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Mariupol Mayor Says, We Are In The Hands Of The Occupiers; Zelenskyy Says, Ukraine Read to Accept Neutral, Non-Nuclear States; White House Walks Back Biden's Remark That Putin Cannot Stay in Power. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 28, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

And new this morning, just in the last few minutes, in fact, the mayor of Mariupol in Southern Ukraine says, quote, we are in the hands of the occupiers, noting, quote, not everything is in our power. This as new video shows residents there returning to find piles of debris and ruins where their homes once stood. Mariupol has seen some of the fiercest fighting.

Overnight, Russian forces also struck in and around the capital, Kyiv. CNN teams there reported repeated explosions as Russia bombarded the capital as the Russian army is said to be working on creating corridors to surround the city, something they have failed to do so far.

Tomorrow, there is a new round of talks scheduled between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, says that he is ready to accept neutral non-nuclear status for his country in exchange for peace and a complete withdrawal of Russian forces.

Back here in Washington, President Biden clarifying his comments, just after his off-the-cuff remarks saying that Putin cannot stay in power in Russia.

We are following the latest in Ukraine as well as back here at home. CNN's John Berman, he is reporting from Lviv, Ukraine.

John, good morning to you there. It's interesting to watch these talks unfold beginning tomorrow, especially given, well, certainly no letting up with the Russian assault on Ukraine.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: No. No letting up at all. I think the shape of the attack on Ukraine has changed some. Still a very active ground war on the eastern part of the country and then this targeted air campaign that the Russians still seem to be trying to enact in the western part of the country where I am. In Lviv, there was an airstrike over the weekend. You can see smoke rising from that hill behind me. A missile slammed into a fuel storage depot there, at least five people were injured. Lviv, for the most part, has been spared from air assaults.

I do think that the most interesting development and perhaps most ominous development over the last few minutes though comes from Mariupol, the southern city on the Sea of Azov. And I want to bring in CNN Senior Correspondent Ed Lavandera.

And, Ed, we just saw that statement from the mayor of Mariupol saying that the city is now in the hands of the occupiers. Do we have any sense of exactly what that means?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what the mayor there is saying is describing what has turned and becoming an even more grim situation than we have already seen. Mariupol is a city of about 400,000 people. The mayor saying that he believes there are still about 160,000 people left inside that city and he talked a lot about the efforts to evacuate them, saying that evacuation is the key thing and the key issue that they are facing right now.

But the mayor also went on to say that attempts from bus drivers to be able to drive into that city has been thwarted by Russian forces. The mayor described Russian forces as essentially playing games with Ukrainian efforts to evacuate civilians from the city. And this is a city that has been besieged for weeks, an unknown number of civilian deaths and casualty in that city.

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So, clearly, what we're hearing from the mayor right now describes and captures a very grim situation and continues to be a very fearful situation for the civilians trapped inside that city.

BERMAN: Yes, Ed Lavandera for us. At one point, they were saying that there were bombs falling in that city every 10 to 15 minutes, trying to establish whether he was suggesting somehow that the Ukrainians are no longer in command or control of that city.

Jim Sciutto, back to you, but the mayor saying that the city in the arms of the occupiers, exactly what that means, Jim, I think we're going to find out over the next few hours.

SCIUTTO: We will have to see. We've seen some back and forth, Russians move in, they get pushed back again, but the fall of Mariupol would be significant in terms of Russian territorial gains in the south. John Berman in Lviv, thanks so much.

While Ukraine and Russia in the midst of the ongoing war will kick off a new round of talks tomorrow in the Istanbul.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon, she is there for us. Arwa, we've seen a lot of peace talks. To date, they've been meeting in Belarus along the border between Belarusia and Ukraine, and no progress, and the war has continued and civilians continue to be targeted. Do we believe that there's a different moment now in terms of these negotiations brokered by the Turkish president? ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the sense is that one may be able to be cautiously optimistic, keeping in mind though that it is, of course, all relative. And going into these meetings, most certainly at least from the Ukrainian side, the ultimate goal would be some sort of peace, at the very least, some sort of a cease-fire, the opening of real, concrete, multiple humanitarian corridors that would allow at least to a certain measure the easing of the burden on the civilian population that's been trapped across multiple locations in Ukraine.

