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White House Insists Biden Not Calling For Regime Change In Russia; Russian Missiles Hit Lviv As Biden Visits Neighboring Poland; Interview With Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) About President Biden's Remarks In Poland; Biden: Putin Cannot Remain In Power; Reaction In Ukraine To Biden's Speech; Stars Show Support For Ukraine During Awards Season. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired March 26, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:01:01]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Our breaking news beginning this hour, Russian missiles exploding in Ukraine about an hour's drive away from NATO territory. And President Biden in Poland delivering a shot across Russia's bow aimed directly at Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: But the White House quickly put out a statement saying the president was not calling for a regime change.

CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now in Warsaw.

Phil, tell us a bit more about how the White House is clarifying things here.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, it was a dramatic statement at the tail end of a very dramatic speech laying out the stakes and the urgency of this moment but one that at least in the statement in and of itself would have seemed to imply a very dramatic shift in terms of White House policy related to regime change and President Vladimir Putin.

That is, however, not the case according to a White House official walking back that statement in a separate statement saying the president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors in the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia or regime change. Now it sounded like he was. The White House now making official that he wasn't.

What does seem to be pretty clear, Jim, it was an adlibbed line, but I think it's also worth noting here that the president's view of President Putin very publicly has grown increasingly dark. Called him a butcher earlier today, obviously has called him a war criminal. The United States is now supporting the contention that Russia has committed war crimes.

There's no love lost here when it comes to President Biden and President Putin, and that has been very clear. The president seeming to take it a little bit further in his remarks today. The White House saying that's not the case. This is not a policy shift.

I think trying to drive the focus back to his speech that really underscored the challenges of what's happening right now and was supposed to serve and did serve as the capstone of the president's multi-day trip to Europe which included a stop in Brussels, also in Poland, meeting with refugees, meeting with leaders.

And more than anything else trying to rally Western democracies to the challenge of this moment and the challenge that according to the president tonight is going to be one they will be dealing with for months and years ahead.

ACOSTA: And the president also put Putin on notice, not to make one move on any inch on NATO territory. Phil Mattingly, thank you very much there in Warsaw. We appreciate it.

We're also following the breaking news a fuel shortage facility was hit -- a storage facility was hit by Russian missiles today in western Ukraine while President Biden was just across the border in Poland.

CNN's Don Lemon and John Berman are in Lviv where the strikes happened and they join me now.

You guys were both on the ground there and heard all of this and saw much of it as it was unfolding. Tell us what you saw.

John, let me go to you, first.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, look, President Biden said -- warned Russia not to touch one inch of NATO territory. But it does seem that Russia came pretty close today, right.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: Lviv, the western most major city in Ukraine, and there were multiple strikes here on this city. Let me play you the sounds of the blast as it happened. We heard an air raid siren. And if you listen closely to this, you will hear three bangs. Listen in.

And then we saw smoke rising from behind that hill. And that's when CNN's Don Lemon raced to the scene and got there while this fuel storage facility was on fire.

LEMON: Yes, first, the air raid siren, then the strikes that you witnessed from out here, in your vantage point, and that we heard here at our facility and then as you said raced to the scene. It was chaos. By the time we got there, there were -- police and officials were arriving at the scene and moving people around.

[15:05:05] The firefighters were there pretty early on. And there you see it on your screen, the plumes of smoke and that fire just really all of it billowing out of these tanks. We were told by officials on the scene, firefighters on the scene, that it was diesel. That's according to them. They were putting, obviously, a retardant on, not water on this. But you could smell it in the air as you got there.

We can smell it now. It smells like chemicals burning, like gas or diesel burning. I can't even count the number of firefighters that were on the scene. It was very close to a residential neighborhood. I mean, you know, it was maybe a block. There was a neighborhood block, a street, then a wall, like a berm, right, and retention sort of wall, and a wall to keep people out of the facility and then the facility.

