the dignity of our people and our army, that we are able to deal a powerful blow. We are able to strike back.

But unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives. So, I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, a possibility of talking to Putin, but if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third world war, but if we were a NATO member, a war wouldn't have started. So now I'd like to receive security guarantees for my country, for my people. If NATO members are ready to see us in the alliance then do it immediately because people are dying on the daily basis.

But if you are not ready to preserve the lives of our people, if you just want to see us straddle two worlds. If you want to see us in this dubious position where we do not understand whether you can accept us or not, you cannot place us in this situation. You cannot force us to be in this limbo.

ZAKARIA: You have a young family and I have to -- I keep wondering, how do you explain to your children what is going on?

ZELENSKYY (through translation): My children know for sure what is happening. And I do not know whether it's good or bad. I have not explained anything to my children. They have said to me that war is raging in Ukraine and at our home we have the same freedom of speech as we have in our country and they know what we are fighting for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Ukrainian forces have had stunning successes defending their homeland, but Russia is using increasingly brutal tactics. Who's winning the war? Our military analyst retired Major General James "Spider" Marks, eh weighs in next.

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ACOSTA: A Ukraine official claims another Russian general was killed, this one on Tuesday, near the decimated city of Mariupol. CNN has not independently verified the claim, but according to Ukraine's count, he would be the fifth Russian general killed during the invasion. Earlier today, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy painted a gruesome picture of the scale of Russia's losses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translation): The enemy is sustaining unprecedented losses. Some of the occupier units have been 80 percent to 90 percent destroyed. And the areas where heavy fighting took place, the front line of our defense is littered with corpses of Russian soldiers. And the corpses, these dead bodies, are not being picked up by anyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I'm joined now by retired Major General James "Spider" Marks, CNN military analyst and Head of Geopolitical Strategy at Academy Securities. General Marks, thanks for being with us. You know, let's talk about this. If five Russian generals have been killed, put that into perspective for us. That is a significant loss of leadership for an invasion force of this size in a very short period of time.

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Jim, in the 10 years of combat in Vietnam, I think the United States lost probably eight general officers. In Afghanistan, the United States army, DOD lost one general officer. A loss of five general officers over the course of 21-plus days is a significant blow to the leadership, you know, kind of the apparatus and the initiatives within the Russian military.

And what it tells you is the Russian military is stalled, as we've been seeing over the course and it has been reported by your anchors and contributors in-country, have just done a phenomenal job portraying the Russian army that's been exposed as incompetent and not being able to move and to achieve momentum.

And so when that occurs, leaders, if you have leaders, they get up and they move to the front. They try to figure out what they can do to try to uncork this corked problem that they have and put themselves at great risk, and they're exposed personally. And that's what we're seeing. The Ukrainians are not letting up on a military, a Russian military that's stalled and has been, as I said, has been exposed as incompetent.

ACOSTA: And does it seem like the Russian death toll even matters to Putin? Even the conservative estimates put Russian troop deaths in the thousands. You were a general in combat. At what point does military leadership see, you know, a meat grinder like this and want to change tactics? But, you know, maybe that explains why we have seen the Russians step up these air strikes and so on?

MARKS: Right. Jim, your question's a great one. Ethical, moral, focused leadership would step in and make decisions about how to stop the slaughter, take a step back. Let's figure out what we're trying to achieve and where resources need to be applied. The Russians could care less.

Russian leadership doesn't care because they don't have a non- commissioned officer corps that is really the backbone and the spirit of those units that maintains discipline and order in these immensely chaotic times.

[17:20:03]

And so they are losing soldiers on the ground and they're leaving them behind, yet the ethos that we grew up with is you never leave a comrade behind. You know, when one soldier gets hit, you have four soldiers that are now out of the fight because it takes three of them to take that one soldier out.

We're not seeing anything that looks like this on the Russian side. And so this is a chaotic situation begging for leadership and the leadership can't step up because it doesn't exist at those multiple levels that you would expect. That you would demand in a combat situation.

ACOSTA: And we're looking at some video right now in Kherson. Local residents there standing up to Russian forces, just a remarkable video. Even as the Russians are bombarding these cities, the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians, I mean, you just can't -- you can't get around what we've been witnessing over the last few weeks.

MARKS: Jim --

ACOSTA: A people that just will not give up. They just won't give up.

MARKS: You know, the juxtaposition of these images. Here you see these citizens and thank you for letting me have a chance to see these at the same time as you are, but the juxtaposition of this with the image that we see of long-range artillery and rocket and now hypersonic fires indiscriminately going after stationary targets, hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, grocery stores, what used to be malls, simply to achieve some incredible terror and devastation.

Yet you see these Ukrainians being able to stand up to a Russian military that now, as we just saw, that vehicle doesn't about-face and gets out of there.