But we have been hearing a number of indications that both sides are closer to what at best can perhaps be called something of a middle ground. And to that effect, take a listen to what Ukrainian President Zelenskyy had to say.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Security guarantees and on neutrality, the non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to pursue this. This is the most important point. This was the first point of principle for the Russian Federation as I recall. And as far as I remember, they started the war because of this.

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DAMON: And so, Jim, when he's talking there about the non-nuclear neutral status of Ukraine, what does this mean? Well, as a neutral country, should Ukraine actually, in fact, adopt that position, that would mean that it could not get involved in the third party conflict, which would effectively mean that, for the time being, at least, Ukraine would not be able to become a NATO member.

Keeping in mind too that crucial for the Ukrainians is that any sort of agreement, should one, in fact, arise out of this next round of talks, that it be more than ink on paper, that it be something that is actually concrete, tangible for those who have been suffering on the ground. And it is with a fair amount of skepticism though that Ukrainians are approaching these talks doubting what Russia's ultimate interest may, in fact, may be.

SCIUTTO: No question. So many issues still to be resolved. Arwa Damon in Istanbul, we'll stay on top of it. Thanks very much.

Joining me now, retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons as well as Steve Hall, he's the former CIA chief of Russia Operations. Good to have you both on this morning, gentlemen.

Steve, I wonder if I could to begin with you. We look at Russia in advance of this invasion. Putin doesn't even recognize Ukraine as an independent country, right? I mean, he views it as part of the Russian empire here but he suffered enormous military losses. Do you see the outlines, perhaps the necessity for Russia's perspective for some sort of peace agreement here or are you skeptical?

STEVE HALL, FORMER CIA CHIEF OF RUSSIA OPERATIONS: It is a bit of a balance, Jim, between the skepticism and the possibility that perhaps we're at a point sort of past the first chapter of this war where now perhaps the Russians are reevaluating, because, of course, as we all know, it hasn't gone quite as Vladimir Putin expected. It's been a lot harder and his troops have taken a lot more losses.

And so perhaps that is causing him to say, okay, yes, I went in saying we're going to do de-Nazification, I'm going to go after Kyiv and I'm going to decapitate the government. He didn't say exactly in those words but that was clearly the intent. Now, he's basically saying, well, no, wait a minute, that was all -- what I'm really a serious about is Donbas and the east.

So, is that a way that Putin is trying to construct for himself some sort of off-ramp, sort of face-saving device? Perhaps. And if that's the case, then that might be a good sign for Ukraine if what their primary focus is ending the conflict and the atrocities that are being inflicted upon them by the Russian army.

SCIUTTO: Major Lyons, big picture, what is the state of Russia's invasion? Do you see it as stalled just in the near term with the possibility of reinforcements and then a recommitment of forces there and moving forward, or do you see it stalled to some degree for good?

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MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Jim, I do see it stalled just in the near term. I do think that the Russian war machine continues to grind on. They can reinforce from the north in Belarus. They could likely reinforce also in the east. And they have tremendous capability and capacity. And the fact that we shouldn't believe anything they're saying about them trying to reconstitute, for example, in Chernobyl, taking troops offline from Kyiv and sending them there.

I think the Ukrainians have got to continue the guerilla warfare that they're doing, but they've got tremendous capacity. I don't think that we for a second think that they're stalled completely. They can crank the war machine up. They're willing to throw bodies and soldiers into the fodder and do whatever they can to win.

SCIUTTO: Yes, cannon -- I mean, they even used expression, cannon meat, Russians described how those forces.

But before I come back to you, Steve, in that vein then, if you believe that this is just a short-term pause, is the U.S. and NATO, are they providing enough military support to Ukraine to maintain that pressure on the Russian military?