And then on the other side of the facility, a couple hundred feet, you had those tanks. Now, according to officials here, they believe at least those rockets hit two of the targets, or at least two rockets they're saying. And then there was a third that hit another facility later that you have more information about. But this one was pretty frightening. I mean, look how big that fire is. And it is still going.

We can still see the orange glow in the sky right now, and it is dark. We can see it just over the hill behind us.

But, John, very close to the city center. This is in Lviv, the western -- biggest western city in Ukraine, which had been fairly safe. And as you and I both got here at the same time, on the same day together, you know, life day after day had been becoming more normal, it appeared, and then all of a sudden this.

BERMAN: Yes, and you can see on the map there how close it is to the Polish border. The city of course, the transit point for millions of Ukrainian refugees as they leave the country and it's swollen really with people here who are in transit or coming here for safety.

After this strike, and you're looking at that right there, there was another series of explosions about I think 90 minutes later. And the mayor of Lviv put out a statement saying some kind of additional infrastructure facility was hit. We frankly don't know what it is.

They haven't released details on it. But he said that no residential area was hit there. This does cut both ways when you see how close that was to houses there. This does show the Russians still have enough precision weapons to strike specific targets.

LEMON: Or they were lucky.

BERMAN: I can't imagine they were lucky in this case.

LEMON: Hit as far as it is.

BERMAN: To hit that fuel facility as clearly as they did and not hit surrounding areas. That was clearly the target because they've targeted other fuel facilities all over the country as well.

LEMON: Yes. BERMAN: But it is interesting, Don.

LEMON: We're getting word, too, John, that the mayor of Lviv is going to speak and we'll get his information on the air as soon as he speaks about this. But we're told that he's going to give a statement shortly to talk about what this is. But you mentioned, I interviewed the mayor a couple -- two or three days ago and he talked about the city.

You see I think it's 720,000, somewhere, 728,000, he said a million people plus 200,000 additional people, more than 200,000 additional people who have come here from other parts of the country, parts of the country that had been under bombardment, really heavy bombardment.

And they thought that there was relative safety here, but many of them were worried that this could actually happen, that it could actually -- this could happen or it could get worse. So they went across the Polish border and they got out of the Ukraine.

BERMAN: And we've been asking the question, we don't have a definite answer but we have been asking the question, could it be a coincidence really that the Russians decided to strike this city close to the border within a few hours when President Biden was speaking over the border in Poland when they know, the Russians know the TV cameras are here.

LEMON: The more I think about it, because you raised the prospect of that when I was out there covering this, I think you're right. I think that the strong possibility. And I mean, what are the odds that they would do it when, you know, on a city, in an area that had been fairly quiet? When we first got here, those air raid sirens would go off every couple of hours, right? And then they slowed.

I also posed the question to the mayor about the frequency of the air raid sirens, and if people would become immune to them and just start ignoring them and that when the real thing happened that no one would take shelter in the bomb shelters, and he said that was a real concern. They had stopped for a while. I think we had one yesterday maybe and then the one this morning was actually the real deal.

BERMAN: Well, people are going to pay attention now.

LEMON: Yes.

BERMAN: Now it's very real. The war very much in this city, Don. We'll talk about this coming up. Clearly, you know, even with the president's speech across the border here, a lot going on still inside this country. CNN's special live coverage continues right after this.

ACOSTA: John and Don, I'll take it from here. Thank you so much, gentlemen. We appreciate that.

And with me now is Oleksiy Goncharenko. He is a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

Oleksiy, thank you so much for joining us. Let me get your response to President Biden's speech in that last hour. Do you think he went far enough in reassuring the Ukrainian people? And what did you make of his warnings to Vladimir Putin?

[15:10:10]

OLEKSIY GONCHARENKO, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: The speech was strong, passionate, so I liked the speech. But what I think should be more in the speech is some precise details of what will be done in support of Ukraine. I mean, I would be happy to hear about air defense systems or finally the decision about aircraft, Polish aircraft, because it's Poland. This old Soviet MiG-29 which Ukraine is so desperately waiting for.

