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U.S. Official: Russian Forces Stop Ground Movements Toward Kyiv; Biden In Poland: Stakes Of Ukraine War Go Beyond Its Borders. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 25, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:33]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And I'm Wolf Blitzer in Warsaw, Poland. Big day here.

BLACKWELL: Yes, a big day there.

CNN is getting new information about Russia's latest military maneuvers as they face a major setback in Ukraine. So, Russian forces around the capital city of Kyiv, they have moved from offensive positions to defensive ones. That's according to a senior U.S. official.

Now, that official says that Russia is moving troops into Ukraine from Georgia as reinforcement and the U.K. defense ministry says Ukraine's forces have major gains retaking towns and positions east of Kyiv.

BLITZER: In the last hour, Victor, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, landed here in Warsaw. Tomorrow, he will meet with Ukrainian refugees taking shelter here in the Polish capital and delivering what the White House calls major speech on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier today, President Biden met with the Polish president, President Duda near the Polish-Ukraine border. He also met with U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division who have been deployed to Poland as part of NATO. President Biden told those U.S. soldiers that the stakes of the Ukraine war go well beyond its borders. Biden is now pledging a more humanitarian and military aid for the region.

Tomorrow, he will meet face-to-face with a few of the more than two Ukrainian refugees who have wound up here in Poland over the past month. He will deliver what the White House describes as this major address.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is also here in Warsaw with us.

Phil, so what can we expect to hear from the president tomorrow? PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's

interesting, Wolf, as you noted, White House officials are raising expectations for what the speech is going to be, but when you talk to them about the draft and what the president -- the message the president was trying to get across will really be to distill this moment, to underscore the stakes of the moment, to really lay out the urgency of the moment and I think to really build off some of the things you saw him say to the members of the 82nd airborne that the troops here in Poland, earlier today about this being while certainly about Ukraine, bigger in the grand scheme of things and in the broader scheme of things.

Now, Wolf, as you noted, the president today meeting with those member of the military and meeting with members of the U.S. army that are deployed here. Making sheer he wished he didn't have to go to Ukraine because of security concerns. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Part of my disappointment is I can't see it first hand like I had in other places. They will not let me, understandably, cross the border and take a look at what's going on in Ukraine. I'm eager to hear from you, the humanitarian community, about what you seeing, what you're doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And, Wolf, as you noted, while the president won't be on the ground in Ukraine, there's no shortage of examples of the horror and the catastrophe that's taken place in that country. Here in Poland, more than 2 million refugees, and as you noted, the president will meet with some of them tomorrow according to his schedule.

BLITZER: Phil, what else did the president say to those U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division who are here in Poland? What else did he say today?

MATTINGLY: Well, interesting, because a lot of it, Wolf, he seemed to riffing to some degree, right, which you see the president often give very scripted remarks through the teleprompter. You know, sometimes, he wants to break away from it. You can tell when he's breaking away from the scripted remarks, this was not a scripted speech to these members of the 82nd Airborne Division.

I think the biggest point he wanted to make was thanks and certainly passing on his gratitude for the service and for the growing tip of the spear and this Eastern European deployment that we see expand over the course of the last five or six weeks. But I think the point that he really wanted to get across was that, once again, this isn't just about Ukraine. U.S. and its allies are doing everything they can to alleviate the pain and horrors that are happening inside the country, but this is also a broader, kind of a more intense moment for the entire world.

[15:05:04] An infection point is what he referred to it as, almost a reordering of the global structure. That's how important that is. And that's why those troops and a presence here is so critical at this moment, Wolf.

BLITZER: Certainly is. Phil Mattingly, reporting for us, thank you very, very much.

More than 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the invasion only a month ago, 3.7 million people.

CNN's Melissa Bell is in the city that's near the Poland-Ukraine border where the president stopped earlier today.

Melissa, tomorrow, the president will get an up close view of just how dire the refugee crisis is when he meets with a few of these refugees. What can he expect?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we heard him a moment ago, Wolf, regretting that he wasn't able to go and see for himself, to see firsthand what's happening across the border. But what we found on this side of the Ukrainian border with Poland is that by speaking to the women who have been fleeing in such huge numbers and it's important here, even when we look at the scale to remember the individual tragedies, is that by speaking to them, because they live with so little and yet with all the images of what they fled, it's really easy to get an idea of what's been happening around them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELL (voice-over): For a month now, they arrived day and night at medical crossing. Mothers and their children carrying little, burdened only by the images of what they fled.

Tatiana (ph) spent more than two weeks getting to Medyka with her niece, nephew and daughter, traveling by day and sheltering in basements at night, in fear of the sound of constant shelling. But she says, worst of all, the sound of planes at night dropping bombs.

They dropped them on the hospitals where the sick are, she says. On the bakeries where they make bread, so we don't have anything to eat, on the water facilities, so we don't have anything to drink.

