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President Biden Meets With Prime Minister of Singapore; Oil Prices Drop; Russian Forces Withdrawing From Kyiv?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 29, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

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Ana Cabrera, Don Lemon pick up our coverage right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. And thanks for joining us as we continue our breaking news coverage. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Don Lemon is with us in Lviv, Ukraine.

And, today, a major shift in strategy. Senior U.S. officials tell CNN the Russians are withdrawing some forces from the Kyiv area, after failing to make advances. That yellow you see there on the map are areas around the capital where Ukraine says they have pushed the Russians back. We're learning those Russian forces may be moving out, not to regroup, but to intensify their focus elsewhere on gains in the south and eastern parts of the country.

We are also learning of a potential diplomatic shift after face-to- face negotiations between Ukraine and Russia this morning. Both sides say today's talks may have set the stage for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And Russia is vowing to -- quote -- "drastically reduce hostilities" in Kyiv and another key city. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not about to trust Russian promises at this stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: What I can say is this. There is what Russia says, and there's what Russia does.

We're focused on the latter.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DON LEMON, CNN HOST: There is a lot of skepticism.

Just today, a Russian striker demolished a government building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing at least nine. It's an incredibly fluid situation. And we're covering all the angles without reporters in Ukraine, Turkey and Washington.

CABRERA: Let's start with CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

And, Jim, it's always a question whether you can take Russia at its word. So it does seem significant, though, that U.S. intel officials are telling you that they are seeing Russia pull back in parts of the battlefield, right?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

This is, according to my reporting, the latest U.S. intelligence assessment. And that is that Russian forces that had been here in Chernihiv and attempting to encircle Kyiv are now moving away to the south and the east.

The intention, according to U.S. intelligence, from the beginning had been for Russian forces to encircle the capital and take it over, in fact, remove the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Hasn't worked. They have met fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, and now taking some of those forces away.

To be clear, these Russian forces not going home. It's the belief of the U.S. that they will then be reallocated down here to the eastern part of the country, parts of which Russia has held via Russian-backed separatists really going back to 2014. But they want to expand that area.

And down here. Of course, they invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. And the idea has been, ideally, they'd like to establish some sort of land bridge between the east and Crimea here. But, to be clear, Ana, the intention of Russia had been really to take over the entire country or much of the country.

And that's run into the hard reality on the ground that Ukrainian forces, supplied with weapons from the U.S. and NATO, have been able to exact enormous losses on Russia and hold back. So this is a Russian recognition of, frankly, losses on the ground.

CABRERA: And you did a great job really laying it out on the map there for us.

Russian defense official now saying that their main focus is to control the Donbass region. That's there on the right.

SCIUTTO: Yes, down here.

CABRERA: Explain why that region is different from the rest of Ukraine and how they're viewing this. SCIUTTO: Well, basically because this Russian invasion of Ukraine, it didn't start just last month. It started in 2014. They successfully took Crimea, and then later illegally annexed it, but had been backing pro-Russian separatists in parts of the eastern part of Ukraine for -- you're coming up on eight years now.

So the idea would be, OK, if we can't take the whole country, because the Russian military has run into this, frankly, meat grinder of the Ukrainian resistance, then let's solidify our control here and possibly take more territory in the east, but then stop there, at least for now.

Then, Ana, becomes a subject of negotiations, is that a reality that Ukrainian leaders are willing to work with and live with going forward? And, also, there's always this caveat. Is Putin really satisfied with this? Does he stay here or say, OK, well, I will be here a few months and then I will attack again?

You always have to factor that in, because Russian pronouncements in the past have not always borne out to be true.

CABRERA: Right. It's their actions you have got to watch, not always their words.

[13:05:01]

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CABRERA: Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for your reporting.

And he mentioned negotiations. I want to dig into that now with our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, in Istanbul.

Turkey's foreign minister hailing today's talks as -- quote -- "the most meaningful progress yet," Arwa. What progress was made?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, let's keep in mind that it is a very, very low bar when it comes to any sort of meaningful progress.

