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Biden: China Understand Consequences of Aiding Russia; Ukrainian Crew Member Tried to Sink Yacht Tied to Oligarch; North Korea Launches First ICBM Since 2017; Refugees in Romania Use Dance to Deal with Trauma. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 25, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: We are getting horrific new images from the embattled town of Izyum in eastern Ukraine. And now new satellite photos taken Thursday, show a massive crater near a burned-out school. Now part of a hospital across the street is also destroyed. There do not appear to be any identifiable military targets in the city center -- we should say. And the photos also show Russian forces near that town.

Now have you Russian rocket attacks are reported as well in the contested town of Urpin, a suburb northwest of Kyiv. The mayor tell CNN one of his staff was killed and he has left the town. Earlier the mayor said Ukrainian fighters have retaken about 80 of Urpin.

Now at Russian health port of Berdyansk, a video shows a Russian warship in flames. Ukraine claims its forces destroyed the ship and damaged two others.

U.S. President Joe Biden is due to meet with the president of the European at this hour. That is before he travels to Poland. Thursdays emergency summit in Brussels produced a stern warning to Russia against using chemical weapons in Ukraine. The U.S. also unveiled new sanctions on more than 300 Russian lawmakers. Now President Biden says he personally favors in fact, kicking Russia out of the G20. But it admits it's up to other members as well to decide that. One of them is China, which has been opposed removing Russia from the G20. Before arriving in Europe Mr. Biden said he spoke with the Chinese leader and spelled out the adverse consequences of aiding Russia's war effort. Here's what the president said on Thursday in Brussels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that China understands that its economic future is much more closely tied to the West than it is to Russia and so I'm hopeful that he does not get engaged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: All right, to discuss this, we're going to bring in Steven Jiang for us live from Beijing. Good to see you. Now Biden was categorical Thursday -- as you just heard him saying. China understands those economic consequences, right? What signals are we getting, if any, from China indicating that, look, they will firmly remain on the sidelines of this or not?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Paula, China seems to be sending different and sometimes conflicting signals depending on whom they're talking to. On the one hand, some people have noticed subtle changes in their rhetoric. They're talking about Ukraine's security concern has to be addressed and of course, also acknowledging this growing humanitarian crisis on the ground, even sending some small- scale humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

On the other hand, they're still very much defending and justifying their refusal to condemn this war which they also refused to call a Russian invasion. Saying, no country should be coerced to choose a side in this conflict. Here's what the Chinese ambassador to the U.N. has just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZHANG JUN, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS (through translator): Developing countries which make up a majority of the world are not parties to this conflict. They should not be drawn into this tension or of course to suffer the consequences of geopolitical conflicts and major power gains.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIANG: So even though Chinese officials like to stress the country's impartiality in public, but a lot of analysts say their actions seems to indicate they are anything but. But domestically here they are still very much parenting a lot of Kremlin's talking point. They are also very much strongly against all forms of sanctions against Russia.

Now recent reports have emerged that the Chinese ambassador to Russia actually met up with a group of Chinese business leaders in Moscow urging them to seize economic opportunities created by this Ukraine crisis and telling them not to waste time to fill the void in the Russian market. Even though the ambassador did not mention Western sanctions specifically but I think the implications were quite clear to a lot of people.

That's exactly the kind of action that would help mitigate the impact of Western sanctions against Russia. That's also exactly the kind of measures President Biden and other U.S. officials have been warning against. Now China of course, not acknowledge the ambassador's remarks. They insist they will be maintaining quote, unquote, normal economic and trade relations with Russia. But they seem to have been making this bet that U.S. and its ally would not dare to impose sanctions on China because of their much bigger and deeper trade and economic ties -- Paula.

NEWTON: Yes, it certainly seems like China will have free rein there to continue, as they say, to expand their trade with Russia. Steven Jiang, appreciate the update.

NEWTON: Now a crew member on a yacht tied to a Russian oligarch tells CNN he tried to sink the vessel. That crew member is Ukrainian. The Lady Anastasia is a luxurious 156-foot yacht opened by the chief executive of a Russian weapons company.

[04:35:00]

In a CNN exclusive the ship's chief engineer reveals how he took matters into his own hands when Russia invaded Ukraine. Drew Griffin has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Taras Ostapchuk, a 55-year-old nautical engineer says he spent the best 10 ears serving on the Lady Anastasia an ageing luxury yacht sailing the Mediterranean.

TARAS OSTAPCHUK, UKRAINIAN CREWMAN (through translation): We had a crew of nine people, including a chef and a waiter.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): He says the yacht's current owner and only user is Alexander Mikheev, a sanctioned Putin connected oligarch and the CEO of a major Russian state-run company that rakes in tens of billions of dollars selling munitions, everything from weapons to ammo to aircraft. Yacht engineer Ostapchuk went from cruising an oligarch luxury to a bunker in Ukraine.

Our interview just began stopped by an alert of an incoming Russian attack.

