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U.S. Intel Shows Russia Moving Some Forces Away From Kyiv in Major Strategy Shift; Ukraine Says There Was Progress in Latest Talks With Russia; Now, Biden Holds Call With European Allies on War in Ukraine. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 29, 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 NEWSROOM: Good morning, I'm Jim Sciutto.

Major breaking news this morning, Russia shifting its strategy in Ukraine. U.S. officials tell me that the Russian military is already starting to withdraw some troops from around the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv. The U.S. has observed some of Russia's premier combat fighting units leave the area. This as Moscow claims the main task of what it is called a special military operation than an invasion has been completed.

This morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirms that Moscow will now, quote, drastically reduce military activity in Kyiv as well as in Chernihiv, just to the northeast of there. The Russian deputy minister of defense says its military will soon announce more on reducing hostilities.

All of this comes as Ukrainian officials call the latest round of peace negotiations with Russia, and this is unusual, they call them, quote, constructive.

CNN's John Berman in Lviv, in Western Ukraine, CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon is in Istanbul where those talks are taking place.

John, first, to you, as a sign, and we were just talking about this, the war is not over there. People are still under threat. You've been hearing air raid sirens in Lviv. That happens when missiles are coming.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I know it's a sound you're quite familiar with here, Jim. The air raid sirens did just go off. People have been told to take shelter. This has been happening periodically every day. We get two or three of them. Over the weekend, there was a strike. It was just past that hill behind me. So, people take it very seriously and this goes to show, whatever progress, whatever constructive talks might be made, this is a country still very much at war and still very concerned about the possibility of a new Russian round of attacks. Now, Jim, you have your reporting from intelligence officials, senior U.S. intelligence officials saying they're seeing evidence that the Russians are withdrawing from around Kyiv and Chernihiv, that city to the northeast of Kyiv. I had a chance to speak Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby earlier this morning, and it was before the reports of the talks in Istanbul were released. But he said that the military too has seen clearly the Russian military advance on Kyiv is stalled. Listen to how he described it.

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JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We have seen over the last few days that the Russians stopped advancing on Kyiv. They certainly were trying to encircle it, couldn't do it, got pushed back to the east by some 55 kilometers by the Ukrainians and then dug in sort of in defensive positions to the north and northwest of Kyiv. Certainly, they've got reprioritization in the east and they have stalled in the south. That's really interesting, because in the early days, that's where they were making the most progress. Now, the Ukrainians clawing back territory in the south as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, you hear it there from John Kirby, Jim, you've heard it in your own reporting. This notable shift in the military positions, in the military situation around these crucial key cities, especially around Kyiv. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. And we should note, this is not because they found God, it's because in the U.S. view, they had such tremendous losses and were not able to make the gains they had hoped for.

Arwa Damon, she's in Istanbul where diplomatic negotiations are going on. The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, says there's been progress. And this, as you know, Arwa, this is unusual because we've seen a lot of talks in recent weeks that have gone nowhere. What exactly is the progress that you can see there?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, let's (INAUDIBLE) this by saying that the bar for progress is fairly low, but that being said, any sort of progress is most certainly a welcome development.

Now, what we do know from the Ukrainian side is key issues such as the fate of Crimea, of course, as we now know well, annexed by Russia back in 2014, that the Ukrainians are proposing to table for 15 years during which there will be bilateral talks.

[10:05:09]

The Ukrainians have also, as we have been hearing, talking about accepting Ukraine having a non-nuclear neutral status. This would, of course, mean that any sort of NATO membership would be off the table for the foreseeable future.

Now, the Ukrainians have also made a number of other proposals that now, as far as we can understand, the Russians are going to be taking back to their side for further negotiations.

When it comes to something that is very key for Ukraine, and this is not part of what Ukraine is negotiating with Russia but rather what Ukraine is negotiating with western countries, plus Turkey, and that is Ukraine's warranted security guarantee. What Ukraine wants to see from these guarantor countries is an agreement that is similar to what NATO countries have among themselves, which, to simplify it, would basically have a mechanism in place that should Ukraine down the line, in the future, be attacked, these guarantor countries would then come to Ukraine's defense, its land defense, the defense of its airspaces.

Now, this is where this could all potentially get extremely tricky, because which countries are going to actually step forward and be willing to act as these guarantors and how much will Ukraine actually be able to rely on that? So, there's still so many hurdles before this actually moves forward to a phase that the Ukrainians mentioned, yes, they could potentially see the presidents of both sides sit down face- to-face.

And then, of course, you have another key issue that was discussed, Jim, and that is of a humanitarian cease-fire, although, there was no concrete agreement on that just yet.

