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Ukraine Forces Repurposing Russian Weapons; Russia Intensifies Attacks on Ukraine. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 21, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:03]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Ana Cabrera and Don Lemon from Ukraine pick up our coverage right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. And Don Lemon is with us in Lviv, Ukraine.

We begin with the war rapidly approaching a dangerous stalemate, that warning from a senior NATO official as Russia faces setbacks on the ground and in the air. A senior U.S. defense official put it this way. Russia is -- quote -- "near desperate to gain any momentum," which is why their latest brutal attacks are even more dangerous for civilians.

We are seeing unthinkable acts of inhumanity playing out in Mariupol. But the people there are not giving up. That city this morning rejected Russia's demand to surrender, even as an official says bonds are now falling every 10 minutes, an art school now one of the latest targets.

We don't have the images of this school yet, but here's what we're told. Hundreds of women, children, elderly were all believed to be sheltering there, and it is unclear if anyone survived.

And in another port, Kherson, peaceful protesters were met with gunfire in the now Russian occupied city. We are told that at least one man was injured during the explosion and the gunfire. You can see him laying on the pavement here as people rushed to his aid.

And, Don, I know you have had sirens going off there where you are.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Yes, we will get to other news in the region in just a moment.

But we have air raid sirens going off here in Lviv. I just want you guys to listen to it just for a moment.

(SIRENS BLARING)

LEMON: So, according to the folks who've been on the ground, they have been going off more and more here in Lviv than they had been in the last two or three weeks or so. We have been getting it. We had at least three or four happen

overnight. We had a couple happen during the day. And as we are out, we are seeing people going into bomb shelters as these air raid sirens go off. And, again, you can hear them now in the distance. They have been going off more and more in Lviv, a city that is considered safe, as safe as you can be when your country is at war. But that is what's happening now at the moment.

So we will have our producers check to see exactly what's going on. And I will continue on with the news in the other part of the country.

So, Ana, Russian troops are still stalled miles outside of the capital. That's the capital city of Kyiv. But we know the city is the primary objective for Russia. Today, new deadly strikes hitting the capital, eight people reportedly killed when this shopping area was attacked. The mounting death toll really adding urgency to President Zelenskyy's latest pleas for peace.

Zelenskyy telling CNN he is ready to talk to Putin and he's ready to do it at any time, saying that he fears the war -- that World War III could happen if talks could fail.

As we continue to pay attention to what's happening here in Lviv with the air raid sirens, I want to bring in CNN's Ivan Watson now in Dnipro, Ukraine.

Ivan, what are you hearing from the people there?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a relatively safe city, in comparison to that port city of Mariupol, which has been under Russian siege now for weeks, bombarded, according to eyewitnesses from land, sea and air by the Russian military.

So, some of the people who have managed to escape driving their own cars through Russian front lines have gotten to this location for some blessed calm and quiet, after enduring what they have described as living through hell, of basically enduring days of bombardment, hiding in basements, without electricity, without heat or running water, forcing them to scavenge from rain gutters or sewers to try to get any kind of water, not to mention the shortages of food.

And having to bury civilians caught in the artillery strikes in the courtyard of their own apartment buildings, and marking the dead just with two sticks in the shape of a cross.

[13:05:07]

One of these men who recently escaped who fled on Thursday described the just tear-jerking decision that he had to make at his father's behest. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DMYTRO SHVETS, FLED MARIUPOL: The last day, I saw my father, because my mother was completely destroyed mentally, I mean, was like complete depression, was sitting in the cellar, and even she haven't left the cellar since the beginning of the war, just staying inside, unfortunately.

And the last day, I saw my father. And he begged me, like, "Please, guys, leave -- leave somewhere. I don't know where. Just escape this. Escape this."

And he was crying. The first day -- telling the truth, from all the heart, I have never seen my father crying. And he told, "Please," was crying, "Son, just leave."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Hours after I film that interview with that man, Dmytro, Don, Dmytro's wife got a phone call from her mother. It's very hard to get a call in and out of Mariupol right now, because most of the cell phone networks have been turned down.

And the mother was weeping and saying goodbye because she did not think she would survive the night's artillery bombardment -- Don.

