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Hundreds Of Thousands In Mariupol Struggling To Survive; Polish Couple Open Their Home To Ukrainian Refugees; U.N.: Nearly 3.5 Million People Have Fled Ukraine; Lviv Art Palace Becomes Aid Distribution Center; Refugees From Mariupol Shelter In Dnipro Arcade; Children's Laser Tag Arcade Becomes Wartime Shelter; Senior NATO Official: Signs Pointing to a Stalemate; U.S. Investigator Will Aid Chinese Plane Crash Probe; Hearings Begin for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Aired 12- 1a ET

Aired March 22, 2022 - 00:00   ET

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

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[00:00:45]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers around the world and in the United States this hour. I'm Hala Gorani reporting live from Lviv in Ukraine. It is just past 6:00 in the morning in the Western part of the country and throughout this war-torn land.

More than a day after Mariupol, Ukraine rejected Russian orders to surrender, bombs have been hammering that city. A Ukrainian officer says they've been falling every 10 minutes.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Mariupol is being "reduced to ashes", but that it will survive. The E.U. foreign policy chief calls this bombardment a massive war crime.

The Russian Defense Ministry meanwhile claims more than 62,000 Mariupol residents have evacuated to Russia in "complete safety". But the city council says thousands were in fact taken there against their will.

In the capital in Kyiv, authorities say a recent missile strike on a shopping center has killed at least eight people. And they are warning that that number could rise. Russia says it attacked them all because Ukrainian troops were using it to hide rocket launchers.

Russia's Defense Ministry released this drone video that appears to show those weapons systems and accuses Ukraine of using social facilities as human shields which Ukraine denies.

This is the aftermath of the strike on the mall. The capital is under a curfew until Wednesday morning local time.

And meanwhile, it's believed Russia opened fire on a daily protest in the Southern city of Kherson, different protests out there from ordinary people, residents of that town against the occupation. There was an explosion and then loud bursts of gunfire, take a look.

Well, at least one person was seen bleeding profusely, it looks like an older gentleman from the video. Kherson was the first strategically important Ukrainian city to fall. It has been occupied by Russian forces for about two weeks now.

Well, for the hundreds of thousands of people who may still be in Mariupol, it is clear there's no safe place to escape the Russian assault.

Phil Black reports that their days are marked by sheltering in what's left of the buildings and confronting the bleak landscape outside. And as always, a warning, some of what you're about to see is disturbing.

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PHIL BLACK, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Between the shelling and airstrikes in Mariupol, people emerged to do what they can for the living and the dead.

This man says he hopes these graves are only temporary that the bodies will be re-buried someday. They spend much of their time sheltering in what remains of the buildings and often beneath them. Basements offer some protection, but little comfort.

This woman says they have enough food and firewood to last a week.

Around 300,000 people in Mariupol are living like this. Those without homes are crowding together in large buildings over the weekend in art school with around 400 people inside was bombed and destroyed.

This video gives a sense of what these large shelters are like. It's from a theater where around a thousand or more people were staying, mostly women, children, the elderly. Days later, it was blown apart in a suspected airstrike.

The Russian word for children marked out in huge letters outside provided no safety. Catarinia Sky (PH) lived across from that theater and delivered food and other aids to the people hiding out there.

She tells us it's difficult to describe the sympathy she felt for them. They were terrified, cowering in horror at the sounds of planes overhead, always afraid of a bomb dropping.

[00:05:02]

BLACK: Alevtina Shvetsova (PH) lived under Russian attack in Mariupol for 21 days. This is not just a city, she says, this is my whole life. She survived without power in freezing conditions with little food with eight other members of her family until the building was hit. They pulled dead neighbors from the rubble and decided to leave the city.

Alevtina says she can't imagine life without Mariupol. She will return. But now in her burning city there are lots of people, lots of children under the rubble, others in shelters. The journey out of the besieged city is slow and dangerous, but every day, relatively small numbers are leaving whatever way they can along what are supposed to be agreed corridors. A local official says some people have been fired upon, others have had their vehicles seized at Russian checkpoints.

The people of Mariupol have no good options. Stay and endure the horror of Russia's bombardment or face danger and uncertainty, leaving all they know behind.

