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U.S. Believes Putin Being Misinformed by Advisers About War; Explosions in Kyiv and Chernihiv, Hours After Russia Claimed Reduction; Senators Meet With Members of Ukrainian Parliament on Capitol Hill. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 30, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Erica Hill.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Happening right now, Ukrainian members of parliament are set to speak with U.S. senators here in Washington, on Capitol Hill, that as the Pentagon says Russian forces not withdrawing, they are redeploying as they come to grips with their failure to advance on the ground on what was really their key prize, the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

HILL: Overnight, unrelenting shelling in parts of Ukraine. Officials say there were actually no areas without those air raid sirens overnight. And take a look at some of this. This is some new video into CNN this morning. This shows damage in Irpin. It's a city we've talked about a lot outside of Ukraine's capital, Russian forces slamming the area with major artillery and rocket fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR OLEKSANDR MARKUSHYN, IRPIN, UKRAINE: We can see that 50 percent of the city and the critical infrastructure has been destroyed, and the rubble has not been cleared yet. Of course, there are people there and many people have left, but there are still people there.

Have they restored water and energy supply? This has not yet happened. It is too dangerous because the city is constantly shelled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: We begin this hour with this breaking news just into CNN, a view into U.S. intelligence about Russia. A U.S. official says the U.S. believes that Vladimir Putin is being, quote, misinformed by his own advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing in Ukraine, as well as the crippling impact of western sanctions on Russia's economy.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond, he is at the White House. Jeremy, this is remarkable here because it gets to a real, deliberative, it sounds, miscommunication from the folks on the ground to the Russian president.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jim. And one of the salient examples of this that this official pointed to, they talked about the fact that Vladimir Putin was misinformed about the use of conscripts, for example, in the Russian military ranks in its invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, one day, we heard Vladimir Putin deny that conscripts were being used, and then the next after that, we then saw the Russian Ministry of Defense say that conscripts were, in fact, being used but that they should not have been, and even saying that the matter was being investigated for potential criminal prosecution.

Now, this U.S. official tells me that this information about Putin being misinformed and misled by his military advisers is based on newly declassified intelligence, but the official would not get into what that intelligence actually is, citing a risk to sources and methods.

But this official says that the U.S. believes that Putin is being misinformed, not only about how the Russian military is performing in Ukraine, underperforming expectations, but also how these sanctions from the United States and the global community are impacting the Russian economy.

This official also says that Putin has become aware, it seems, of some of this misinformation saying, quote, we have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military. There is now persistent tension, this official says, between Putin and the ministry of defense, stemming from Putin's mistrust in ministry of defense leadership.

So, obviously, we've seen a pattern of the United States declassifying intelligence that it has as it relates to Russian military movements, as it relates to Kremlin thinking, and this appears to be the latest attempt by the United States to point out what it is learning and perhaps even to amplify some of those tensions.

We should, of course, be mindful of the fact that the U.S. can use intelligence like this to try and sow discord within the Kremlin and within Putin -- between Putin and his advisers, although it appears, according to this intelligence, that that has already happened. Jim?

HILL: Yes, really interesting development there, and excellent points you made too as well, Jeremy, as we look at this and why it's being declassified. Thank you for that.

CNN's John Berman reporting live from Lviv, Ukraine, and he joins us now with more from there on the ground. John, good morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning to both of you. Overnight, there is a wave of new strikes from Russian forces hitting outside of Kyiv and Chernihiv. These are both areas where the Russians said they would be repositioning, reducing the scale of their military operations. Officials say they haven't that. They say they're under fire.

This morning, I actually spoke with the mayor of Chernihiv, and he told me that the airstrikes actually increased in his city overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR VLADYSLAV ATROSHENKO, CHERNIHIV, UKRAINE: This is yet another confirmation that Russia always lies. They are saying about reducing intensity. They actually have increased the intensity of strikes.

Yes, today, we've had a colossal mortar attack on the center of Chernihiv.