LEMON: Ivan Watson, thank you very much -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK, Don, we will check back with you all in just a moment.

Let's talk about the military strategy here and the state of play. U.S. defense officials are telling us the U.S. has been unable to even identify a designated commander responsible for leading the war in Ukraine that is on the Russian side, which likely explains a lot about what we are seeing play out.

With us is CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton.

And, Colonel, I mean, here we are week four. Walk us through Russia strategy right now, as you see it, especially based on what we're seeing in Mariupol.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Ana, that's exactly a big factor, what you just mentioned, the whole idea that there is no single commander to handle this war effort.

In the United States, we call this the unity of command principle. And it becomes a really important piece when it comes to doing something like this. So, if you look at the big map here, you see everything around Kyiv. Right around here, you have Kharkiv, where we haven't really seen much progress from the Russian side either.

Ivan is -- Ivan Watson is in Dnipro. And, of course, you have the area of Kherson down in the south and then Mariupol, which we have been talking about. So all of these areas are possible centers of everything that's going on here. But the Russian advances have, in essence, stalled out in every single part of this area, with the exception of the area in the south.

And the idea of them going this way will become a key element here, because, when you look at this, you see how close this is to the port city of Odessa. And that very fact -- that is Ukraine's largest port. It is the third largest city in the country. And this is where a lot of the commerce, export traffic goes through. Ukraine is one of the world's largest exporters of wheat, and has metals and other natural resources that they export, and a lot of that goes through there.

So this is the key thing. This is what the Russians want to do. They want to go this way, and they want to go this way around Mykolaiv. They have had an opportunity to do some other things, which they haven't really realized. And they have not been able to do some of the things that they want to do because they're, in essence, stalled out.

Part of the reason for that stalling out is the fact that they do not have a unified commander for this effort.

CABRERA: And we're told they're also having issues with some of their weaponry.

A senior U.S. defense official says Russia is starting to have inventory issues with precision-guided munitions. They're failing to launch or to hit targets. And this is after we learned Russia launched hypersonic missiles against Ukraine last week, the first known use of such missiles in combat.

Colonel, first, could Russia be deploying these hypersonic missiles to offset the poor performance by the precision-guided ones?

LEIGHTON: Yes, absolutely, Ana.

In fact, let's take a quick look at what hypersonic missiles actually are. They travel faster than five times the speed of sound, so faster than Mach 5. They're capable of maneuvering in flight. And that's very important, because you can launch one of these missiles, and then you can change the trajectory if you need to.

The other thing that they do is they actually skirt the surface of the earth. So it's called nap-of-the-earth navigation. And when they do that, they're very hard to detect, because missile systems can't detect -- the missile defense systems can't detect them as easily, and they certainly cannot intercept them.

That is one of the key things. We have also developed some of these missiles, but we're not as far along as the Russians are or as the Chinese are in the hypersonic field. And, in fact, this is kind of what this looks like. This is a MiG-31 sending off a one of their missiles, probably the same type that was used in the attack in Western Ukraine on that arm storage depot.

[13:10:04]

CABRERA: We have been focusing around Kyiv and how the convoy that once was there hasn't really made much progress. And officials keep talking about forces on the ground being stalled, and though we continue to see bombs and shelling happening in and around Kyiv.

Now we have learned a dam north of Kyiv is flooding the northwest outskirts of the city. And this too could be impacting the Russian advance there. It's unclear, though, if Ukrainians opened it on purpose or if this was a result of a military strike that hit that dam.

Do you think it's strategic?

LEIGHTON: I think it might be because we -- a few weeks ago, there was a talk, Ana, of them doing something like this, of actually going in and flooding this area.

So the area we're talking about that's flooded is right in this part of the area, so northwest of Kyiv, as you mentioned, pretty close to Antonov Airport, which is where the Russians had deployed their paratroopers at the very beginning of this invasion.

So flooding this area, if you have ever been in a muddy field, you know how difficult it is to traverse that field? Well, this is what's happening. And it is happening on a large scale. And if one place in the world gets muddy, it can be Ukraine. That is one of the muddiest areas on earth when things get into certain seasons, like the spring season.