That would be for me a very strong signal. Unfortunately I haven't heard this, and this is important because for Ukraine now we want more details, we want some concrete things. We know that we are fighting for freedom and for the good of the whole world against evil, yes.

But we want to know that we will be weaponed, because now some of our people are coming against chance with more difficult (INAUDIBLE), and Russians they're using the sky to attack us with missiles like in Lviv. Like you showed just now. All maternity houses or hospitals or schools in our country are attacked from the skies, so we desperately need air defense and aircraft.

ACOSTA: And Alex, you toured the city of Chernihiv, a city whose population is less than half of what it was before Russia invaded. The mayor says the city is surrounded and there have been direct hits on hospitals. Tell us what you're seeing there and what you have seen there.

GONCHARENKO: Yes. You heard about Mariupol. Today President Biden mentioned this city. And it's awful what's happening there. It's almost destroyed, devastation, but Chernihiv is another example of these Putin's tactics of terror against people. The city is almost blocked. The last breach which connected Chernihiv to all other Ukraine was bombed just days ago, and their only pedestrian bridge from the city is bombed every day by Russian mortars.

And this is the corridor for people to leave, so it's a humanitarian corridor. But nevertheless, Russians are taking it with more turfs. People for 10 days already are without electricity, without centralize water, without heating, almost without gas. And certainly the supplies are also short, so that is the awful situation for more than 100,000 people who left there. And Putin is just trying to take these people, the population of Chernihiv in hostages.

ACOSTA: And Alex, I have to ask you, I mean, we were just showing some video of you, I believe we're showing it right now. Some of the video that you were capturing there in Chernihiv. Tell the American people if you can what is it that the Ukrainian people need most of all at this point?

You just heard from President Biden a short while ago. If you could communicate directly with the White House, what would you say to the American government in terms of what your country needs right now and what areas like Chernihiv need right now? GONCHARENKO: We need air defense include in (INAUDIBLE). Not a hand

defense but a really serious air defense systems. And the United States and its allies have these systems. We need aircraft, even these old Soviet Polish aircraft. But also we need them. We need trucks as much as possible because a lot of cars and trucks in the country are destroyed, especially in the army, and we need them desperately.

And also we need sanctions against Russian federation. For example, embargo for Russian ships to come to American ports, all SWIFT. It was said that Russia is cut off from SWIFT. But in reality it is not because only seven Russian banks which makes 15 percent of Russian financial system is cut off. But everything else is operational, and that means that Russia is inside international financial system.

That should be stopped immediately because what we need to do just not to give Putin an opportunity to afford this war because in the other case, we will have the third world war.

ACOSTA: And CNN spoke to a family who fled Chernihiv. And here's how they described their escape there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDRIY, ESCAPED CHERNIHIV: I woke up in road. I see the broken car. I see my mother going in the fire. My mother was -- (speaking foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And my mother was still alive while she was on fire.

ANDRIY: (speaking foreign language)

[15:15:08]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She died, she died at that location and she was still alive. She got the fire -- well, my clothes got the fire and she just burned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Alex, it's so awful to hear these stories. That young man was just talking about his mother who was burned alive. What is your response to Vladimir Putin and the Russians who continue to carry out these kinds of war crimes? It's just -- it's despicable. It's disgraceful.

GONCHARENKO: Absolutely. President Biden told today that Putin is a butcher and he's a war crime. That absolutely for sure. But I want to tell you that's not only Putin is butcher and war crime. Russian soldiers (INAUDIBLE) squad doing things like this, who are raping our women, who are bombing our hospitals. They know what they're doing exactly like in Mariupol in this dramatic theater where people had a shelter.

There was great letters, children written in Russian, and it was seen from satellite even so Russian pilot who was bombing it, he knew definitely what he was doing. So Russians are responsible for what Putin is doing now. Russian society is responsible for this dictator. It should be absolutely clear. And if they have dignity inside them, if they have any humanity inside them, they need to stop it now.