SCIUTTO: No question. And, listen, through all of this, we'll remember Russia has broken security guarantees to Ukraine before, going back to 1994, when it gave up its nuclear weapons. What's going to prove they stick to agreements now?

Arwa Damon in Istanbul, John Berman in Lviv, Western Ukraine, thanks so much to both of you.

Right now, President Biden is discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine with key European allies, this as I'm told that the U.S. intel assessment is that Russia, having faced so many obstacles, is now pulling back some of its forces around the north to focus on the east and the south.

Jeremy Diamond is at the White House. So, Jeremy, do we know the content of these conversations and is Russia's potential retreat in Ukraine part of that discussion?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly could be, Jim. All we know officially is that the topic of this phone call between President Biden and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, is that they are discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the latest on the ground there.

Of course, President Biden just got back a couple of days ago from a meeting with many of these leaders in Brussels for this extraordinary NATO summit that was held over there. And all of these countries, of course, have been involved not only in supporting Ukraine with military, economic and humanitarian assistance but they've also been involved in pushing back on Russia and in leading the global effort to sanction Russian oligarchs and Russian companies, as well as the Russian state itself for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We also know that President Biden, while he was in Europe, announced this joint task force between the U.S. and transatlantic officials to help wean Europe off of Russian oil and natural gas over the next year or so. And, of course, this phone call is happening as we are seeing these signs of progress that you were just discussing between the Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul, Turkey.

All of this could be potentially on the agenda right now, but this is the first call between President Biden and these key European and NATO leaders since he returned from that crucial trip to Europe this past weekend.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy Diamond at the White House, thanks so much.

Joining me now to discuss, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, she's member of the Armed Services Committee. She's also the author of the book, Every Day is a Gift, A Memoir, a remarkable, personal story here. It's on Paperback today. Senator, thanks for taking the time this morning.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): It's good to be on. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: First, I want to discuss Ukraine, if we can, because there's a combination of events today, our new reporting about evidence of Russian pullback, even the Russians saying that they've completed what they wanted to do in the north, that we know that there might be some CYN involved there. When you look at developments, as well as developments in negotiations in Istanbul, do you see a turning point in this war?

DUCKWORTH: I see the start of something, but the start of some sort of an agreement really begins with the heroic efforts of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military, and pushing the Russians out of Kyiv and really pushing them away from all of the goals that they attempted to achieve and could not. So, I do think that Ukraine is in a good negotiating position, much better than they would be had they not been able to push the Russians out of Kyiv.

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SCIUTTO: Yes, tremendous bravery. And, by the way, some former American service members like yourself who have gone to join the fight there, we met some of them when we were in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, you signed on to a bipartisan letter that urged the Biden administration to expedite sales with of military equipments, including M-182 tanks to Poland as part of this effort to shore up the eastern NATO allies. We're also learning this morning the Defense Department is stepping up production of those shoulder-fired missiles we've seen so much on the ground in Ukraine, Javelins and Stingers. Do you think the U.S. is doing enough today to both help Ukraine defend itself and defend the east of NATO?

DUCKWORTH: I think we're doing everything possible for Ukraine in terms of sending in as much equipment as they need. They need those Javelins. They need those Stingers. They need those S-300s, which are the SA-10s and SA-12s, which are not American made but we're getting those from our NATO allies. I'm very proud that for the last year, the Illinois National Guard, 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, was in Ukraine, help train the Ukrainians.

And, yes, we need to do more to make sure we provide Poland with everything that they need. They are on the frontlines in terms of NATO of this fight and they've done a remarkable job.

SCIUTTO: It's great point you make there, that there was U.S.-NATO training of Ukrainian forces in the years leading up to this and we may see some of the benefits of that.

If it is true, and I always inject elements of skepticism here with Russian public pronouncements but also the possibility that facts on the ground can change in war, but if it is true that Russia is pulling back from its grand designs on taking over all of Ukraine, is it possible that the U.S. and NATO got the balance right here, of arming Ukraine while avoiding a shooting war with Russia?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I think that it was important to avoid a shooting war with Russia where its U.S. forces on Russian forces. That could have led to significant escalation. I think that what we did right, what the Biden administration did right, was to inform NATO allies to pull all NATO allies together, to inform the word what Russia was planning to do, even before they did it, and to get all of the resources into Ukraine that Ukrainians needed.