[10:05:01]

25 people have now been wounded and are now in hospital. They are all civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: CNN International Correspondent Phil Black here with me in Lviv. And, Phil, we're getting our first look or additional look at some of the devastation in Mariupol.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, John. So, we know some of the basic facts, that Mariupol has been under siege for four weeks, that 90 percent of the buildings there have been damaged or destroyed, 90 percent of the homes, I should say, and we've seen some concerning images.

But now, we've got these satellite images that really put that in some context. This is what those sorts of statistics mean. They show not just individual buildings, but because of the high, wide bird's-eye view, we see this whole area, whole neighborhoods, whole blocks in residential areas just simply gone, destroyed, in ruins. The damage is really extraordinary.

It is difficult to imagine the firepower that is a capable of achieving that. And yet, as we know, there are people that have been living there throughout who are still there, who are still cowering with no food, water, warmth and so forth, still around 160,000 people, we understand. That is a dire humanitarian situation, and it is ongoing and there is no obvious end.

BERMAN: Yes, all signs that it's going to get even worse.

Now, Phil, we've heard reports, including from some victims, that Ukrainians are being killed or injured by land mines, the presence of land mines around the country. I talked to one 15-year-old boy who said he lost his mother to a land mine. Now, we have a kind of confirmation of that.

BLACK: It's an allegation, John, from Human Rights Watch, the respected international organization, which says that anti-personnel mines have been found in the East Ukraine near the Kharkiv region, found, they say, by Ukrainian explosives disposal teams. They make the point that Ukraine does not possess these weapons. It looks like they were newly deployed. Russia does have them. They were outlawed by some 164 countries, which have signed a treaty condemning them, preventing their use. Russia is not a signatory to that convention.

Now, we cannot confirm this but we've contacted the ministry of defense in Russia. It's concerning, of course, because they don't care whether it's soldiers or civilians that disturb them. And they can maim and kill across a very wide area and they can continue to do so many years if left undisturbed, many years after the fighting is finished.

BERMAN: Yes. the presence of land mines in civilian areas is just terrible. The notion of that is terrible, and as you say, could last for decades. Phil Black, thank you very much for your reporting. Jim, Erica?

SCIUTTO: Let's speak now to Beth Sanner. She's former Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Beth, it's good to have you on. I wonder if we could throw those pictures up again of the devastation in Mariupol. I mean, recalls images of Dresden in World War II. I mean, Russia deliberately leveling entire cities. And to see the before and after photos that we have, you can just see the level of devastation.

It's the U.S. intel view today that as Russia meets resistance on the ground and even withdraws from some positions around Kyiv that it's going to increase, not decrease, those kinds of aerial attacks on cities. That's the Grozny playbook for Russia. Should we expect to see more of this?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I think we should expect to see more of that, but two things, really. I do believe that because Russia has failed in its broad war aims of bringing down the government in Kyiv, they have to show some sort of new narrative for victory. And that narrative for victory has to have things on the ground that people can see. So, that is about that land bridge of focusing on the southeast.

But we should also expect that these bombardments will continue for two reasons. One is because they want to get Ukrainians to offer better things on the negotiating table, they want them to come off of some of these demands, and it would be great for Russia if Ukraine was weak and unstable and unable to join the E.U. for decades to come.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: As we watch all of that, there is also this new reporting that Jeremy Diamond just brought us that the assessment is that -- and I'm reading this here, that Putin felt misled by the Russian military and that there is now persistent tension between Putin and the ministry of defense because he was given misinformation about how things are going in Ukraine.

We've talked a lot about what a cornered Vladimir Putin could do. If Vladimir Putin feels like he's been misled, right, and he's now coming to terms of the reality of what is not happening in Ukraine, how dangerous is that and what does it tell you that this information has now been declassified?

SANNER: Well, I do believe that intelligence. We are seeing some of that play out in Russia with the arrest, the house arrest of the FSB officers in charge of foreign intelligence in Ukraine, so, the head of that part of the service and the deputy. We've heard rumors about other military generals being somehow arrested or under arrest.