But, that being said, any progress better than no progress at all. And so when it comes to things like the highly contentious issue of the fate of Crimea, what the Ukrainians are proposing is basically kicking the can down the line. And so they're saying, we will spend the next 15 years in bilateral talks with Russia to try to decide the fate of Crimea.

When it comes to the fate of the Donbass region, that is not at this stage anything that both sides are even close to reaching an agreement on. And then you have the issue of what Ukraine is willing to do and then what Ukraine wants to see take place.

So, Ukraine is in fact willing to take on the status of being a non- nuclear, neutral state, but only with security guarantees. And those security guarantees will be laid out and adhered to by guarantor countries, which include a number of Western nations and Russia as well.

And this is going to potentially be very tricky moving forward. And then, if we go back to the issue of agreements and any sort of longer- term security agreement, that does seem to be quite a ways off, because, today, both sides did, for example, talk about the need for a humanitarian cease-fire, something that, as we all now know, is beyond the point of being extremely urgent.

They weren't even able to agree on a mechanism or a time frame or anything specific to have to do with that. So, progress? Yes. Tiny, incremental, and still so much at stake at this stage.

CABRERA: And so that brings us to this potential meeting Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has been calling for with Vladimir Putin. He's been asking for it for some time. So is it significant that both countries are now suggesting it could happen sooner, rather than later?

DAMON: I think the word could is what really should be underlined in that, because before either party will actually sit down to any sort of a meeting, both sides do have certain things that they want to see take place.

Before any kind of agreement can be signed, there are all of these other issues that do need to be resolved, the least of which is the presence of Russian troops inside Ukraine. And our understanding from the way this process is meant to be playing out is that some kind of an agreement would, in theory, be reached.

This agreement would then, in theory, be signed by both foreign ministers. And then, at that stage, the understanding is that both leaders would in fact end up sitting down face to face. And so there is this undertone of optimism, again, all things being relative, Ana, when it comes to the negotiations between both parties.

But I think a lot of observers would really caution against reading too much into some of the rhetoric that's coming out of it, given the reality on the ground.

CABRERA: Right. Yes, nobody's calling it a breakthrough just yet.

And, in fact, it was a Ukrainian adviser who's saying that the talks will still continue 24/7 in an online forum as they continue to work through key sticking points.

Arwa Damon, thank you so much.

Over to Don now in Lviv.

LEMON: Let's talk -- yes, let's talk about the White House strategy now, because, as this Russian strategy shift in Ukraine unfolds, back in the U.S. president, Joe Biden has been speaking with European allies.

I want to go straight to Kaitlan Collins. She's at the White House for us. Kaitlan, hello to you.

What do we know about the president's conversations today?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a call that President Biden held this morning with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, of course, centered on Ukraine.

They have been regularly having these calls where they all get on the phone to talk about this. But today is notable, of course, because it comes amid these new Russian claims and the Ukrainian assessments of what's happening on the ground with Russian forces.

And, Don, it also comes as the French president was scheduled to speak to President Putin following this call. President Biden was on the leaders with them -- on the phone with these leaders for about an hour, and then President Macron was also expected to speak to President Putin for what was the first time since President Biden's visit over to Europe.

Of course, President Macron has spoken to President Putin several times since this invasion has started, as he's tried to kind of pursue this diplomatic route here, try to find out what it is that could get the Russian leader to back off in Ukraine.

But, also, it comes after he was a little bit critical of what President Biden had said about President Putin in that lengthy, forceful speech in Warsaw where at the end he said President Putin cannot remain in power.

[13:10:05]

Those are words that the French leader said he would not use, given the conversations that he's continuing to have with President Putin. But it does speak to this time of where U.S. officials, you are seeing, Don, are very skeptical about these Russian claims about pulling back their forces.

And they believe that any time maybe they are pulling back their forces, they could be just trying to redeploy them somewhere else. And so I think the White House says that they are not looking at what Russia is saying. They are sitting back and waiting to see what it is that Russia actually does here, Don.

LEMON: Actions, not just words, Kaitlan.

Has the Biden administration said, what it will need to see to lift sanctions?

COLLINS: They haven't clearly articulated what that would look like. They basically made the argument that they're not even close to doing something like that until Russia starts to pull back. Obviously, we have not seen that in a real way.