LYONS: I think they are both in the cruise-serve weapons that they're difficult to get to them, the SA-300. Some of those systems, and we're talking over the weekend, possibly providing them tanks. It's just too difficult to try to get some of those larger weapons systems there. But the Javelins and the Stingers and the like, I think, are good.

But the other thing that the U.S. is providing is Intel and specifically where these units are on the ground that are giving those guerilla units a chance to go and kind of get them in the middle of the night, the artillery batteries and the like that are shelling in Kyiv and they're creating the tremendous damage to the cities there.

So, the intel is also part of it. That kind of soft power, I think, is really helpful to the Ukrainian military. Again, at the end of the day, Russia still has tremendous military force that they're going to use, but we can do what we can to supplement the guerilla war that Ukraine is fighting.

SCIUTTO: Steve, on President Biden's comments over the weekend, it strikes me that the Russian president says a lot of pretty remarkable and sometimes scary things, including rattling the nuclear saber, denying that Ukraine exists and so on. In your view, was President Biden's comment a mistake or a fair point?

HALL: I think it was a fair point, Jim. I mean, at least he didn't look at Vladimir Putin and say, I see into your eyes and now we need a reset, which is what a lot of former American presidents from both parties have done.

I mean, look, it is quite clear what Vladimir Putin has done, the atrocities that he's committed in Ukraine, his desire to take over other countries illegally that are in his area, for example, of course, part of Ukraine, Crimea is already gone. He attacked Georgia. He's done this before. What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that if we call it out for what it is, that things are, I don't know, somehow going to get worse or that there's going to be an increase, he's going to lean in further even to the Ukraine war or that Russians are going to think differently about the United States when Vladimir Putin controls all the information going to him? I can't see how it's really a downside.

SCIUTTO: Major Lyons, do you agree, I mean, from a military perspective? I understand, listen, everyone wants to keep this from rising quickly up the escalation ladder so that you have perhaps conflict between NATO and Russian forces, if not in Ukraine, then a missile goes astray, drops in Poland, et cetera. Are you concerned about striking fear unduly in the mind of Vladimir Putin?

LYONS: I am concerned. I was a little concerned about the comments the president made. I just don't think that kind of rhetoric should come from our leader. I think it's implied, let's say, but when it's stated like that, you saw how quickly the statements had to get walked back.

The bottom line is this situation is going to actually increase nuclear proliferation potentially throughout the world as they see Ukraine doesn't have nukes, the Russians are acting in a way that we never thought a nuclear power would act in this regard. So now, other countries, for example, North Korea, they are not giving up their nuclear weapons under any circumstances because it serves as a way to always be indefensible.

So, I think that we've got to try to turn down all the rhetoric there, get to a peace settlement, maybe in Mariupol. Maybe this will give Russia the off-ramp it needs to claim victory. Right now, they need to declare some kind of victory on the ground. SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, it's a great point about nuclear power, what the nuclear weapons. I mean, of course, Ukraine famously gave up its weapons in 1994 with the security guarantee which supplied by Russia, meant nothing. So, how do the folks calculate their needs?

Major Mike Lyons, Steve Hall, thanks so much to both of you.

Still to come this hour, as Ukrainian official warns that humanitarian aid to his country is waning, our next guest says that he will keep his pharmaceutical supply company going, quote, until we win or we die. How his company is helping from Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that's next.

Plus, we go live to the White House where officials continue to clarify those comments we were just discussing from President Biden, saying that the president was not calling for regime change in Russia.

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What happens next?

And the smack, the hit in the face, one adult to another that stole the Oscar show. Why some people say Will Smith should actually return his Oscar, later this hour.

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SCIUTTO: As Russian forces intensify their attacks across Ukraine, Ukraine's deputy health minister is calling on the world to step up, do more to help those in need before it becomes too late there, saying that humanitarian aid being sent to the war-torn nation is starting to fade.

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Joining me now is Dmytro Shymkiv. He is the CEO of one of Ukraine's largest pharmaceutical companies, previously served as deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration. Mr. Shymkiv, thank you for taking the time this morning.