[10:10:06]

There certainly is kind of a witch hunt going on within the security services, it seems to me.

So, that kind of confusion is good. Releasing this information puts pressure on Putin, so that's all good. But it does have this double- edged sword, Erica, as you point out, and I don't think the intelligence changes that but the reality sinking in, the funerals, the bread lines, or the scrambling for shortages, these things are very real and very hard to sweep under the rug.

SCIUTTO: Is there a timeline that you see on this, Beth Sanner? I've spoken to military officials who describe how the Russian military cannot maintain this level of pressure forever, right? I mean, the ground forces are suffering enormous losses and they've withdrawn some and are trying to regroup, but a lot of these problems are not fixable in the span of days or weeks. They're running low, for instance, on cruise missiles. Do you see a point at which Putin has to cry uncle, right, and settle for the best he can, or -- I mean, if he's misinformed, I suppose he could just keep dropping bombs and imagine that he's making victories?

SANNER: They still have a lot of artillery and missiles. So, while there are, you know, shortages of precision-guided missiles, they still have a lot of firepower. But the point about the ground troops, which is why I don't find it at all surprising that they're talking about

pulling back and refocusing on the southeast, we haven't seen a significant amount of that yet, but the idea of bombardments of cities and regrouping your forces are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they make a world of sense in Putin's world.

Think about the troops that have been out there for over a month, and they were sitting on the border for a long time. They don't have a lot of supplies. They're going to have to pull some of those troops back and reorder them. And I think that they will end up much more on the southeast where they are going to intentionally try to solidify that land corridor and maybe expand a little bit.

HILL: Beth Sanner, I always appreciate your insight. Thank you.

SANNER: Thanks.

HILL: Still to come here, the parents of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed detained in Russia described his conditions inside a Russian prison. What they're asking President Biden, that's next.

SCIUTTO: Plus, right now, Ukrainian members of parliament are in Washington speaking with U.S. senators. We're going to go live to Capitol Hill for more on what they're asking from U.S. lawmakers.

And William Hubbard said he did what any father would do when his daughter was unable to flee Ukraine with her baby son. He traveled from Massachusetts to Ukraine to help her escape. She trekked her way out of the country in the dark, on her own with her baby on foot. We're going to have that story coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: One day after the Kremlin claimed that it would be reducing military operations in the country, focus all attention on Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east, officials the Russian bombardment has not stopped and some have accelerated. And U.S. officials were telling me that was expected as they meet resistance on the ground, they bomb more from the air. We now know at least 15 people, including civilians, were killed, dozens injured following this strike on a government building in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday.

We spoke with the mayor of Mykolaiv just last hour. He says this was a cruise missile here, a guided missile, so, clearly, a deliberate attack.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAYOR OLEKSANDR SENKEVYCH, MYKOLAIV, UKRAINE: First of all, I should mention that the missile that hit the building was the guided, like cruise missile that was operated by someone. So, it's not (INAUDIBLE) can be -- miss something.

By the way, there are no military objects there.

SCIUTTO: Are you worried that means your city will see more and more attacks in the coming days and weeks?

SENKEVYCH: I hope not. But, anyway, we are ready for that. We are preparing for this type of actions. I can say that yesterday in the evening, we had about five hours' fight. They pushed our troops a little bit but then we pushed them back to Kherson direction, so back north, northeast. And they will try to attack the city again.

What Ukraine needs now is heavy lethal weapon that we are getting from NATO and from the U.S. This is a really valuable thing for us because, for sure, Russia has bigger amount of the troops and bigger amount of heavy armor vehicles, but we don't have such amount in live force and let's say machine force.

[10:20:00]

But if this type of weapon helps us to stand and to defend our land, I can say that the troops are afraid of these type of weapons and they run.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: The mayor of Mykolaiv there asking for more help as they find themselves in the crosshairs of the Russian assault.

We do have a new warning this morning from the State Department for Americans. The state says, Americans in or looking to travel to Russia could be singled out and detained. This comes as one of the Americans detained there is taking action while in prison.