Phil Black, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: So much misery and pain. The United Nations says Russia's war on Ukraine has driven nearly 3.5 million people out of the country. Take a look at the map, the vast majority are heading West to neighboring countries. And if you include those who are displaced internally, but still in Ukraine, the number jumps to at least 10 million people driven from their homes.

That is almost -- to put it in perspective, a quarter of Ukraine's population now forced from their homes. The U.N. says more than 90 percent of the people who fled Ukraine are women and children and they are at a "heightened risk of gender-based violence and other forms of exploitation and abuse".

Poland has registered the highest number of Ukrainian refugees so far with more than 2.1 million people crossing as of Monday. The U.N. says Poland is now one of the largest refugee hosting countries in the world and it happened almost overnight. Many of them are continuing their journey to other European countries.

CNN's Ed Lavandera shows as one Polish couple opening up their homes to dozens of people fleeing the violence.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The children enjoy a game of hide and seek with a young boy hiding in the corner. But they're not siblings. They're new friends brought together by war and the goodwill of Jaroslaw Swiecicki and his wife Malgojatha (PH). They opened their home to this Ukrainian family who escaped the war zone less than a week ago.

When did you decide to help Ukrainian refugees?

JAROSLAW SWIECICKI, POLISH HOST FOR UKRAINIAN REFUGEES: When the first bomb go down, so.

LAVANDERA: Since the war started, the Swiecicki family has taken in 46 people. This truck driver, who recently recovered from cancer, says helping Ukrainian refugees is something he has to do.

Why have you open up your house to so many people?

SWIECICKI: Because sure, it's a Polish tradition I think to open our hearts, to open our homes for someone who is in need.

LAVANDERA: And he's quick to think of the little things that make his guests feel at home.

Yulia Grishko (PH) is Poland with her 7-year-old son, 4-month-old baby, along with her elderly parents. Today is her birthday.

She wanted to us see the gift she received from her host, blue and yellow flowers, Ukraine's national colors.

Yulia and her family escaped from the Eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week, the fighting has intensified around their hometown.

So, on March 13th, at 5:30 in the morning, a Russian fighter jet flew over your home. What were you thinking in that moment?

She says, this was the turning point. I realized that I could no longer endure it. At that moment, I thought I had to save my children.

Yulia is a police officer at home. She was on maternity leave when the war started. Now, it's up to her to figure out what to do next as the war drags on. But she says her heart is in Ukraine with the family she left behind.

My heart stayed at home, she says. I'm scared for my relatives but thank God I'm in a warm place surrounded by kindness and have inner peace.

This family here in Poland, will you always consider them part of your family?

Yes, she says. They have already become part of our family.

On this night, far from home, Yulia was treated to a birthday cake surprise and a lovely version of the song Sto lat, the traditional Polish birthday song.

[00:10:11]

LAVANDERA: Yulia tells us her only wish is for peace and the end of war so her family can return home.

Ed Lavandera, Przemysl, Poland.

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GORANI: You always find kind people in times of crisis. Conor O'Loughlin is with Catholic Relief Services and he joins me now from Moldova. Thanks for being with us, Conor. What's it been like on your end?

CONOR O'LOUGHLIN, COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES: Well, what we are witnessing here in Moldova is thousands of people every day streaming across the border into Moldova in winter conditions. And they are in need of shelter, warm clothes and information on what to do next and also counseling. GORANI: And do most of them travel on or are they happy just settling temporarily in Moldova? What's that been like?

O'LOUGHLIN: Many people are traveling on. Over 350,000 people have come into Moldova and we must remember that Moldova is a small country here of less than a population of three million people. 100,000 though are staying in Moldova as well.

And what we have witnessed here and much like we saw on your last segment is a huge outpouring of kindness from Moldovans. And two Ukrainians that have fled, many have opened their doors and to support people. And there has been enormous solidarity here and for Ukrainians that are fleeing as well.

GORANI: I want to ask you, though, about these concerns because so many of those fleeing are women and kids, that there may be people who are -- who target them for human trafficking or for gender-based violence? What advice do you give people who are crossing the border to make sure they do not fall for any story of someone offering them a ride or so that they keep themselves on their kids as safe as possible?