ACOSTA: And the White House is saying that when President Biden was saying earlier that Putin cannot remain in power, the White House quickly clarified and said we're not talking about regime change. Would you like to see the American government officially call for regime change in Russia?

GONCHARENKO: Absolutely. If we are saying that he is a war crime, how could be a regime handed by war crime? I just can tell you that I want not only to see regime changed, I want to see Putin dead, and I hope there will be a coup de tat in Russia, because for the Russian society so speechless and -- sorry, but it's also slavery. That I believe that only coup de tat of some people who are around Putin can change the situation so they can kill him like one of three Russian emperors in history who were killed.

And I think that's something that should happen with Putin to stop this awful situation. And also I want to remind you that Putin started to threaten the world with a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapon. So it's the danger for any person living as a human being on this planet.

ACOSTA: All right, Oleksiy Goncharenko, thank you very much for being with us. We appreciate it.

GONCHARENKO: Thank you.

ACOSTA: And still to come, President Biden says Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power. The White House clarifying those remarks. Senator Bob Casey who sits on the Intelligence Committee joins me live next. We'll talk to him about all of this.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:18]

ACOSTA: President Biden just over an hour ago seemed to deliver an unexpected ultimatum saying Russia's Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power. That declaration closed out his fiery speech in Warsaw, Poland, but less than an hour later the White House clarified those remarks saying the president was not discussing Putin's power in Russia or a regime change.

I want to bring in Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator, let me ask you a little bit about what the president said during that speech when he said that Putin cannot remain in power. A lot of people interpreted that right away to mean he's calling for regime change. I know from covering this at the White House for, you know, eight years, you know, that can be an escalation on how the administration views a foreign government when you outright call for a regime change.

But the fact that the White House is clarifying this to some extent doesn't take away the significance, I don't think, of what the president said. He really took a shot at Putin there.

SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): Well, Jim, I guess I didn't read it in that fashion. I think the expression at the end of his speech was really just a further reiteration of his solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and the security assistance we're providing them, the great work that the president has done to rally the world against a murderous dictator.

I think the speech overall was a very, very strong speech. It expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine. It expressed gratitude for the generosity of the Polish people. It was a very clear reaffirmation of our NATO Article Five commitments when he talked again about protecting every inch of NATO territory.

I think it was also a good message to the Russian people, a truthful message, an accurate message about what Vladimir Putin is not only doing to the people of Ukraine, but what he's doing to the people of Russia destroying their economy as he tries to destroy Ukraine.

Lastly, Jim, I'd say that the speech was a marked contrast from what we saw in July of 2018 in Helsinki, Finland, when President Trump was not only showing deference to Putin, he was genuflecting to him, throwing our intelligence community under the bus. Trump genuflect. I think President Biden once again confronted Putin, condemned him, as he's done over months, rallied the world against him.

ACOSTA: And Senator, the president also spoke directly to the Russian people, or at least he attempted to, saying he does not view them as the enemy of the United States. How does that message penetrate or what can the U.S. government do to get those kinds of messages inside and breaking through Putin's, you know, firewall of propaganda?

[15:25:08]

That is -- that's going to be difficult for all Russian people to even hear what President Biden had to say today.

CASEY: No question, Jim, that it's difficult. But I think we have to use every tool at our disposal. One of those is when a president has a microphone on the world stage, as President Biden did today, and has on most days. We have to use that opportunity, and he did. But also every opportunity we have in Congress and in different agencies like the State Department to get a message to the Russian people. And I would hope -- I would hope that the social media platforms will help us do that over and over again.

I think, Jim, though, in the end maybe the way that the word gets to the Russian people most directly are the consequences, the casualties of this war. We're seeing horrific numbers of loss of life among Russian soldiers.