OSTAPCHUK: OK, sorry. See you next time. Bye, bye.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): His life changed in late February when the yacht was docked in Spain and Russia invaded his home country.

GRIFFIN: Welcome back. Thank you.

OSTAPCHUK: Nice to meet you again.

GRIFFIN: So good to see you, my friend.

OSTAPCHUK: Yes. I'm safe.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Safe once again. Ostapchuk explained he was spurred to action when he saw this image of a Russian military strike in an apartment building in his hometown of Kyiv.

OSTAPCHUK: My war has started. Yes.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): At that moment he knew he had to do something to retaliate sink the Lady Anastasia.

OSTAPCHUK (through translator): Water began to fill up the engine room and the crew space. After that there were three crew members left on board. I announced that the boat was sinking and that they should leave the ship. I did this on my own, GRIFFIN (voice-over): The other crew members also Ukrainian didn't want to risk their own jobs he said instead, they sounded the alarm called authorities. He was arrested and the Anastasia saved, although damaged. In court, Ostapchuk denied nothing. Instead declaring he would return to Ukraine, where he picked up arms and joined the military.

OSTAPCHUK (through translator): Now a war has begun, a total war between Russia and Ukraine. And you have to choose either you are with Ukraine or not. You have to choose will there be Ukraine or will you have a job. I made a choice. I don't need a job if I don't have Ukraine.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Back in Spain, Spain's Ministry of Transport has agreed to the provisional detention of the Lady Anastasia. While it confirms its real ownership and determines if it falls under European Union sanctions and can be seized. It's one of a long list of suspected Russian oligarch yachts now frozen in European ports in an effort to apply pressure on Putin through his inner circle of oligarchs to stop this war.

Taras Ostapchuk says others working for oligarchs around the world should expose them and their assets, his effort to make the profiteers of Vladimir Putin's regime pay for what they are doing.

OSTAPCHUK (through translator): I think what I did is absolutely 100 percent correct. I tried to sink the boat as a political protest of Russian aggression. Because its owner is connected to the production of Russian weapons. They should be held responsible because it's they who with their behavior with their lifestyle, but their unquenchable greed, they precisely led to this. In order to distract the people from the real plunder of Russia by these rulers. They arranged diversionary wars with other countries that are innocent.

GRIFFIN: Is there any message that you would like the people of the United States to know right now?

OSTAPCHUK: Help us please. Send guns to Ukraine, please. We must stop at this war. We must win.

GRIFFIN: Taras Ostapchuk says he has no doubt that the military equipment made by the Russian defense firm linked to his boss is right now being used to kill civilians in Ukrainians. It is why he did what he did. As for the yacht and it's likely owner, we received a cynical response from that Russian defense firm saying it does not comment on the personal lives of its employees or their property.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: What a story. Our breaking news coverage here on CNN will continue right after our break.

[04:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEWTON: North Korea's latest missile launch has put its neighbors on high alert. South Korea launched a series of missiles in response to the north intercontinental ballistic missile. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to figure out what Kim Jong-un is planning next. Brian Todd explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): North Korea's 38-year-old supreme commander ramps up his aggression toward the West and missile capability, Kim Jong-un's regime has conducted what's believed to be its first test of intercontinental ballistic missile in more than four years. It flew for 71 minutes before splashing down off Japan's west coast. Analysts say this could be the longest-range missile ever test- fired by North Korea.

JEFFREY LEWIS, THE MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE: The missile traveled to more than 6,000 kilometers above the earth and if it had been fired on a normal trajectory, it would have gone more than 12,000 kilometers, enough to hit anywhere in the United States.

TODD (voice-over): North Korea announced that Kim, personally commanded the successful launch and that this was the Hwasong-17, first unveiled in the fall of 2020 at this military parade. And displayed again last fall, next to Kim on a red carpet, a larger, more ominous missile than anything he's tested before.

This is North Korea's 11th missile test this year, which came after an extended period when Kim had refrained from those launches. Experts say he could be getting more aggressive now to recapture some of America's attention from the war in Ukraine.

DEAN CHENG, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: He is reminding the United States. You should not ignore me. You should probably make concessions to me if you want me not to go even further.

TODD (voice-over): While the U.S. and South Korea are condemning the North Korean missile launch, the South Koreans went a step further, test firing their own missiles, specifically in response to the North Korean test. The first time they've done that in more than four years and making a point to say publicly what their missiles are designed to do.

KIM JOON-RAK, CHIEF OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SOUTH KOREAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF (through translator): We have the ability and readiness to accurately strike the origin of the missile launch as well as command and support facilities at any time when the north launches a missile.

TODD (voice-over): One analyst believes that counter firing is a dangerous move from South Korea.

LEWIS: Ultimately, what the South Koreans are signaling is that they are preempt Kim Jong-un. That they can kill him before he gives an order to retaliate.

[04:45:00]

And so, what that is going to do is it's going to push him to think about using those weapons earlier.