O'LOUGHLIN: I think it's very, very important. What Catholic Relief Services is doing is providing those safe shelters, and to provide for particularly that profile for women and children is what we are witnessing coming across the borders.

And it's important that we as a humanitarian agency provide that safe environment for those women and children that are coming. So, we do get information to them off to the places that they can go where they can ensure that they can get that shelter, warm clothes, the counseling services that they may need as well.

And we're also providing those safe places for children and inappropriate shelters as well. And I think it's very important as humanitarian agencies such as Catholic Relief Services that we do tailor our services and our support to those vulnerable groups that you mentioned.

GORANI: And how does this crisis compare to other crises you've responded to? Because we've covered conflict zones quite a lot here at CNN and one thing that that struck me in this one is how quickly it all happened.

If you look at Middle Eastern war zones, I mean, to get to the numbers we're talking about here, millions displaced, it doesn't -- it takes longer than three or four weeks.

In this case, it just all seems like it happened overnight. How has has that changed your calculus and your response to some of these -- to how you handle these desperate refugees?

O'LOUGHLIN: I think, you know, that's exactly it. What I think in terms of the displacement, I mean, the numbers that we're talking about, and the U.N. as a course estimated that 10 million people are displaced. In Moldova, this has -- in the last three weeks, this has been over

350,000 people have coming in. And just to put that in context, that is the equivalent of 43 million people coming into the United States.

So, in terms of our calculations, it does mean we have to mobilize very, very fast to provide that immediate relief, those physical needs around shelter, clothes, but also what we are witnessing is the trauma that people have suffered because of this and we have to meet those emotional needs as well and those services around psychological support are also what we need to mobilize very, very quickly here.

So, it is all hands-on deck here. We are working with other -- with the government, with society here. We have witnessed as I said enormous outpouring of support from Moldova as well to help alleviate the suffering and as humanitarian agencies like Catholic Relief Services, we are focusing on alleviating that immediate suffering as much as we can day by day here.

GORANI: All right Conor O'Loughlin, thanks very much, good luck to your teams on the ground.

Much more to come from here in Lviv, including human kindness on display at the city's Art Palace. Now a distribution for aid to the victims of the war, stay with us.

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

The European Union says it is ready to impose more penalties on Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Now this would include just more drastic measures like sanctions on Russia's entire energy sector and potentially joining a U.S.-led embargo of Russian oil that countries like Germany had been resisting.

The E.U. also reached an agreement on Monday to provide an additional $551 million in military and other aid to Ukraine. Here's more from the E.U. foreign policy chief.

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JOSEP BORRELL, E.U, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: What's happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime, destroying everything. Bombarding and killing everybody in this community manner. This is something awful, we have to condemn in the stronger terms.

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GORANI: Well, meantime, the American President Joe Biden held a call with the leaders of France, Italy, Germany and the U.K. They discussed a coordinated response to Russia and support for Ukraine.

We are coming to you live from Lviv in the Art Palace in this Western city has been turned into a makeshift distribution center for aid to Ukraine with some volunteers coming from thousands of miles away. Here's a report from Ben Wedeman.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): sometimes the kindness of strangers comes in boxes and bundles, blankets food diapers bottled water.

Svetlana Gajaev drove thousand miles from France to deliver aid to Ukraine.

Our small town of 2,000 people has already sent three shipments of supplies here, she tells me.

Michael Jaipur left his family in London to pitch in at this distribution center in Lviv.

MICHAEL JAIPUR, BRITISH VOLUNTEER: Inspired me to come here with the watch -- just seeing the women and children suffering in distress, even the men and seeing them being pushed out of their homes then leaving everything behind. And I just had to come out and give him a help with my two hands and my two feet and do the best that I can and hopefully, it's helping them.

WEDEMAN: Lviv's Art Palace is a hive of activity. Taken over by volunteers overcome by a deluge of donations.

Relief supplies continue to arrive at this distribution center and others like it around Lviv from ordinary citizens and from abroad. Amidst the bitterness of this war, the milk of human kindness hasn't soured.

In the basement, Dr. Victoria Patek (PH) sorts through thousands of boxes of medicine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are really thankful to them because our pharmacists are empty.

