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Russia Keeps Up Attacks Despite Pledge to Scale Back; Kyiv Suburbs Ravaged by Russian Attacks; Photojournalist Captures Horrors of Conflict; South Korea Says North Korea Not Telling Truth About Latest ICBM Launch; Shanghai Effectively Imposed City-Wide Lockdowns. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 31, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. Ukraine's president is counting down expectations for the next round of talks with Russia, set for tomorrow, Friday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the meeting so far has been quote, only words.

Despite Russia's claims that it's pulling its forces away from Kyiv, Ukraine says the shelling has only intensified. I'll warn you now, some of these images I'm about to show you are graphic. Emergency workers braving the Russian shelling to collect dead bodies in the Kyiv suburb. Irpin's mayor says about half the town is destroyed but is now back under full Ukrainian control. The southern port city of Mariupol, meanwhile, has been battered for weeks. The Pentagon says just about everything in the city is gone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Devastating what we're seeing there. And the place is just being decimated from a structural perspective by the onslaught of Russian air strikes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Meanwhile, the latest U.S. intelligence suggests Russian generals and advisers are misleading President Putin about how badly the war is going. And Ukrainian forces claim they're retaking a key town near Chernihiv in the north. A defying President Zelenskyy is vowing to keep up the fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We will not give anything away and we will fight for every meter of our land.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Well, as Mr. Zelenskyy pledges to fight, the U.N. human rights chief says the way Russia fights may amount to war crimes. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet says Russia has struck civilian targets and may have use cluster bombs which are widely banned. Some cities just outside Kyiv saw just how brutal Russian attacks could be. Our Christiane Amanpour went there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (voice-over): Missiles have struck the town of Brovary, a suburb of eastern Kyiv, twice in the last week alone. This tangled, jagged mass of metal and cladding is what's left of a massive warehouse that stored food, paper and the beer and alcohol that's no longer allowed to be consumed under martial law.

AMANPOUR: This happened at almost exactly the same time that the Russians were announcing their de-escalation around Kyiv. This missile struck right here. Imagine the good fortune of the truck driver who was loading up to take crates and packages and boxes of food and supplies to the supermarkets in this town and also to Kyiv. He managed to survive.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): We are told three workers were killed. But Brovary has never fallen to Russian forces.

Directly west of here, Russian and Ukrainian troops have been fiercely fighting over the town of Irpin. And now it does appear that the Russians are retreating from here, a clear indication that this war around Kyiv has simply not gone the way Russia planned.

Whatever the reason Moscow says it's retrenching, their intercepted radio conversations verified by "The New York Times" show their soldiers in distress from the very start.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (translated text): I urgently need refueling, water, food, supplies. This is Sirena. Over.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): This was west of the capital in Makariv in the very first days of the war, already signaling the focus on civilians once their own so-called properties were out of harm's way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (translated text): There was a decision made to remove the first property from the residential area and to cover the residential with artillery. Over.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): This security video shows a Russian armored vehicle just blowing up a car, instantly killing the elderly couple inside.

Ukraine has lost its fighters too. Here in the Brovary cemetery, Boris, the caretaker, shows us freshly dug graves.

AMANPOUR: This guy, this soldier died on the very first day of the war.

It's raining. It's drizzling here today.

[04:35:00] It's almost as if this city is crying as it mourns its war dead, because all of these graves are for the fighters of this place who have fallen in combat since this war began. This grave has been dug, but the family can't yet bury their son, a soldier who was fighting in a village 15 kilometers away, but it's held by the Russians. They haven't yet been able to get his body released.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And even Boris' heart breaks when he tells me about a father who's just lost his son, his only child, and who asked: "What do I have to live for now?"

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Brovary, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: So much heartbreak. Well, Alex Lourie is a journalist who spent nearly two months in Ukraine. Russia invaded while he was there, so Alex set out to document the horrific events he saw every day. And these powerful images show really the pain as well as the suffering of Ukrainians, after the war started. Each image shows the country and its people utterly devastated by war. And a lot of these photos are just so haunting.

Alex Lourie joining me from Krakow, Poland. And, Alex, I know you left Ukraine in the last 24-hours or so. But you know, like we said, you've been there before the war started. Give us a sense of what you've seen through your lens from that February 24th date.

ALEX LOURIE, FREELANCE PHOTOJOURNALIST: Yes, so I think what was the most shocking about this particular conflict -- you know, I've covered others in Iraq and Syria, but they'd already been ongoing for years by then -- was how quickly things turned on a dime. And you know, really within the first daylight hours of -- you know, whatever the Russians are calling it, special military operations -- it became really clear that civilians were going to pay a really high price.