ACOSTA: Right. I mean, it says to me, General Marks, that you know, you have a situation where the military on the ground, those Russian forces on the ground, they're running into an inspired resistance. And so, of course, it makes sense that the Russians would resort to these hellacious bombing attacks. General Marks, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

MARKS: Absolutely, Jim. Thank you.

ACOSTA: Coming up, how does President Zelenskyy who is Jewish, react to Putin's outrageous lie that he's trying to de-Nazify Ukraine? Hear his response, next.

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[17:25:00]

ACOSTA: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he believes Russia's Vladimir Putin is in "total panic" fearing a pro-democracy uprising in Moscow as this war in Ukraine goes awry. Putin's propaganda machine has been working overtime to create an alternate reality for the Russian people about the carnage happening inside Ukraine.

Putin's appearance at a staged patriotic concert where the crowd was pressured by authorities to come is drawing comparisons to the Nuremberg rallies of Nazi Germany. He also issued this chilling warning about so-called traitors this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translation): But any people, the Russian people especially, are able to distinguish true patriots from bastards and traitors and will spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths. I am certain that this necessary and natural self-cleaning of our society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, togetherness and our readiness to answer any calls to action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: But the truth is breaking through. More than 14,000 people have been detained in 151 cities for staging anti-war protests in Russia. That's according to the independent human rights protest monitoring group. And joining me now is professor of history at Yale, Timothy Snyder. He's author of the book "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America."

Professor Snyder, thanks so much for joining us. We always appreciate your expertise. As someone who has written extensively about tyranny, what did you think when you saw Putin standing before that flag-waving crowd as civilians in Ukraine were being bombed?

TIMOTHY SNYDER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: Well, obviously, it's a kind of attempt at a fascist style rally. I couldn't help but notice, though, that there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, at least on the part of a lot of people who were there. I also couldn't help but notice that Mr. Putin seemed a little bit lost in his message.

He wasn't able to come before the people and say, we've secured this quick victory and Ukraine has fallen and the Russian world has extended where it needs to extend, which is what he wanted to be saying. That's what he thought was going to be happening.

And he also wasn't able to tell people what it all meant, what the war meant or when it might come to an end. Instead he gave the strange message about how it was good if Russian soldiers were dying because that meant that there was greater unity than ever before. That's basically all he had to offer. And it's hard for me to imagine that that was terribly convincing.

ACOSTA: Yes. At one point he was talking about how the Russians are trying to stop genocide in Ukraine. I mean, just totally Orwellian. And my colleague, Fareed Zakaria, spoke to President Zelenskyy today and asked him about Putin's lie that he was trying to de-Nazify a country with a Jewish president and here is his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translation): Well, there are rare occasions when I smile and when I laugh. And for me, to hear it, it's as if something similar to a joke. I cannot take this statement seriously.

[17:30:00]

If he thinks that this is his mission to conquer our territories, and if he sees signs of neo-Nazis in our country, many questions and words about what else he is capable of doing for the sake of his missions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Professor, I mean what has been your reaction to Putin using this ridiculous argument about how they're fighting the Nazis in Ukraine? I mean, I can understand why Zelenskyy would want to laugh at this. It is laughable. The whole -- nobody around the world believes Putin when he says that, and obviously when Russian soldiers go to Ukraine, they're not going to find Nazis there. So, Russian soldiers are eventually going to find out that they were lied to. SNYDER: Yes. I mean, I guess like with so many things, denazification

begins at home. With Mr. Putin we're talking about a leader who has done away with the entire opposition and created a one-party state and now started a war on the basis of his belief that some cleansing act of violence will restore racial unity.

I mean, that's where you have to start with the denazification in the story. Nevertheless, when we hear Mr. Putin using that word, you know, we should realize he has a purpose using that word. And the purpose aside from confusing us, which I think has largely failed, is to define a mission that goes deep into Ukrainian society.

Because since, as you say, there aren't Nazi in the Ukrainian government, Mr. Putin basically means anybody who is Ukrainian, anybody who is resisting, he has the right to call a Nazi. So as long as Ukrainians are resisting, he can say I'm doing my denazification campaign. So, it's a kind of open license for him to continue this war until everybody submits. It's horrid and grotesque but I think that's the part of it that we have to take seriously.

ACOSTA: He's trying to dehumanize the Ukrainians. And Russian state television, obviously, this is something that has to be taken note of. They've been showing clips of Fox's Tucker Carlson who before the war questioned why the U.S. was siding with Ukraine's democracy. Tucker has also called Zelenskyy a dictator who is friends with everybody in Washington. We could go on and on, but we can't, obviously. There's not enough time. How much of a gift has Tucker Carlson been to the Kremlin, would you say?