WEDEMAN: Those in need come here for help, which goes only so far to dull the pain.

We feel the support says Zenayda Naboka (PH) but without tears, it's impossible to think about my home about my city Kharkiv, which is completely destroyed. And even the kindness of strangers can't change that.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Lviv.

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GORANI: Well, in a grim reminder that the horrors of war are relentlessly repeated, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor was killed during a Russian strike on Kharkiv. Boris Romanchenko had survived four concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen during World War II. But it is this war started by Vladimir Putin to in his words de-Nazify Ukraine that ultimately killed him. President Zelenskyy's office noted Boris Romanchenko's death, saying

each passing day makes it increasingly clear what Russia's de- Nazification is really all about.

Still ahead, a children's arcade in Central Ukraine is now sheltering dozens of refugees. We'll hear from one family who escaped Mariupol after weeks of Russian attacks.

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GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani reporting live from Lviv, Ukraine. A Ukrainian officers says bombs are now falling every 10 minutes in the besieged city of Mariupol. The city has spent weeks under almost constant attack by Russian forces.

This video shows the moment a Russian strike hit some factory buildings there. Local officials say at least one major steel plant has been destroyed.

And Ukrainian officials also believe tens of thousands of residents are still trapped inside the city without water, heat or power. On Monday, the European Union foreign policy chief called the situation in this city, a war crime.

Ukraine's president has echoed that sentiment but insists that the city will survive.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Hard- working on a city of Mariupol, which is being destroyed by the occupiers and being reduced to ashes, but it will survive.

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GORANI: Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry released this video showing Monday's attack on a shopping mall center in Ukraine's capital. Russia says the mall was being used to hide rocket launchers. Ukraine is dismissing those claims.

Either way, you see the impact of that strike on what really was a mall with a home improvement center, a gym, residential tower blocks. This is what the scene of Monday's attack looks like.

Now, officials in Kyiv say at least eight people were killed but warned that the number of people who died could rise. The city is now yet again under a strict curfew until Wednesday morning.

The U.N. is reporting that nearly one in every four people living in Ukraine has been forced from their home by the Russian invasion. More than three million people have fled the country and nearly 6.5 million others are displaced internally throughout Ukraine.

CNN's Ivan Watson spoke with one family from Mariupol about their ordeal.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Children at play, frolicking in an arcade meant to host games of laser tag. But these are not normal times. The owners here have turned their children's entertainment business into a makeshift shelter, a place to house dozens of Ukrainians who just fled the besieged port city of Mariupol.

[00:30:19]

DMYTRO SHVETS, REFUGEE: The last couple of weeks would be like hell.

WATSON: Dmytro Shvets, his wife Tania (ph) and their daughter, Vlada (ph) escaped Mariupol on Thursday. They endured weeks of Russian bombardment from artillery and airstrikes.

SHVETS: Each 15, 20 minutes, you can listen there to the airplane. It was like targeted, targeted. And the sound "Yoooo" -- we're done (ph).

WATSON: Tania (ph) kept a journal. March 2nd, day seven of the war. "Nothing's changed," she writes. "No electricity or heat. And there's no running water now, as well."

They lived in the basements, and when they emerged, Tania (ph) took photos and videos of their apartment building, pockmarked with bullet holes, unexploded shells in residential streets. Desperate people looting a bomb-damaged store for food.

SHVETS: There is not water to drink.

WATSON: They scavenged for drinking water, pulling buckets from street sewers.

SHVETS: We were taking the water from the rainwater. Taking for drinking from the rain water.

WATSON: "Heavy shelling on nearby houses," Tania (ph) wrote on March 5. "We all went to sleep with the thought of how to survive and stay alive".

One day, a shell exploded near Dmytro as he stood in line for water.

SHVETS: The bomb fell down and killed, like, three people in front of us. One guy was not hit, who was, like, taking the water. Another one in the line was like a half of a head. And the last one was killed.

With my own eyes, like, I saw three people completely I saw killed. And we were making a grave for them, digging for this.

WATSON: In your own (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

SHVETS: Yes.

WATSON (voice-over): Finally, it was all too much. SHVETS: The last day, I saw my father, because my mother was

completely destroyed mentally. I mean, it was like completely depression. He was sitting in the cellar. And even she hadn'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 please leave. Leave somewhere. I don't know where. Just escape this. Escape this. And he was crying.