It's not over yet. The Russians are still firing and killing innocent civilians. They're still bombarding without any discretion. And so we need to continue the fight, we need to continue to push to send as much resources to the Ukrainians as possible.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask about your book, because in your book, among many things, you write about your own personal sacrifice, that RPG that hit the helicopter that left you disabled, but you also write about earlier than that, growing up for a time in Cambodia in the midst of war. And you say that your parents, they try to protect you from it, describing bomb blasts as fireworks, right, to protect you from the fear. Cambodia is a country that went through many years of war, took many years to recover. What happens after the war is over, hopefully, in Ukraine? How long does it take for Ukraine to recover?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I think we and our NATO allies must make the commitment to help the Ukrainians recover. It's going to be decades. I mean, they have absolutely -- cities have been absolutely flattened. There is a lot of work to do to rebuild their infrastructure. What can come out of this is a unifying of NATO, and NATO realizing, oh, boy, other nations of NATO, other than the United States, need to step up and do their job. For example, the Germans committing more of their budget towards their defense is important. But we are going to be providing aid to Ukraine for the foreseeable future and they deserve it because they did not initiate this war. The Russians brought this war to them. And I'm so proud of the Ukrainian people, but we have a lot of work to do, well, for decades to come.

SCIUTTO: And you have so much experience, sadly, with war both in Cambodia and your time and service and your injuries as well, to this day.

I do want to ask you before we go, because we have quite remarkable news about what the January 6th committee has found, and that is a more than seven-hour gap in presidential phone calls on the day, January 6th. And you've talked about this before given your military service that you've been so sad to learn that many of the folks who took part in the assault on the Capitol were also military veterans as well. If it is confirmed that the White House hid presidential phone calls in the midst of the January 6th Capitol assault, what should the consequences be for this president and other involved and do you see a law broken here?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I think that if a law is broken, and that's what the commission is supposed to do and that's what our courts systems are supposed to do, and I know there are many cases moving forward right now, if it is found that the former president broke the law, then he should be held accountable.

That's why I served in uniform. I wrote in my book about what's important about America is no one is above the law, and no one is truly above the law. And if President Trump committed crimes, then he should be held accountable for those crimes.

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SCIUTTO: But the sad fact is that all evidence we've seen so far on a number of levels, interference, for instance, in the Georgia election, looking for votes, seems to be that the deliberate hiding of presidential call records on the day, the big lie, it seems that he's getting away with it, right, and that the law is not the same for everyone. What do you say to folks at home who are saying right now, you know what, he's going to get off again?

DUCKWORTH: Well, what I tell them is we are doing everything that we can, I know that the January 6th commission is doing its job. Be patient. Let the system work. In the meantime, exercise your right to vote. The most American and patriotic thing you can do is speak up and exercise your right to vote. And just because people are trying to disenfranchise you, it doesn't mean that you don't show up and do everything that you can to make sure that your vote counts.

SCIUTTO: And you went to war to defend those rights. The book, again, Every Day is a Gift, Senator Tammy Duckworth, as someone who knows that by the life she has led, Senator, thank you for joining us this morning.

DUCKWORTH: Thanks for having me on.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, inside the Moscow mindset. What to make of the Russian shift in strategy on the ground in Ukraine and why Russia could find it valuable to withdraw forces around Kyiv and Chernihiv? Do they use them elsewhere?

Plus, significant action from the January 6th committee, their new pushes and new details on what we were just discussing there, a seven- hour gap in White House call records for then-President Donald Trump on January 6th. New details ahead.

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SCIUTTO: President Biden on the phone as we speak with European allies. Sources tell me that Russia is now implementing a major strategy shift starting to pull back some forces around the Kyiv region, frankly, because of losses there. Moments ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reacted to the news of potential progress as well in negotiations in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: And that is what Russia does. We're focused on the latter. And what Russia is doing is they continue the brutalization of Ukraine and its people. And that continues as we speak.

The fact that the Ukrainians are having extraordinary courageous and willingness and determination, not only to stand up for their country and their futures but to engage with these talks with a gun literally to their head I think speaks volumes. But I would look to them to characterize whether there's anything meaningful coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN's Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga joins me now from New York, as well as CNN's Nic Robertson in Brussels.

Nic, if I could begin with you, I wonder -- so we've got a lot of signals here now, right? My own reporting about the U.S. assessing a Russian pullback from Kyiv focused on the south and east, progress in diplomatic talks and even the Russians now saying publicly, hey, this is as far as we wanted to go all the time, even though we know that's not true. Does that lay the groundwork for a path to the end of this war?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: I think what we've seen in Istanbul today is a possible map of a possible path. The fact that the Ukrainians have put forward quite a number of proposals, it's a lot there for Russia to swallow because Russia is being told per the Ukrainian proposals that they have to pull back to the pre- invasion positions. I can't see the Kremlin going with that. Putin has already essentially got its fingers burned in Kyiv. He's going to want to hide that from the Russian population.