TODD: Another reason that analysts say tensions could ramp up in the coming months. This latest North Korean missile test comes just a couple of weeks after the election of a new South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol. He's expected to take a harder line against Kim Jung-un regime than the outgoing president Moon Jae-in.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: U.S. House Committee investigating the January 6th capitol riot has some explosive text messages they're revealing. They show the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginni, pleading with then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to keep fighting to overturn the 2020 election. In one exchange from November 2020 Thomas knows the majority knows Biden and the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history.

Another from days after the insurrection says: We are living through what feels like the end of America. Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in a listening mode to see where to fight with our teams.

So, when she says VP, she means Vice President Pence who refused to do anything that the insurrection supporters wanted him to do. Thomas recently revealed she attended the rally before the riot. But she says, she had no role in planning events that day. The text raises conflict of interest, questions of course since Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court have already heard and will likely hear more cases related to this investigation.

Now the prospect of an ugly rematch between Trump and President Biden in 2024 election makes many Americans shutter, of course. But Joe Biden doesn't seem bothered by the possibility. It actually came up during a Q&A at the NATO summit. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And so, I don't blame. I don't criticize anybody for asking that question. But the next election I'd be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: OK, that same man. The president was asked if he would be concerned about American foreign policy if someone else becomes president. Now you may recall, President Trump threatened to pull the U.S. from NATO during his time in office. Trump has not formally announced a bid for reelection but has openly hinted that he will indeed run again.

The climate crisis could result in of the world's seven natural wonders being added to an endangered list Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering its sixth mass bleaching due to heat stress. Stressful just to look at these pictures. The bleaching occurs when stressed coral ejects algae from within its tissue depriving it of a vital food source. Now if conditions don't improve, coral can starve and die turning white. Australia has been under pressure from environmentalists to do more to reduce carbon emissions and in turn save the reef.

Ukrainian refugees are finding ways to deal with the hardships of war. How a simple dance class is helping parents and children deal with trauma and loss. Up next.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEWTON: And this just in to CNN. The Russian defense ministry says it's taken out the largest remaining fuel depot used by the Ukrainian military. A spokesperson reports the depot was hit with a sea launched caliber cruise missile on Thursday night. He said the site supplied fuel to Ukrainian military units in the central part of the country. CNN has not been able to independently confirm that report.

In Romania some refugees are using dance as a distraction and a way to try and deal with the trauma of the war. CNN's Miguel Marquez talks to some of the parents and the children taking part in the comfort classes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dance therapy for Ukrainian moms and their children fleeing war.

MARQUEZ: How is the dancing, Yeagor (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Awesome.

MARQUEZ: You're a very good dancer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): But not exactly shy Yeagor Lutsak (ph), five and a half years old. He and his mom, Tatiana, are from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. Suffering indiscriminate Russian rocket and artillery attacks since the war's start.

MARQUEZ: How are you doing? How's he doing?

MARQUEZ (voice-over): "I'm playing soldiers," he says. His mom adds, "Yes, soldiers. He's always saying air raid."

MARQUEZ: If me and you were playing air raid now, how would we play?

MARQUEZ: "To show them how you play," she says.

"I'm shooting at a tank," he says. "Any tank I can hit." MARQUEZ: How do you explain what is happening in Ukraine?

MARQUEZ (voice-over): "He saw everything," she says. "And now, he's repeating it. I think he'll play regular games when this is over, and he calms down. Games like cars and trains."

"No, no," says Yeagor (ph). "It will be the same. I like it."

Yeagor (ph), his mom, and godmother are one of dozens of families being housed by Jesuit Refugee Service in the local children's cancer charity, Magic Association.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The mothers, we see they can be tough when they're with their children, but when they come and speak to us privately, they break down.

MARQUEZ: You are a very good dancer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Yelena and Sophia Orlova (ph), 7 years old, arrived days ago from Dnipro. Russian attacks have been pushing toward and hitting the strategic Dnipro region. The city's population, nearly a million.

Orlova and several of her relatives are now refugees, but not everyone.

"My son is 18 years old," she says. "He has an injured leg but wasn't allowed to cross the border."

[04:55:00]

"My son is in Ukraine." She can barely speak the words. Today's dance class, a welcome distraction.

"Today, this was a stress relief," she says. "For two days, we didn't eat or sleep, and we're grateful to relax."

The dance instructor, a refugee, too. He fled war in Cameroon.

"I want them to feel joy," he says, "because I know how it is to be in their places. It's very hard. It was very hard for me, too."

Sofia wanted to dance in Ukraine but was too young. Today, a bit of hope.

"My dream," she says, "came true."

A simple activity bringing comfort to moms and kids, refugees far from home.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Bucharest.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: They must feel some relief to be smiling as well. OK, if you would like to help people in Ukraine who may be in need shelter, food and water please go to CNN.com/impact. You will find several ways to help and so many have been so generous already.

All right, I want to thank you for keeping me company here. I'm Paula Newton. Stay tuned to "EARLY START" is up after a quick break.

And now want to leave you though with another lovely edition. This musical composition from a 9-year-old piano prodigy. This is I said his own composition written in hopes of sending a message of peace to Ukraine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END