WATSON: Dmytro and his wife and daughter, piled into a car with friends and spent 15 hours driving through Russian frontlines to escape the siege of Mariupol. Their parents refused to leave.

SHVETS: I don't know if I'm going to see my parents or to see my friends again. No idea. It's like living from day to day. Today, we are alive. Tomorrow, maybe not.

WATSON: In the relative safety of this arcade, built to entertain children, the kids welcome the escape from the conflict.

"I really want to say hello to other children," Tania's (ph) 7-year- old daughter Vlada (ph) says. "And I want the war to end quickly."

Her parents appear haunted, clearly traumatized. Tania (ph) gets a call from her mother in Mariupol, weeping and saying goodbye, because she fears she will not survive the night.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Dnipro, Ukraine.

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HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: And if you'd like to help people in Ukraine who need basic things like shelter, food, and water, go to CNN.com/impact. You can find ways to help on that page.

I'll have more from Lviv, Ukraine, at the top of the hour, but first, let's bring in John Vause in Atlanta -- John.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hala, thank you.

Assessments from both NATO and the Pentagon claim the Russian invasion of Ukraine has stalled because the Russian military has underperformed and there's surprisingly strong resistance by Ukrainian forces.

A senior NATO official says the war is approaching a stalemate, with neither side able to gain superiority over the other. But the same official cautions Vladimir Putin is not about to admit to failure, and the Russian military is not backing down, resorting to less precise and more brutal weaponry against civilian targets; and reinforcements are being assembled.

A similar assessment from the Pentagon, which says Russian forces have failed to achieve their main objectives on the ground. And now Russia is turning to long-range strikes, from cruise missiles and artillery fire.

General Mark Hertling is a CNN military analyst and a former commanding general for Europe and Seventh Army.

It's good to see you again. It's been a while.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to see you, John, thanks. Tough circumstances.

VAUSE: Yes, exactly. but let's get into this, because CNN is reporting one reason for the Russian military underperforming here is that the U.S. has been unable to determine if Russia has designated a military commander responsible for leading the country's war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, something that current and former defense officials say is likely a key contributor to the apparent clumsiness and disorganization of the Russian assault.

[00:35:05]

You know, so there is that. There's also, you know, just like U.S. intelligence perhaps, which predicted coalition forces would be quickly into Baghdad, greeted as liberators, and Saddam Hussein would be overthrown and quickly replaced with a government friendly to the West.

It seems Putin has had a few bad breaks here, including some bad advice.

HERTLING: Yes, he's that more than a few, John. What I would suggest is, yes, the theater commander, or not knowing who the theater commander could be a contributing factor.

But my experience with the Russian army -- and I've seen them train and exercise on multiple occasions -- is they have poor general officer leadership. They have nonexistent, non-commissioned officer and junior officer corps that actually leads. Their training is abysmal. They can't synchronize their supply chain to support the forces forward.

And this plan, truthfully, from the very beginning -- and I said this prior to the war starting -- that 190,000 troops seems like a lot around the borders of Ukraine, but if you look at the -- at the half- moon that is Eastern Ukraine, that's 1,400 miles worth of terrain that -- that are around the border of this very large country.

And to command and control that and to execute six different axes of advance into the country to take multiple objectives, when the enemy force to the Russians -- the enemy force is the Ukrainians -- when they're coming in with 190,000, and the Ukrainians have about 250,000 within their army, there are several factors that, from the beginning, I said would work against Russia's favor.

VAUSE: One timeline which is out there focuses on the next two weeks and expectations that, by early next month, the Russian military will need a major resupply effort if it's to keep going. If the Ukrainians can keep this at a stalemate of sorts until then,

will they have a reasonable chance of forcing Russia to a negotiated end to the conflict?

HERTLING: I would certainly believe that's true. And I would also take your promise that it would take another month, it would be too long. I believe that it would be about two weeks.

And in fact, we're already seeing the demise of the Russian force in the field.

Now having said that, though, I'm going to say a caveat here, and that is the Russian ground maneuver, the tanks, the infantry, the forward forces that are trying to take over different cities, that -- those have stalled.