And in the end, that may be the way that this war gets through to the Russian people that this was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion of a sovereign country by a murderous dictator who has no regard for human life, and apparently by his actions, no regard for the lives of Russians who are being crushed because of the sanctions imposed on their government, their country, by a united front across the world.

ACOSTA: Let me ask you about the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who ruled on 2020 election cases as his wife, Ginni Thomas, was texting with then-White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, urging Meadows to continue to push to overturn the election. And then on Trump White House communications, you know, he's the only Supreme Court justice who wanted to block the documents from the January 6th Select Committee.

Some Democrats are now calling for Justice Thomas to resign or even be impeached or at the very least recuse himself when it comes to these kinds of cases. Where do you stand on all of this?

CASEY: But, Jim, I think at a minimum I hope that Chief Justice Roberts would speak directly to Justice Thomas about the -- at a minimum recusal. One of the problems here is the Supreme Court doesn't have much in the way of rules.

One of the things the Democrats have tried to do in Congress for years is not just impose greater efforts for constraints on members of Congress and to impose reforms upon the legislative branch, but the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court itself, has very little by way of rules that govern their conduct.

And that's one of the unfortunate parts about this is where you have questions raised about the spouse of a justice and political engagement, and yet almost no rules that govern the conduct. But I hope that the Supreme Court as an institution would take action and in this case and in other cases impose clear lines of ethical boundaries that they don't seem to have by way of hard and fast rules right now.

ACOSTA: But very quickly, Senator Casey, do you think it was appropriate for Justice Thomas to have been participating in cases regarding the 2020 election while his wife was sending text messages to the White House chief of staff urging the Trump team to continue pressing forward with their quest to overturn the election results?

I mean, that is not -- that is hardly following a constitutional process, and here you have Justice Thomas at the same time sitting on the Supreme Court deciding -- helping to decide some of these cases. Is that appropriate?

CASEY: I don't know how you can sit in judgment on a case -- part of the determination in least one of those cases was whether or not there'd be disclosure of information or documents. One of those pieces of information, of course, would be text messages. I don't know how you can sit on a case and not at a minimum, at a minimum disclose either a conflict or the perception of a conflict.

That's -- lawyers are always taught that it's one thing to have a conflict of interest, it's another thing to even have the perception of a conflict that can taint or undermine the determination that you make as a judge or a justice. So at a minimum there should've been if not recusal, there should've been disclosure.

ACOSTA: All right, Senator Bob Casey. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.

CASEY: Thanks, Jim.

[15:30:00]

ACOSTA: And up next, the military implications of Russia hitting Lviv in western Ukraine near Poland, which, of course, is a NATO country. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Before today's flamethrower of a speech in Warsaw during which President Biden forcefully declared that Vladimir Putin should no longer be Russia's leader, Biden met with Ukrainians who fled their homes out of fear.

It was a stirring moment as he was speaking with those Ukrainian refugees.

A mere 250 miles away, just across the border and in broad daylight, Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian city of Lviv right on NATO's doorstep.

And I want to bring in CNN military analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

[15:35:00]

Colonel Leighton, you know, almost immediately, people were wondering whether Putin or the Russians were trying to send a message to the Americans, that they can strike where they want to at any given moment.

What was your thought when you saw that?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I definitely thought, Jim, this was a case where the Russians decided we were going to send a message not only to President Biden but to the Poles and all of NATO that we can strike without impunity anywhere in Ukraine.

So if you try to resupply the Ukrainians, that's going to be something where we are going to try to cut off those supplies to the Ukrainian forces.

And with the way they did this, it clearly indicates that they have a precision-strike capability and they will use it on occasion.

ACOSTA: Yes, and hitting a fuel storage facility, obviously, that creates a huge spectacularly in that area.

There are a lot of questions about Russia's military strategy now that a top general has said the Donbass region has been the prize all along, and that the cities that are being encircled are almost a diversion.

So why strike Lviv is one question.