For Darya as well, it was a sound of the planes at night that scared her the most on her three-day journey from Kharkiv. It was that sound she says that forced her and her son from their first underground shelter. As a mom, she says, I was scared. My son handled it better. It's harder for the mother.

For a grandmother, perhaps hardest of all. Loreza and her daughter Elizabetha escaped from Irpin more than a week ago. A shell hit our house says Elizabetha. That's it, on the fifth floor. We had a Ukrainian flag hanging on the balcony, so they targeted it.

That was when the family decided to flee, heading from Irpin through other occupied towns like Hostomel and Bucha. People can't get out, says Loreza. It's too dangerous because if a

woman walks out with a white flag and a child, they don't look. They just shoot. Kill. They spare no one.

Anyway, we can't go home now, she says, because there is no home. So, like millions of others, they head into Europe after crossing a border they never wanted to have to cross.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BELL: They've been coming in to the European Union, Wolf, at the rate of one Ukrainian child every second. That is according to the European Commission again, back to that scale, and it is that problem of logistics, how to look after that many people in such a short space after time.

We're talking about millions that have made it across the borders in less than a month, and that is what is problematic for the European. They're starting to make their way across Europe. President Biden, of course, announcing yesterday there are 100,000 Ukrainian refugees would be offer the possibility of going to the United States.

But, really, what we've been hearing from so many of these women is that because their husbands, the fathers of the children, are back across the border in Ukraine, fighting a fight that they believe they're going to win, they don't really want to head very far from this border, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yeah, which is totally understandable. You've got to give, by the way, the Polish people a lot of credit for welcoming more than two million Ukrainian refugees into this country over the past month or so. Mostly, as you correctly point out, women and children. The men between the ages of 18 and 60 have to stay behind to fight in the military. It's a heartbreaking situation indeed.

Melissa Bell doing excellent reporting for us, thank you very, very much.

Victor, the whole situation here is so heartbreaking, I got to tell you. It's painful to try to appreciate what's going on.

BLACKWELL: Ten million people displaced because of this war. Add that to the 1.5 million where were displaced after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Wolf. Heartbreaking, indeed.

[15:10:01]

Wolf Blitzer in Warsaw, thank you.

New video in from one of the deadliest attacks of Russia's invasion. The city council of Mariupol says at least 300 people are believed to have been killed in that theater that's being used as a bomb shelter. This is from inside the theater and we're talking just minutes after Russia bombed it days ago.

You can see how many people were packed in here, women, children. Officials say at least 600 people have made it out alive.

CNN's Phil Black, he is live in Lviv.

Phil, let's start with Mariupol and what more can you tell us about the video we have watched.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Victor, this video, this new information that we have from Mariupol city officials is finally giving us a more accurate idea of what happened in the theater on the day it was struck. That was March 16th. It's taken time to piece it together because there are no real government services in the city anymore, such is the devastation that is taking place there.

But as you say, they now believe that there were some 900 people in total, approximately of which 600 survives, 300 were killed. They say those who died were mostly on the upper floors and mostly to one side of the theater.

You can see from those pictures, the video that people are walking out covered in dust and debris but walking downstairs, walking through part of the building that appears to still be standing. There's video of another section of the building which is clearly where the explosion took place. It has been torn apart. There, the person shooting the video says this is where people are lining up just a short time before.

And remember, this is the building where people had written in very large letters outside the Russian world for children, in the hope that it would protect them from this sort of attack. It did not.

We are talking about this now, as I say, more than a week after the actual attack because it has taken so long to put together this information and it's important to remember why those people were in there as well, because this is a city, still has been a city under siege, where the city's population cowering in buildings like this, are in basements, with very little food, water, they are cold. They are scared. And they do not know if or when they will be safe again, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Talk to us about this Russian general that Ukrainian officials say that they've killed another one. There's been several significant loss for Putin's forces.

BLACK: So, according to Ukraine, this was a general commanding Russian forces near the city of Kherson. Kherson is under Russian control, but in the territory around it, there is a Ukrainian counterattack taking place. This is the sixth general to be reported killed on the battlefield here.

So, yes, significant losses. Meanwhile, the Russian ministry of defense has given an official update on casualties here in Ukraine. It says it has lost around 1,300 troops on the battlefield here. That's a very different figure to the NATO and U.S. estimates which estimated a broad range, somewhere between 7,000 and 14,000 or 15,000.

The general belief is that Russian has lost so many troops that they must now source the reinforcements from somewhere, and a U.S. defense official says there's evidence that they are doing so from the country of Georgia, where Russian troops are stationed in some breakaway areas of the country of Georgia. They have been there since Russia invaded Georgia back in 2008, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Let's head north to the Chernobyl power plant which the Russians took. I think it was day one of this invasion. The IAEA says that the workers at that plant are at risk because of shelling in a nearby town. What's the situation there?