And this actually compounds the problem that the Russians have in terms of maneuverability. They're very close in several other areas. But this is what they're trying to do. They're trying to encircle the city. But they haven't done anything like this yet. And so if they can't do this, they can't encircle Kyiv.

CABRERA: So helpful to have you at the wall there giving us a perspective on the map.

Thank you so much, Colonel Cedric Leighton. We appreciate you.

Let's talk more about negotiations now, if President Zelenskyy ever gets Putin to the table.

Bruce Allyn is mediator and director at the Russian Negotiation Initiative. And in the '80s, Bruce worked with then president-Mikhail Gorbachev to reduce nuclear talks. And he also -- or nuclear risks, I should say. He also played a key role in bringing together top decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So you have all kinds of experience. And I'm really curious to hear how you see the negotiations that are happening. First, though, we know Zelenskyy is hoping to negotiate one-on-one with Putin. Do you think Putin will ever talk?

BRUCE ALLYN, RUSSIAN NEGOTIATION INITIATIVE: I actually do.

And this is -- just watching your reporting, it's heartrending, it's horrific. this is a stage that I have seen many times in war, where it looks almost impossible. And that's actually a moment of opportunity, because as President Zelenskyy said yesterday, the Ukrainian people have shown their dignity. They have fought back. They fought valiantly.

And I think he said, but our dignity is not going to preserve the lives. So it's now at a stage where the cost of continuing the resistance has gotten to a point where I think President Zelenskyy is ready. He's asked to talk to Putin. Putin right now has many problems at home.

And forces are having significant challenges, as you have just reported. And yet he has achieved, I think sufficiently, a degree of his demands to actually make a deal at this point.

CABRERA: Bruce, there have already been several talks between Ukrainian and Russian diplomats, though not between the two presidents. But do you view those as honest efforts by the Russians? Or are they just trying to buy time to rebuild their forces?

ALLYN: Well, I think that the -- initially, I don't think there was a serious intent. I think, initially, they wanted to grind down to a certain point where -- we call it coercive diplomacy, where you, in a sense -- we're going to force concessions.

I think they have reached a point now where they have forced significant concessions. And if we step back, these demands that have been made most forcefully in December by Vladimir Putin, they have been on the table for decades. And I know most people are now aware of this. But these have been burning issues identified for 20 years.

I have watched them become more inflamed. And it's a sad fact that there wasn't an opportunity taken to find a compromise earlier, because there's no justification for the brutal assault from President Putin.

At the same time, there is no justification for not having reached some compromise earlier, because what now President Zelenskyy is ready to do -- and he said he's ready to have a pledge to maybe change the Constitution so that there's no -- currently, it says that we're going to join NATO, even though he knows that NATO told him, frankly -- and he's admitted this -- that you're not going to be able to join, but we can't say publicly. We have to say that we have to keep (AUDIO GAP) our policy.

These were compromises that could have been made in advance. So now they're going to be made by force. President Zelenskyy is ready for that.

CABRERA: So...

ALLYN: Yes.

CABRERA: Please. I didn't mean to step on you. Go ahead.

ALLYN: Well, his own party has admitted that they're ready to have security guarantees outside the NATO framework.

So this is very positive. That was a core demand. Demilitarization, there's further signs on the Ukrainian side that they're willing to work on that thing. Now, the issues of territory, of Donbass and also of Crimea, there's also potential here, because Putin has backed off some of his initial demands. He was not going to stop until he had regime change in Kyiv. [13:15:21]

Now, at this point, given the fierce resistance, it would be foolish for him to try to take it that far. And he said -- and, of course, we can't just take words as a fact. But he said that he's no longer pursuing that. He said that to high-level figures. So they're not going to try to take over the Ukrainian government, but he will insist that they have potentially the -- either the full autonomy or partial autonomy of the Donbass region and recognition of Crimea.

CABRERA: OK.

So, as you laid it out, those are the things that are on the line here and at stake. But if you were to be sitting down at the table or even advising the strategists a Zelenskyy-Putin talk, you talk about zooming in on the person and zooming out to his larger goal.

If you're just to zoom in on the person,and Putin specifically, what do you see?