They haven't laid out specifically what the threshold needs to be to change that, to change any of those actions. But, basically, the reason for that, Don, when we talk to not just spokespeople AT these briefings, but also to sources behind the scenes on this, is, they're waiting to see what it is that Russia actually does, because they approach anything that Russia says with a healthy amount of skepticism, maybe even more than that, given, of course, Russia has said all along it's not actually invading Ukraine.

They said they weren't going to invade Ukraine, though, obviously, they did. And so I think that they feel like they're not even close to that kind of a measure because they're waiting and watching to see how these talks progress and whether or not Russia actually follows through on what it's saying or whether Russia is doing what it's done in the last several weeks, which is just make claims and then do the opposite.

LEMON: Yes, so many pieces have to fit. If this happens, then this happens. And, yes, so there's a lot to deal with here.

Kaitlan Collins at the White House for us this afternoon.

Kaitlan, thank you very much -- Ana, back to you in New York.

CABRERA: OK, talk to you again soon, Don.

Also, on the heels of Russia saying it will dial back attacks, this is happening. Oil prices are dropping. So what does that mean as far as pain at the pump? And how soon will that follow suit?

Also, these new images out of the southern court of Mariupol, or what's left of it. We have said the word apocalyptic before, but somehow that just doesn't feel strong enough anymore. Take a look at this, these apartment buildings just shells of what they were.

One man carries what's left of his belongings out of his destroyed home. Nothing is left, he says.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:16:47]

CABRERA: Oil prices are dropping after Russia said it will rein in its assault on parts of Ukraine.

CNN's Matt Egan is here now

Matt, we have sort of been there, done that. And so we see oil go down. What does it mean for the gas?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Ana, the war in Ukraine is really why Americans are paying near record prices right now at the pump.

So, what happens next is really going to impact just about everyone. So, it was startling to see this morning, as soon as the headlines came out about Russia signaling that maybe it's going to dial back its assault on Ukraine, we saw oil prices drop like a rock. U.S. crude fell about 7 percent, down to around $98.50. But, as you can see, it's actually bounced back, now down about 3 percent, trading at $103 a barrel.

This back-and-forth shows that oil traders, I think like the rest of us, they're just trying to make sense of these fast-moving developments here. The hope, of course, is that there could be a cease-fire that would not only be amazing news from a human standpoint, but also minimize some of the economic shockwaves here.

But I also think there's a healthy dose of skepticism from people in the market about believing anything that is coming out of the mouths of officials from Russia. I mean, after all, they were the ones that said they weren't going to invade Ukraine in the first place.

From a gasoline standpoint, prices at the pump remain very high, the national average stuck at $4.24 a gallon, down just 9 cents from the record high set earlier this month. The analysts I'm talking to say that maybe we could see gas prices come down by about another nickel, but it's hard to see gas going below $4 a gallon nationally while this war is still raging.

CABRERA: Thanks for the update in terms of the state of play. Not exactly the news we're all hoping for, which is we'd love to see gas prices plummet. But we're all -- we're all here for it. We will see what happens.

Thank you.

EGAN: Thanks.

CABRERA: More now on Russia's claim that it's going to scale back attacks and reduce troops in Northern Ukraine.

CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton is joining us.

Colonel, what's your take on this reporting that Russia is withdrawing forces around Kyiv as part of a major strategy shift?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Ana, color me skeptical at this particular point.

So, if you look at what's going on here, the Russians are obviously around Kyiv, but we also have significant Ukrainian areas that are just starting to show up on our maps. And I will talk a little bit more about that in detail.

But what you're seeing also is the possibility that the Russians are going to be moving their forces around to other areas of the country. And we can't forget about what's happening down here in the south, because, in effect, Ukraine is actually undergoing a blockade. And that is a major issue from the standpoint of economics, as well as, of course, resupplying from a military standpoint.

CABRERA: Russia saying now its primary focus is -- quote -- "the liberation of Donbass." And we talked about where that is, and its significance with Jim earlier, but what would you expect in terms of the change in this battle on the ground?

LEIGHTON: So, in terms of the battle on the ground, what could happen in this case, Ana, is, what we will see here is, instead of going around Kyiv, we may see more emphasis in this area right here.