SNYDER: Well, they're grasping for straws in their propaganda and I guess he's proven to be one straw they can reliably grasp. As I'm sure you know, Russian television is entirely centralized. There are a few apparent options, but they're just different flavors of the same story.

So the Russian people are being bombarded 24/7 with this version that we've just talked about. This absurd grotesque story about how the Ukrainian state has to be destroyed. And one of the few things they've been able to use from aboard has been precisely Tucker Carlson.

But you know, it's not so -- that's bad, but I think what's worse is not recognizing fellow Democrats when you see them. I mean, you know, Zelenskyy is a remarkable story. He's an example of how democracy is unpredictable and in that way wonderful. You know, that this guy came out of nowhere and won 73 percent of the vote and then he chose to stay and defend his country, which not everybody thought he would do.

I mean, that's a kind of triumph for democracy that can reduce such people that can bring them the center of international affairs. And you can -- and then that amazing contrast between him and someone like Putin who has no democratic backing, who is afraid of his own people, who hides behind long tables, who will never go to the front. You know, that's the kind of difference we should be appreciating here.

ACOSTA: Right. Zelenskyy is certainly not hiding at the end of any long tables these days. That's for sure. And professor, President Biden spoke with China's Xi Jinping on Friday warning him of consequences if China helps Russia in this war. Xi Jinping has literally referred to Putin as his best friend, his dearest friend.

How critical is the China component in all of this, and what does it say about, you know, the overall picture from 30 thousand feet, the Russians and the Chinese in league with one another at a time like this?

SNYDER: So, one thing has to be said is that China could stop this war in a second. So, I mean, this was a test of Chinese leadership with the Chinese at least thus far have not passed. They could stop this war if they wanted to stop this war. Instead their first moves has been to basically blame the west, which is comfortable for them.

But what I think they've overseen this, that this is a situation where they have much more influence than we do. If they had told Russia not to fight this war, Russia would have not fought this war. If they told Russia to stop, Russia would stop. So, there's been failure of Chinese responsibility.

[17:34:55]

I think the Chinese are divided about this. On the one side, the more Russia bleeds itself dry fighting an absolutely pointless and criminal war against Ukraine, the more Russia turns against the west, the easier it is for China to dominate Russia, which of course, is Putin's geopolitical legacy. That domination.

On the other hand, the mess that Russia is making in Ukraine makes it harder for the Chinese to be taken seriously when they talk about things they care about like sovereignty and territorial integrity and it make its much harder to see how they're going to get the things they want with respect to Taiwan. So, I think they're conflicted at this point.

ACOSTA: All right. Professor Timothy Snyder, you've given us a lot to chew on on this Sunday evening. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. Love to have you back as soon as we can. And make sure you check out his book "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe and America."

Coming up, a violent weekend in America. Gun violence leaving multiple Americans dead or wounded. Families shattered. We'll talk about that next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:40:00]

ACOSTA: One person is dead and another 28 people were shot outside a car show in Arkansas Saturday evening. At least five of those people were children under the age of 11. The youngest just 19 months old. I want to bring in CNN's Isabel Rosales. Isabelle, have police arrested anyone related to this shooting? It's just awful.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely horrible, Jim. And we did just hear from Arkansas state police this evening, and in their update they revealed that one person has indeed has been arrested. Somebody that fit the description, but they stress here that this person has been arrested on unrelated charges. They are still searching out there for two people that are behind that shooting.

Altogether, a 23-year-old man was killed. Police say that he was not involved in that gunfight; 28 others were wounded. The head of Arkansas state police summed up what happened here at that car show and also the shock waves it sent throughout their small community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BRYANT, ARKANSAS STATE POLICE: The bottom line on this is just two individuals start -- got in a gun fight. It was no mass shooting intended on this. It was two individuals who got in a gun fight and exchanged gunfire and unfortunately, we had multi-victims of the shooting incident.

It's shocking. We have a small community. A farming community in Dumas. You know, 5,000 people. And then we have an incident of multi- victims. It's just, you know, you don't expect that from small town Arkansas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And Jim, the children hurt in this gunfire, as many as six of them, five of them under the age of 11. The youngest being just 19 months old. If there's any good part about this dark story is that all except one of them has been released from the hospital. And we're told that they're non-life threatening injuries. Jim?

ACOSTA: And Isabel, that shooting in Arkansas was just one of many across the country this weekend, from Miami Beach to Norfolk to Texas. Tell us about that.

ROSALES: Right. Involving at least eight cities across mostly the southeast there. Over in Dallas, we know that one person was killed there. Multiple others were wounded. But Dallas police, frankly, releasing very limited details here citing an active investigation.

And meanwhile, about 200 miles down to the south in Austin, another shooting there. During the final weekend of south by southwest, nobody there was killed.