So, further concessions that, you know, the indications from Sergey Shoygu, the Russian defense minister today, saying that Russia will continue to go after its objectives. Those objectives, they stated, were the Donbas region and that's the greater Donbas region, not the tiny bit of Donbas region that the separatists had controlled -- the Russian-backed separatists had controlled before. I think there are a lot of pitfalls of a lot of stumbles on the path ahead, but this is a potential path, Jim. SCIUTTO: Bianna, you've covered Russia for so many years, born in Russia as well. Putin staked himself on this, right? We should be clear, before the invasion, Putin didn't say, I only want Crimea in the east. He denied Ukraine existed as a country. He made the case that this is part of a rejuvenated Russian empire. So, that's a fact there. Can Putin at home in a closed information or largely closed information environment sell this as anything short of a loss to the Russian people?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, as of right now, Putin can still do whatever he wants at home, right? And so in terms of saving face, I think this goes to Nic's point that this had always been viewed and described as a special military operation, not a war, right, and this was an effort to reclaim the eastern part of the country, including Donbas and obviously finally get some solidified results in terms of Crimea and having Ukraine acknowledge that Crimea would be part of Russia.

In terms of justifying this to people at home, I still, as a rational person, don't understand how you explain the death upwards of 20,000, if not, more so soldiers to accomplish this feat and perhaps that is why, as brutal as it sounds, you have Zelenskyy and others in Ukraine continue to press the point that the Russians are not reclaiming their dead soldiers.

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They're just lying around on the streets.

That having been said, he maintains a lot of power and obviously popularity amongst Russians right now. And though they may not agree with this war, they would probably agree that this has been achieved, the special military operation, and agree to move forward with it as it stands, if this is where things end. That's a big question.

SCIUTTO: Nic, what gives, potentially, Ukraine, as well as the U.S. and NATO allies, confidence in any possible security guarantees, right? Because Russia's track record on treaties and security guarantees is bad, particularly with Ukraine. So, how do you get to a point where you believe those commitments?

ROBERTSON: That's always the hardest point in negotiations is the trust position. And I think what Kyiv has done is put something on the table here for the Russians that's going to test their trust in Ukraine and test their trust in the international community as well because they're saying, let's discuss Crimea over the next 15 years. Let's not make a decision today. Let's leave that as a bilateral issue and we'll continue to discuss it as long as there're no military hostilities.

Remember, going into this war, even at the beginning, Russia's message to Ukraine and the international community was, don't even mention Crimea. That is ours. That's a foregone conclusion. Well, it has never been recognized. Russia's illegal annexation has never been recognized. So, I think if Russia can take that, then that proposition from Ukraine on future negotiations, then that's something. But what Ukraine is asking for from the international community is a lot, but it's nothing that hasn't already been said so many times.

The respect and backing for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity has been given so many times and that underpins the basis of the security guarantees that Ukraine is looking for, but it still has a quite maximalist position there and it's not quite clear will get everything that it wants and that will be a big bitter pill for Putin to swallow.

GOLODRYGA: And, Jim, to follow Russia's --

SCIUTTO: Bianna, I was just going to apologize to you from moving your birthplace to Russia from Moldova, but during the Soviet Union times. My mistake there. Sorry, go ahead.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. I was just going to say that the Russian state media is already spinning this and some of the headlines that we're seeing as a win for them, by saying that Ukraine has agreed to not retake Crimea and Donbas by force. Obviously, President Zelenskyy has reiterated that was never their intention, that they were never intending on going into those areas and fighting with the Russians, they're taking it back by force.

But I want to go back to a point that Zelenskyy made that stood out to me over the weekend with those four Russian journalists, where he said he believes 99.9 percent that Vladimir Putin thought that they would be greeted with open arms, with smiles, right, and that this would take place in a matter of two days and that didn't happen. So, how does Putin react now? What happens next?

SCIUTTO: A massive misreading, right, of what, one, the welcome that never came for Russian forces, in fact, quite the opposite, but also the strength, frankly, of the Ukrainian military and repelling the advance.

Bianna Golodryga born in Moldova and Nic Robertson, thanks so much to both of you.

A seven-hour gap, The Washington Post reporting this morning a massive window, missing presidential phone calls from White House logs as the insurrection at the Capitol unfolded. Now, the House committee investigating the attack is looking into a potential cover-up by the White House. We're going to have more on that ahead.

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