HILL: Trevor Reed has been in Russian custody since 2019 after an alleged altercation with police. The former marine now on a hunger strike to protest being sent back to solitary without treatment for what is a suspected case of tuberculosis.

Our John Berman joining us again. So, John, you just spoke with Trevor's parents a short time ago. I know they're pleading with President Biden for help. They want him to step in to help their son. They're also looking for President Biden to make good on his promise that he will be meeting with them.

BERMAN: So, they had a phone call with President Biden. I guess it was 22 days ago, where he said that there would be a meeting set up for them so they could see the president in person. And they still very much want that meeting to happen. They are actually standing outside the White House now asking for that meeting.

In the meantime, their son, Trevor, he is in a bad way. He's coughing up blood, they say. They fear he might have tuberculosis. He might have a rib or cartilage protruding from his chest, and he's being placed in solitary confinement in this Russian prison. So, he's now three days in to a hunger strike.

Listen to what the Reeds had to tell me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEY REED, FATHER OF TREVOR REED: Trevor said he's okay. He wrote us a note. They let him actually have sent a note this time. The last time, they didn't let him give the attorney any written messages. So, he says he's okay but he's still coughing blood and he said he has something protruding out of his side, either a rib or cartilage and yet receiving no treatment for it except aspirin.

PAULA REED, MOTHER OF TREVOR REED: It was 22 days ago when the president said that he would have someone call us immediately when he got back to D.C. and set it up. Well, the office staff has not called us, and we wanted to be here to bring attention to Trevor's case and to let them know that we did not forget, we are waiting for phone call and we want the meeting the president promised us.

J. REED: We want to meet with the president and we want to talk to him about a prisoner's law.

They want something. They want something that we could easily give, and is of no value to most Americans, these Russians that have been in our prisons for a long time, and we think that they need to do what President Obama did, what President Trump did and trade to bring these Americans home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Obviously, they're just so worried about his son given his health, also given the tension with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They're worried about what might happen if there is not quick action, and they're willing to wait outside the White House for days until they get at least a conversation. Erica, Jim?

SCIUTTO: The worry is when you make those trades, then that incentivizes taking more Americans, right? It's tactic Russia has used, Iran has used in other countries.

HILL: Yes. We'll be watching to see and see if they get any more information there from the White House. It did work the last time they stood outside, right, that time they got that call 22 days ago. Berman, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, Russian oil tankers are suddenly vanishing off the map since the invasion of Ukraine began. What experts are concerned is happening here, an attempt to hide that oil, perhaps, from sanctions? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

HILL: Right now, the Senate's Ukraine caucus is hosting a meeting with members of the Ukrainian parliament, lawmakers desperate for help as Russian forces obliterate buildings, target civilians in their home country, entire communities, as we've seen in some of the most recent video, just gone, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And they say consistently they need more help.

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill.

Manu, so, senators, they are listening, but there is a hold actually on forcing a vote on revoking Russia's trade status, which is a big part of the sanctions regime plan for the Russian economy. What's holding that up and when will it change?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There is a negotiation that's still happening. Remember, this is a bill that was approved by 424 votes in the United States House. Rarely do you see that kind bipartisan support for something unless there is overwhelming backing for an idea. And this idea backed also by the president that -- to revoke the trade status, a normal trade status that Russia and Belarus both enjoy with the United States.

But because of a mix of decisions about scheduling the senate floor by the senate majority leader, as well as the opposition from one Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, they are unable to get a quick vote, because in the United States Senate, there are two ways to schedule a vote. All 100 senators have to agree to schedule it or the Senate majority leader needs to take steps, procedural steps to overcome that objection but that takes time to do. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, does not want to do that at the moment and Rand Paul has asked for some changes over concerns over the human rights language that is in this bill.

I just caught up with one top Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, of the Senate Finance chairman, and he expressed why his concerns over why this measure is stalled.

[10:30:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: This was something that got more than 400 votes in the House. The president supports it.