What Russia still has at their disposal is quite a bit of artillery, rockets, and missile launch systems. They can shoot those from far away. They don't have to be in the cities to shoot those.

So I don't think any of the Russian forces are going to get into the city and in any way to occupy them, but they can certainly continue to conduct barrages against the civilians of the city.

VAUSE: Right now, it's hard to say precisely what the losses are on both sides. But U.S. assessments put the number of Russian troops killed in action around 7,000 out of a force of around 150,000. That's clearly high, but overall, the Russian rate of attrition, chances are it's not as bad as the Ukrainians.

In other words, the Russians have lost a lot, but they have a lot more soldiers, a lot more tanks, a lot more drones compared to Ukraine. So it seems, while Russia is doing badly from a military point of view, it's not doing as badly as social media or maybe some news reporting might suggest. Is that a fair comment?

HERTLING: It might be. I don't know. Because the Ukrainian social media has been extremely active in proclaiming their victories, but I also truthfully think -- and everyone is shocked at those figures that were reported within Russian press today that was -- that were leaked from the ministry of defense, or came out of the ministry of defense for a short period of time and then they were knocked off the web.

I actually think -- I'll surprise you on this -- that those casualty figures are low. Based on, you know, the calculations of this kind of high-intensity lethal warfare with tanks and tanks, force on force, nose to nose with each other, with artillery constantly shelling, with the effects of the lethality of drone warfare, and -- and some of the fighting that we've seen, I actually think the Russian casualties are greater from the standpoint of killed in action and wounded in action.

And there's certainly an awful lot of evidence that says a lot of Russian forces are abandoning their equipment and deserting.

VAUSE: OK so just to button this up, we sort of painted a picture, you know, of the really complex nature of what could be happening out there on the battlefield in Ukraine.

But what are the chances that any of this actually forces Putin to, you know, come down to a negotiated peace settlement with the Ukrainians and end this anytime soon?

HERTLING: That is the key question. I heard a great quote from the author Tom Freidman who said, you know, Russia, Putin could either end it now and end it ugly. Or he could wait a lot longer and end it very ugly.

[00:40:05]

So the longer Putin waits, the fact that he hasn't achieved any of his strategic objectives -- he has not subjugated Ukraine, he has not further divided NATO, he has not divided the United States from their NATO alliance, and he has not created an economic advantage in this conflict, which he thought he would do.

Those four strategic objectives he has not met yet, and he will not meet them. So anything you're talking about now is just carnage, death, and destruction.

VAUSE: General Hertling, as always, thank you so much for your -- your insights and your experience.

HERTLING: Thank you, John. Appreciate being on.

VAUSE: Pleasure. Thank you, sir.

Still to come here, bad weather may delay efforts to find survivors of a commercial airliner crash in China. We're live in Beijing with the very latest on the investigation. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

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VAUSE: A senior U.S. air crash investigator has been appointed to work with the Chinese government to try and determine why China Eastern Airlines flight crashed on Monday.

Just after losing airborne contact, the Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board plummeted more than 30,000 feet in 90 seconds. This video appears to show the plane in a nosedive before impact in the city of Wuzhou.

[00:45;19]

Now officials say bad weather and limited access to the crash site could slow search-and-rescue efforts. According to Chinese state media, no survivors have been found, at least not yet.

CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Steven Jiang, live for us with the very latest. So, what is the latest on the actual investigation? What did they know at this point? And do they know if that U.S. investigator has actually received permission by Beijing to travel to China and be part of this investigation? STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: John, that's something we have

not heard official announcement or confirmation from either side.

But, you know, this senior investigator appointed by the National Safety -- National Transportation Safety Board is being joined by representatives from Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, and G.E., the engine maker, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration.

So this is a pretty standard composition of this kind of U.S. go team to investigate air crashes around the world.

Now, obviously, they're on standby right now. But there are things that can be done even remotely. Most critically, of course, is information sharing.

There are some concerns about whether or not the Chinese investigators on the ground and the U.S. team will have some problem sharing information because of bilateral tensions between the two governments. But I think these are professionals who will do their job properly and cooperatively.