DMYTRO SHYMKIV, FORMER DEPUTY HEAD OF UKRAINE'S PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE: Thank you very much for having me, Jim.

SCIUTTO: First of all, I want to talk about the security situation in Kyiv where you are and your company has its own bomb shelter, sheltering more than 100 people. What is the level of danger to the capital today? Has it retreated at all?

SHYMKIV: Well, as we speak now, there was a few minutes before we had this connection that was an announcement to the sirens to get to the shelter, and right now, I can hear the artillery on the background. So, we still have the shelling in some areas of Kyiv and it's been like this basically all the time. So, there's talking about the safety.

Of course, the dynamics of the safety in the city are different depending on which part of the city you are. At the same time, the risks and the control and the presence of risks for our employees is all over Kyiv. Nevertheless, we are getting used to these threats and continue to operate.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe that Russia is deliberately targeting, trying to kill civilians as part of its invasion?

SHYMKIV: Absolutely. Through the conversation that I had with the people who were being targeted, we talked to the folks who have been targeted when the Russian military was entering villages, they were shooting into the neighboring houses, they were robbing the houses, they were taking away phones, they were killing people, they asked people to dig the graves and then they kill them. There was raping reports of the women and everything is extremely ugly.

A couple of cars were trying to escape, and they were attacked by tanks and then snipers were shooting into people who tried to rescue those who remain in the car. All this has been happening in Ukraine not far from Kyiv.

SCIUTTO: And we've heard accounts of some of these humanitarian corridors even being targeted.

I want to ask you, as the war continues and as those kinds of attacks continue, you do have Ukrainian and Russian officials meeting in Istanbul tomorrow, do you believe that Russia is willing to make peace? Can it be trusted?

SHYMKIV: Well, in the nature of the diplomatic conversation, I would not do any comments on the negotiations, on the peace talks, though Ukraine has been a target of Russia since 2014, and the regular conversation since that time being many promises, very little fulfillment.

We see that aggression, a war against Ukraine started undeclared in the night shooting and targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure. So, that's why the level of trust to negotiations and the promises that could be given by the Russians are very low.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I do want to talk about the efforts you've been making, pharmaceutical company in particular. But, listen, this is a nation under assault. They need medicines. They need drugs. They also need other humanitarian aid. How are you managing to get this kind of stuff into the country?

SHYMKIV: Well, this is one of the challenges. As the biggest manufacturing company, you need to produce, you need to deliver, you need to maintain all the quality standards that exist in pharmaceutical industry. You need to maintain quality control, you need to make sure that it's delivered using special trucks and make sure they are delivered. And then especially if you want to get it delivered to the areas of the war zone, that requires engagement with drivers who are volunteering to go into the warzone, especially that they've been shelled.

We have seen this in trying to get to Mariupol. We have seen this in trying to get to Chernihiv, Kharkiv, other places. So, we have several -- actually, many successful cases where volunteers have been able to break through the roads and get actually under the shelling the necessary drugs to the hospitals. So, there is many patients, many doctors and many injured civilians and military who needs drugs.

And then on top of it, we have different distribution with people evacuating to the Western Ukraine, there is a different distribution of the population, so their demands have been shifted.

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And then you need to focus on the Western Ukraine, how you make sure there's enough shipments of the critical goods in manufacturing. And then you, of course, you need to ramp up manufacturing, ensure there is enough supplies, et cetera, and do have psychological conversation with your employees because when the sirens are on, when the bombs are on the distance, the motivation to work is not high.

At the same time, people are committed to work because it's -- people, our patients, our nation expect it from us. And I am very thankful to my employees who are motivated to do that.

SCIUTTO: During my time in Ukraine, I certainly witnessed Ukrainians taking enormous risks to help defend their country, both military and non-military civilians.

Dmytro Shymkiv, thanks so much for joining us and for the work you're doing there.

SHYMKIV: Thank you very much for having me.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, the former Ukrainian president who was poisoned, almost to the point of death, years ago, he says, by Russia, now says he's increasingly worried we may see a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine, and soon.

Stay with us.

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