BLACK: So, the International Atomic Energy Agency has pointed out publicly today that some residential areas near the Chernobyl plant are being shelled and attacked by Russian forces. In these residential areas live the staff, the people who ran the plants and their families. And the implication there is if you harm these people, if you have these workers, then you harm the safety management and running of that nuclear plant -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Phil Black in Lviv, Ukraine, for us -- Phil, thank you.

Some international aid groups are warning of a catastrophic health crisis after Russian attacks on health facilities in Ukraine. We have details of that ahead.

And President Biden announced plans to help the E.U. wean itself off Russian energy. The potential impact on oil and gas prices in the U.S. ahead.

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[15:19:18]

BLITZER: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Warsaw, Poland.

A big focus, a big focus of President Biden's trip to Europe is on the massive refugee crisis that is unfolding right now. During a briefing on the humanitarian situation, President Biden said he is disappointed he can't travel to Ukraine to see what's going on firsthand tomorrow. He will meet with a few Ukrainian refugees who are now here in Warsaw.

The U.N. estimates more than 3.7 million people fled Ukraine since the invasion began a month ago, millions more are displaced within -- within Ukraine. The International Rescue Committee is now warning the civilians in Ukraine are facing what they call a catastrophic health crisis.

[15:20:03]

Joining us from IRC is senior communications officer Nancy Dent. She's joining us from Lublin here in Poland.

Nancy, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for all you and your teams are doing.

Poland is welcoming in the majority of these Ukrainian refugees. What's the situation like for them where you are? NANCY DENT, SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE

COMMITTEE: Hi, Wolf. It's great to be here.

So, again, people are arriving in Poland. I think it's clear more than ever they are arriving having fled active conflict and they're arriving completely traumatized and it's fair to see that mental health is a real need, support that people really need right now. They are very cold. They are exhausted.

I met one woman who was actually traveling with her husband and two children. And the reason they decided to leave is because their 6- year-old daughter has a disease that the doctors in Ukraine advised they couldn't treat anymore, a treatable disease in any regular hospital, because the catastrophe that's happening inside Ukraine, they had to leave and they were extremely, extremely traumatized by it all.

BLITZER: As you know, we hit the one month mark of this Russian assault on Ukraine. It seems so much longer obviously. What are you doing to prepare these refugees for the long term because God only knows how long this is going to continue.

DENT: You're absolutely right. But a lot of the people that we're speaking to even now in the last few days when they fled such horrific violence, they don't think they're going to be away from Ukraine for long. They all are very determined and very hopeful that they will be able to return back to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The IOC is actually working in reception centers and shelters across the biggest cities, at Warsaw and Krakow, and where people are moving to.

And they are staying in shelters, you know, for days, weeks at a time. Then they really need trauma counseling. They need cash support because the money they brought with them from Poland -- from Ukraine is worthless because of the exchange rates. They need the basic steps to mean they can then access things like job, education, make sure their children can get into hospital if they need it.

BLITZER: Your organization says that there have been at least 64 attacks on critical health care infrastructure in Ukraine. What is the most pressing concern for Ukrainians right now based on everything you're seeing?

DENT: Exactly. Sixty-four health facilities across the country have been destroyed. We have seen Mariupol had at least 80 percent of its entire infrastructure destroyed. And right now, you know, health is a huge need. Not only getting medicine but providing the support once it's there.

So, the IOC are working with local organizations like Polish Red Cross to make sure people in Ukraine have access to basic things like first aid kit, tourniquets. Beyond that, we have also seen there's been a rise in COVID 19 cases just before the conflict escalated. That's going to become as issue as people heads toward the reception centers.

But also, there's things like polio, HIV, AIDS, and tuberculosis are real major concerns inside Ukraine. And so, this collapse of the health care system and hospital is a real concern for diseases that should otherwise be treatable and preventable.

BLITZER: Once again, Nancy Dent, thank you so much. Thanks for everything you and your teams are doing. We are all so appreciative of that. Appreciate it very, very much. Thank you.

Victor, back to you.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, Wolf, we can see, we heard from Nancy there, kind of the secondary impacts of this massive movement of people. People leaving Ukraine and ten million people, some of them displaced within the country.

BLITZER: Yeah. Women and children, grandmothers and grandfathers. It's an awful situation. What the Russians have done to Ukraine is really, really horrendous. And once again, it seems like it's potentially going to get even worse.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. It was a member of the Ukrainian parliament I had on earlier. Dmytro Gorin (ph), he tweeted and I wrote this down. He is looking forward to after the victory, as he calls it. He says I want to have a baby after the victory and half my friends too. Putin started this war to erase Ukraine and some people's response now is to make more Ukrainians in response.

Wolf Blitzer for us there in Warsaw, Poland, thank you.

Ukraine says its facing a potential weapons shortage and has updated its wish list telling the U.S. it needs 1,000 missiles per day. Details ahead.

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[15:29:42]

BLACKWELL: New footage captured by CNN cameras. You can hear the sound of artillery firing outside of Odessa. Watch and listen.

It's a key port city on the Black Sea where the U.S. says Russia says has 22 warships offshore.