Now, for the Chinese investigators arriving at the scene, of course, one of their most important tasks right now is to locate the two so- called black boxes. The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. These are the reporters that will hopefully provide very crucial information to the investigators in terms of how the plane behaved and what was being said between the pilots in the cockpit in the final moments leading to this fatal accident.

Now, given how this plane supposedly crashed, it is just very hard to imagine anyone survives. So at this stage, even though the authorities are still branding their mission as search-and-rescue, it is really increasingly turning into a recovery mode.

So all the responders and troops on the scene are now trying to really locate every piece of the plane's wreckage. And all of that, of course, is going to help tremendously investigators piece together, literally, this puzzle. Along with eyewitness accounts, as well as video evidence, including the one you played.

Now, this kind of investigation into an accident involving a modern jetliner like the 737-800, which is by the way, extremely safe and reliable, given more than almost nearly 5,000 of them have been delivered to carriers around the world.

This is very complex. So they are going to take their time. Obviously, they're under tremendous pressure to draw conclusion quickly because of the grieving families and the general public's demand for quick answers.

But to do their job properly, they need to take their time, John. So, obviously, this is a dark chapter in China's civil aviation history. Because just last month, they marked this milestone of Chinese carriers flying safely, continuously for over 100 million hours. Their last fatal accident before this one was back in August 2010. Now, obviously, everything changed on Monday afternoon -- John. VAUSE: Steven, thank you. Steven Jiang there, our Beijing bureau chief, with the very latest. Thank you, Steven.

Historic hearings in the U.S. Capitol as senator get to know the first black woman ever nominated to the Supreme Court. When we come back, though, why some Republicans say they have serious concerns.

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VAUSE: U.S. senators will soon begin questioning the first African- American woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ketanji Brown Jackson is expected to be confirmed. But before that happens, Republicans are expected to falsely attack her experience and character.

CNN's Paula Reid has our report.

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JUDGE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: I do.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the first day of her historic confirmation hearing, Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson told lawmakers she was humbled to be the first black woman nominated to the Supreme Court.

BROWN JACKSON: My parents taught me that, unlike the many barriers that they had had to face growing up, my path was clearer. So that if I worked hard and I believed in myself and America, I could do anything or be anything I wanted to be.

REID: Judiciary chairman, Dick Durbin kicked off the hearing by highlighting the significance of her nomination.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Not a single justice has been a black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first. It's not easy being the first. Often, you have to be the best. In some ways, the bravest.

REID: Jackson currently sits on the D.C. federal appellate court and was always considered the frontrunner for the vacancy created by the coming retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she once clerked.

She would bring unique work experience as a former federal public defender and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): You will be the first public defender on the court. You understand our justice system uniquely, through the eyes of people who couldn't afford a lawyer.

REID: Monday marked Jackson's fourth congressional confirmation hearing for various posts over the course of her career.

BROWN JACKSON: I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.

REID: But Republicans on the committee had several lines of attack against Jackson. Some GOP lawmakers signaled they will take on her judicial philosophy.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): It's not enough to say only that one would look at the facts and arguments in the case and fairly apply the law.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can only wonder, what's your hidden agenda?

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): so let me -- let me say a few things that I'm concerned about, aspects of your record that trouble me.

REID: Republican Senator Josh Hawley has tried to paint her as being soft on crime, specifically, sex offenders and child pornography cases.

HAWLEY: I'm not interested in trying to play gotcha. I'm interested in her answers.

REID: CNN reviewed Jackson's decisions in question and found they weren't out of line with what other judges have decided and that Hawley has taken some of her comments out of context.

DURBIN: Trust me, we'll get her on the record. Because there's a big story to be told that Hawley is leaving out.

REID (on camera): Monday's hearing provided a preview of what lawmakers will focus on Tuesday when they finally have the chance to question Judge Jackson.

The hearings will continue through Thursday before then moving on to a vote by the committee and then a vote by the full Senate. Democrats are hoping to wrap up the entire confirmation process before they leave for April recess on the eighth.

Paul Reid, CNN, Capitol Hill.

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VAUSE: Thank you for being with us this hour. I'm John Vause. Please, stay with us. We'll be back live in Lviv in Ukraine with Hala Gorani after a very short break. You're watching CNN.

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