And over to Norfolk, Virginia, a Virginian pilot newspaper reporter and sadly, Jim, a former CNN news assistant was killed there. Her name was Sierra Jenkins. She was just 25 years old. That shooting left one other person dead, three others were hurt. Norfolk police say that she was leaving a restaurant where an argument happened outside and gunfire spread out. Jim?

ACOSTA: Our condolences to her family and all the families of the victims from this weekend. Isabel Rosales, thank you very much.

Up next, Putin's dangerous war on the truth has deadly consequences. Hold on for that, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:45:00]

ACOSTA: Perhaps it was the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, who said it best this week about Putin's ridiculous claims that Russian forces are only hitting military targets in Ukraine.

[17:50:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VITALI KLITSCHKO, MAYOR OF KYIV, UKRAINE: They destroyed -- they killed children, women, civilians, for what reason?

CHRIS REASON, REPORTER, SEVEN NEWS: Putin says he's only targeting military targets.

KLITSCHKO: Bullshit! Sorry. Where is military target? This building is military target?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: The mayor can see through Putin's lies and so can we.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

This video shows a grieving man on his knees crying over the body of his dead mother outside of a bombed out Kyiv apartment building. His agony is Ukraine's agony. We've heard so much about the siege in Mariupol where a theater used as a bomb shelter was leveled by Russian strikes.

The Russians were warned in advance that children were taking shelter inside. The word children was spelled out just outside of the theater to notify the Russians. The Russians slaughtered them anyway.

Other reports from Mariupol are equally horrifying. This weekend, a local city council says Russian strikes destroyed a school where hundreds of people were taking shelter. The city council also says thousands of its residents have been forcibly taken to remote cities in Russia. The mayor compared the Russians' actions to those of the Nazis in World War II.

The Russians are beginning to target parts of western Ukraine like the city of Lviv where people lined up empty strollers a few days ago to symbolize the children killed in Putin's war. The Ukrainians are doing everything they can to shield their innocent children from the Russians. They're hiding their babies underground from Putin's killing machine.

This all explains why more than 3 million refugees have fled to parts of Europe, an astonishing number. One refugee left this message on a sign, "Thank you so much for the care. All people were nice to us and we never felt hungry, cold or lonely. Thank you." Since the war began, we have tried to find rays of light in the darkness. A brave Russian journalist ran on to the set of a state TV program to protest the war. She told CNN why she did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARINA OVSYANNIKOVA, RUSSIAN JOURNALIST (through translation): I'm watching my elderly mom who watches and listens to this propaganda from morning until night and she is so brainwashed that I can't talk to her for five minutes because these phrases she keeps repeating -- the phrases she hears on T.V.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: "I'm watching my elderly mom who watches and listens to this propaganda from morning to night and she is so brainwashed." That journalist said of her mother. Yes, a critical part of Putin's attacks on the Ukrainian people is his assault on the truth. His deranged alternate reality was on full display late last week as he staged this massive pro-war rally.

The Russian leader bragged that everything is going according to plan, even though western intelligence officials say thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine. And he lied about his rationale for the war with an absurd claim that he is trying to stop genocide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PUTIN (through translation): To free the people from suffering and this genocide is our main initiating reason and goal for Russia starting a special operation in Donbas and Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Some Russians told CNN they were forced to attend that rally, just one of many chilling signs Russians are being warned to swallow Putin's lies. Putin is threatening prison time for people who speak out against the war and is talking about a self-cleansing of Russian society.

PUTIN (through translation): But any people, the Russian people especially, are able to distinguish true patriots from bastards and traitors and will spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths. I am certain that this necessary and natural self- cleaning of our society will only strengthen our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Lies have always been a part of Putin's playbook in Ukraine. Back in 2014 when Russia first invaded Ukraine and Crimea, Putin initially denied Russian soldiers were behind the attack until he later said, of course, they were from his country.

In his latest assault on Ukraine, Putin told the lie that his troops were heading off to fight the Nazis. Then the Russians began to make the bogus claim that there were U.S.-backed bio weapons labs in Ukraine. There is no evidence of that. Yet some on the far right, here in the United States, have amplified these lies so effectively echoing Putin's propaganda that they are shown regularly on Russian state television.

[17:54:57]

The question has to be asked how could anybody in this country or anywhere around the world defend or even try to explain what Putin is doing. What Putin is doing is evil. The devastation and the carnage and the stampede of human beings out of Ukraine, it's all caused by one man. For the better part of the last two decades, Putin has gotten away with murder again and again.

He has poisoned more than just his opposition in Russia. Putin has poisoned our world with violence and lies. And for the truth to have a fighting chance in Ukraine and, yes, even in Russia, the truth needs allies. Allies, not more lies. That's the news. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Pamela brown and Don Lemon take over the "CNN Newsroom" live after a quick break. Good night.

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[17:59:59]