But the other question I have is, shouldn't we be watching what the Russians do instead of what they say at this point? I mean, why give any credibility to anything that's flying out of Moscow these days?

LEIGHTON: Absolutely. Well, take it with five grains of salt.

When they start saying these kinds of things, you realize that every single thing that they have said so far, whether it's from Putin or one of the generals, has been contradicted by the actual facts on the ground.

You don't put thousands of troops in a position where they are poised to strike at Kyiv or Kharkiv or any of the other cities if you don't want that to be a key target.

You can do a faint, make false moves and things like that, but this was more than a faint. This was something where they clearly wanted to topple the Ukrainian regime.

They still want to do that. That's still their overall objective. We shouldn't be fooled by anything these generals say.

But what is happening now is they're looking at what happened and moving back. They're saying, OK, we can only achieve this much. We'll be lucky if we get the Donbass.

And that's why they made these statements the way they have.

ACOSTA: It's hard to attach any credibility to what they're saying these days.

Biden, earlier today, said Putin cannot remain in power. That got everybody's attention, obviously.

What do you think the fallout will be from those kinds of remarks?

The White House was obviously saying that that does not amount to regime change.

But as you know, having been involved in these kinds of issues for so many years, I mean, the White House and the American government declaring they have a new policy of regime change in Russia, that significantly escalates things.

And it seems, to me, maybe the president was just going old school here and just calling Putin out that he shouldn't be the leader of Russia anymore.

LEIGHTON: Yes. And a lot of Americans feel that way. I think they believe that Putin should not be the leader of Russia.

The problem is, if you're the president of the United States and you say something like that, it means that there's some orders that are flown from the Pentagon -- or at least that's what the Russians think -- that the military is getting ready to do something. And I don't think that's the case.

But what is the case is that, all of a sudden, from a diplomatic standpoint, and also from a Russian military reaction standpoint, they're going to look for a move from the United States or NATO that would signify some kind of a regime change effort.

And of course, it probably won't be forthcoming in a direct way.

But I think what Biden meant to say was, Russian people, it's your turn to do something that is right. And in the eyes of history, and that would be to change the regime this Moscow.

ACOSTA: We heard from a Ukrainian parliament member a short while ago saying the same thing. That's what he and a lot of -- I would argue probably all Ukrainians would like to see immediately and that is Vladimir Putin to leave the scene.

Colonel Leighton, great to see you. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: You bet you.

#: Coming up, we're live on the ground in the Ukrainian capital with the reaction to President Biden's flamethrower of a speech. That's next. We'll have more in just a few moments.

[15:39:18]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: President Biden wrapping up a major speech in Warsaw, Poland, a short time ago. It wasn't far from the Ukrainian border in the city of Lviv where Russian missiles struck and exploded just beforehand.

Biden said Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, quote, "cannot remain in power." The White House, though, looking to clarify that remark, saying that the president was not calling for a regime change.

I want to bring in CNN's Fred Pleitgen who is in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

I know it's late there, Fred, and they've got a lot of other things on their plate these days in Ukraine. But any reaction to the president's speech that you're picking up?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No official reaction so far.

But some of the things we've been hearing from folks on the ground here throughout today and the past days as well is, of course, they are very grateful for the support the Ukrainians are getting from the United States. Certainly, especially here around Kyiv where you have seen Ukrainian forces, Jim, push the Russian forces back over the past couple of days.

Of course, that's, in large part, thanks to the fact they have these defensive weapons, like, for instance, the Javelins and also the anti- aircraft weapons they've gotten from the United States as well.

[15:45:03]

In fact, if you look on the ground here in Kyiv, right now, as I'm speaking to you, there's a lot of shelling going on. There seems to be a fierce battle going on, on the outskirts of Kyiv.

But we were going on around the city today. And thanks to the fact that the Ukrainians have these weapons, in large part, and also the way they're using them and the fact they're using their own weapons, you can see on the ground here, in the capital at least, people seem to have become a little more secure.