The Russians have occupied this part right here, but they haven't occupied these areas right in here, beyond the line of demarcation that they have been observing since 2014.

[13:20:07]

So, they could move forces in this way. This is Mariupol, that apocalyptic area that you just talked about. And then, of course, you have the Crimea, and you have the areas that they have occupied coming out from Crimea. So, this is an area where things have also stalled out for them, though.

So, if they do that, if they move forces from, let's say, up here and bring them down this way, that is a possibility. But it remains to be seen if they're actually going to follow through with that, or if this is just a pause in their efforts to go after Kyiv. And that, I think, still remains its main -- Russia's main strategic goal. And that, I think, is going to be a critical juncture for us in the next few days and weeks.

CABRERA: So, just to be clear, do you think Kyiv is in the clear at this point?

LEIGHTON: I do not.

This is how we see Kyiv at the moment now. It's -- we have seen some major developments here around Irpin. They say that Irpin is now in Ukrainian hands, more or less. We also have a significant Ukrainian force here to the east of Kyiv, which has the possibility of cutting off the Russians this way.

But by no means does this mean that Kyiv is in the clear, because the Russians are using artillery, both medium-range and long-range artillery, to pummel Kyiv. And we have had reports from people on the ground there saying that they are still getting a lot of shelling. There also are aerial attacks that are being mounted in the region. So by no means is this a letup at all.

And we have to be very careful believing what the Russians are telling us, either from their folks in Moscow or from their diplomats negotiating with the Ukrainians in Turkey.

CABRERA: Right.

And Ukrainian officials actually said, not only have they made progress around Kyiv, but that they're actually clawing back territory in the southern part of that country as well. With the Russian forces retreating from Kyiv, does that now free up Ukrainian troops to move toward the south? So could they kind of reinforce their own support down there?

LEIGHTON: They have to be very careful, Ana, if they're going to do something like that. Yes, it's possible, if the Russians are actually stopping their movements on Kyiv.

But I don't think they really are. But that's something that we will have to see. That's where the tactical intelligence picture is going to become an absolute key in determining what the Ukrainians do next.

But what you see here in the southern part, of course, you have got Mariupol, which we have just talked about. That area has basically gone for the Ukrainians, at the very least in terms of the infrastructure that's left there. Around Kherson, we have reports of Ukrainians moving in and taking over parts of that area. But, again, it's still contested.

Mykolaiv, on the other hand, seems to be faring better from a Ukrainian standpoint. And, of course, what the Ukrainians want to do is, they want to keep this. They want to keep Odessa, because Odessa is their port city, the third largest city in the country, and an economic lifeline for them.

So these are all key elements in the Ukrainian strategy. If they can, they will try to reinforce Odessa and try to move down this way and try to box the Russians in down here and bring them back to a line basically like this, where they're close to the Crimean line that they had earlier.

CABRERA: All right, thank you so much, Colonel Leighton. Good to have you here.

On the same day we're learning about this new strategy shift, a Russian attack kills nine in the city of Mykolaiv. We're there next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:28:29]

LEMON: I'm Don Lemon in Lviv.

The headline, Russia says it will drastically reduce military operations near Kyiv and the city of Chernihiv. Senior U.S. officials tell CNN the Russians are undertaking a major shift in their strategy after failing to take the capital, Kyiv.

Talks between Russia and Ukraine and Turkey have wrapped up for today, with some signs of diplomatic progress. Both sides are even discussing the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

We will go to the president now. The president is speaking at the White House now. Let's listen.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Welcome Prime Minister Lee to the White House today. And I'm proud -- and I mean this sincerely -- I'm really proud of the

partnership that -- between Singapore and the United States. It's as close and as strong as it's ever been. And, together, we're working to uphold a rules-based order, international order, supporting the founding principles of the United Nations and advance a future for the Indo-Pacific that is both free and open.

As we look toward the future, Prime Minister Lee and I share a commitment to ASEAN as -- and its centrality in all of what we do. And I'm looking forward to hosting the ASEAN leaders here in Washington, D.C., for a special summit this spring.

We also discussed a wide range of concerns for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.