ALLYN: OK, when I zoom in right now, I see the Vladimir Putin that I have watched for decades.

And you have to go back and understand the psychology of this human being, because Vladimir Putin's brother died in the Nazi siege of Leningrad. His mother, his starving mother was thrown on a pile of corpses, and only revived when someone heard her moaning.

So this man is obsessed with protection of the border and fear of invasion. This has been understood for some time. And yet not only Putin, but his predecessor, Yeltsin, said it's a red line to bring Ukraine into NATO.

And we ignored that for 20 years. So, now, coupled with the fact that he has in recent couple -- last couple years, some say because he's isolated with this -- with COVID, has gone deeply into his history and the idea that there's a larger Russia that needs to be included.

Now, this is not -- when President Zelenskyy said yesterday that Putin wants to exterminate us, he wants to kill us, evoking these -- he evoked images of Pearl Harbor, of the World Trade Center being shot down, these are images that are extreme, because Putin does not -- the Nazi extermination comparison is not accurate. He does not want to go beyond -- Ukraine is a special case.

So the fears about going beyond Ukrainian and Belarusia are exaggerated and not helpful. But this man will not back down. He has taken a stand. There's extraordinary repression inside Russia, as we know. So, at this point, that's his mind-set. And he has to get sufficient face-saving concessions from Ukraine to go back home and stay in power.

CABRERA: Bruce Allyn, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate your expertise and insights here.

Much more special coverage just ahead. Plus, happening today as well and, in fact, ongoing right now, the historic confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. These are live images, as she is there before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans already signaling their line of attack.

We will have details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:22:39]

LEMON: I'm Don Lemon in Lviv, Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces aren't just using their own equipment or military aid to fight Russian troops. They're using Russian weapons against their original owners.

Tanks, rockets, military vehicles captured from the enemy or abandoned by them are now being used to defend Ukraine from this invasion.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen has more now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Another setback for Vladimir Putin's army. Ukrainian forces say they destroyed this column of Russian vehicles. But, believe it or not, some might be used by the Ukrainian army soon.

This unit of Ukraine's territorial defense fixes up captured Russian military hardware, mechanics working day in and day out, often using scrap parts to get armored vehicles back on the battlefield.

(on camera): Look at all the stuff that they have here. They have old metal, cables. The guys here tell us that they use everything that they can to make these vehicles fit again and beat Vladimir Putin with his own weapons.

(voice-over): When we visited, the group was fixing up several armored personnel carriers and a fuel truck. They also showed us this video of rockets they claim they captured, and which they also say had already been fired back at the Russians.

While some of the vehicles are captured during battle and the Russian crews killed or captured, often, Russian soldiers simply abandon their gear and run away, Yuri Dologov, the deputy commander of this unit tells me.

"The Russian soldiers are frightened and demoralized," he says. They are afraid to be separated from each other because they are being shot at from every bush. We call it safari."

Civilian hunters are now hunting for those Russians who fled through the forests. The territorial defense unit also trains new fighters to help defend Ukraine's capital. And they show us some of the arms they have received from the U.S. and allied nations, like this German-made Panzerfaust 3 anti-tank weapon. "Is it effective?" I ask the deputy commander.

"Very effective to shoot tanks," he says.

Ukraine's forces continue to hold off Russian advances in Kyiv and elsewhere. But their own losses are significant as well, both military personnel and civilians getting killed by Russian fire, Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an exclusive interview.

[13:25:14]

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We're losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground. Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us. And we have demonstrated the dignity of our people and our army, that we are able to deal a powerful blow. We're able to strike back.

PLEITGEN: They strike back with any weapons they can get their hands on, whether those come from allies abroad or from their enemy.

These fighters say anything that drives and shoots will be put to use against Vladimir Putin's invading force.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Fred, thank you very much.

And another deeply sad loss of life in Ukraine; 96-year-old Boris Romantschenko, who survived four different concentration camps during the Holocaust, was killed in a Russian strike on Friday. The Buchenwald Memorial Institute reports that Romantschenko was living in an apartment block in Kharkiv when it was hit during a Russian attack.

The picture you see there was from a memorial trip he took as one of the last surviving members of Buchenwald camp.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:00]