There's more traffic. More people are coming out as they just have that more room to breathe.

You can see, in the video, a checkpoint that we filmed today. Obviously, this city still very much on a war footing, still very much prepared to confront the Russians should they try to enter the city.

But right now, you see folks who are coming out. Still very quiet on the streets. However, certainly does seem to be a lot more relaxed than it was half a week ago or even a couple days ago.

We also saw these territorial defense forces still preparing Molotov cocktails in case they have to face the Russians. But right now, they feel things are going better.

I spoke to some of them. And they told me about the mood in the city since things have been going better for them. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All businesses are returning to work. We're more and more shops are open every day. You can see even, you know, even traffic is becoming much more dense than two or three days ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is strong citizens. We defended a lot because this is the capital. This is logical that they would try to attack us more once again and again.

PLEITGEN: But you will win?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, no doubt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So Ukrainians certainly saying they believe there could be another Russian attack coming. Nevertheless, of course, folks in the city, as across the country,

watching the speech President Biden gave very closely.

While on the one hand, they say they need more weapons, they want more, they wanted that no-fly zone. That's obviously something that's not going to happen.

They certainly are grateful for the support they're getting from the U.S. and the way that the U.S. especially has united the West -- Jim?

ACOSTA: No question about it.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much.

Much more on our breaking news after the break.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:52:05]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SHOUTING)

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Red carpet glamour, and a world away from the war in Ukraine.

BRIAN COX, ACTOR: Really, really awful what's happening.

ELAM: But Hollywood isn't ignoring the humanitarian crisis this awards season.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTOR: We're getting a great lesson and reminder about what true democracies are about.

ELAM: Heavy hitters like Michael Douglas and Lin Manuel Miranda showing their support for the blue and yellow while on the red carpet.

(SINGING)

ELAM: And at least one star protesting in the street.

JAVIER BARDEM, BEST ACTOR NOMINEE: In my humble opinion, it's better to support the idea of a peaceful resolution.

ELAM: Best-Actor Nominee Javier Bardem telling CNN he joined protesters at Madrid's Russian Embassy to demonstrate his support outside of Hollywood.

BARDEM: It's very delicate to say anything when you are having a beautiful, safe life and a safe environment.

ELAM: Set to present at the Oscars is Ukrainian-born actress, Mila Kunis. MILA KUNIS, ACTRESS: Today, I have never been more proud to be a Ukrainian.

ELAM: She and husband, Ashton Kutcher, have raised $30 million for Ukrainian refugees.

KUNIS: This is just the beginning to a very, very, very long journey.

ELAM: With widespread support for Ukraine, insiders say this Academy Awards will likely be different from the Trump years, when the politics were more divisive.

MATTHEW BELLONI, FOUNDING PARTNER, PUCK NEWS: If the stars get up and start talking about Ukraine, it might be a way for people to rally behind them. That the politics element of the show won't be divisive. It will be uniting.

COX: The president of Ukraine was a comic. You know, he was a wonderful comic performer.

ELAM: "Succession" star, Brian Cox, with the most dramatic speech so far at the Screen Actor Guilds Awards, calling for support of Russian artists who are at risk if they condemn the war.

COX: And I think we should really join in celebrating them and hoping that they can actually make a shift, as I believe they can.

(APPLAUSE)

ELAM (on camera): But the Oscars won't be all serious, with three comedians hosting, Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall.

Producer Will Packard telling "Vanity Fair," quote, "I want this to be an escape."

In Hollywood, I'm Stephanie Elam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Ukrainians are now four weeks into their attack on Ukraine. A "CNN Heroes" tribute to the tune John Legend's "Never Break."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came to volunteer because we know that it's our home here.

(SINGING)

[15:55:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a full-fledged war. And in a very difficult situation, we will resist and we will continue to resist.

(SINGING) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translation):

Because our weapon is truth, and out truth is that this is our land, our country. This what I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine!

(SINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)