SOARES: And we saw that, we've seen that through your images. And one photo that I remember early on that you took is -- I think we can show it -- it's of this lady here, with, you know, wrap on her head, dried blood on her face. I believe at the time Russia called her a crisis actor. When you heard this, Alex, what did you think?

LOURIE: So, yes, that literally would have been the first daylight hours of this invasion. That I think I took that around 7:00 in the morning. And, you know, me and my colleagues, we had arrived at this heavily damaged residential complex in the town called Chuhuiv, just south of Kharkiv. And the scene was complete chaos. She was one of many injured. There were fatalities.

And to hear someone cynically and manipulatively kind of spit in the face of someone who has already had their whole life radically altered is offensive. I have other words that I can't say on TV. It's nasty.

SOARES: Yes, I'm sure you have plenty of words to describe it. You know, we heard Russia from the early -- from the beginning of this conflict say that it wasn't attacking civilians. What you have shown the world is a very different story.

LOURIE: Yes. I mean, I don't have much more to say about it than that. But you know, whether it's sloppiness, whether it's intentional, you know, you can debate. I'm not in those rooms. I've seen -- I've seen them intentionally hit civilians at least once in Irpin. And, yes, I mean when they say they're not hitting civilians that's completely false.

SOARES: A complete lie. And one photo that moved me and that I actually shared on my social media was this one of this elderly lady, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe she remembers the Second World War and I think she lost some fingers as well at the time from the war. The pain and despair in that photo, Alex, is so visible. Tell us a little bit more about this lady.

LOURIE: So, I want to say that was about two weeks ago in Kharkiv and it was again in the morning. Because most the shelling and attacks happen at night. And so, we had come into this residential building that was heavily damaged. And this woman was in a state of emotional agitation.

And I went to shake her hand, and she -- you know, was missing two fingers on the hand and she kept saying viyny, viyny -- which means war. She my translator has this interaction with her and basically what she said was -- you know, she was very emotional. But what it boils down to was she lost those when she was a toddler in World War II when the Germans bombed her house and she lost part of her hand. Her mother died in that war. And now she was saying, my house is getting bombed again. This time by the Russians.

[04:40:00]

It's the long and short of it. Her name is Alexandra. She's 83.

SOARES: 83, so Alexandra is forced to move again.

LOURIE: I don't know if she's in Kharkiv or not. That was the last I saw her.

SOARES: Alex, how do you deal personally, you know, everything that you witnessed? You know, the brutality, the bloodshed, the families torn apart. I know you've covered Iraq. I know you covered Syria. How do you deal with it personally?

LOURIE: Well, I don't think there's enough time in this interview to really cover that. But I'd say that journalism and photography, especially, I think -- you can't stop these things from happening. Whether it's in a foreign conflict, whether it's civil unrest in the U.S. anything where there's strong negative emotion. As a journalist, you're powerless to stop it. What you can do is focus on doing the one positive thing that you're hopefully skilled at doing. And turning that into an art form that communicates the reality to people. And trying to keep your mind on how to best do that is, I'd say, is what gets you through it.

SOARES: Well, Alex, really appreciate all of the incredible work you've done. You've been our eyes and our ears along with so many other photojournalists and journalists on the ground. I know you've been there. You were there for a long time. And I'm glad you're now out, having a break. Appreciate the time. And thank you for all your work, Alex, great to see you. Alex Lourie there.

LOURIE: Thank you.

SOARES: Now U.S. President Joe Biden is considering releasing millions of barrels of oil per day from the nation's strategic reserves. That is according to a source close to the deliberations, who adds, the announcement may come later on Thursday. The goal here is to bring down sky high gas prices which were already high -- if you remember before Russia invaded Ukraine. Mr. Biden announced a similar release last month, in conjunction with other nations. We'll stay on top of that story for you.

And just ahead, North Korea claims to have tested a new highly advanced intercontinental ballistic missile last week. But now a South Korean official says that may not be the whole story. So, what is the story? That's next.

[04:45:00]

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SOARES: North Korea's recent launch of what it calls its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile yet, may not having all that cutting edge. A South Korea military official says despite all of the pomp and this flashy video there with slow-mo even from the North Korean government, the missile that was actually fired was an older and smaller version of the weapon the North claimed to have launched. But experts caution any test of an ICBM is still cause for concern.

CNN's Blake Essig is tracking this live from Tokyo. And, Blake, what more do we know about this ICBM, and why, importantly, North Korea may want to extol that line that it was actually more advanced and it wasn't?

BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Isa, just a few days after North Korea claims to have successfully launched this new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, the South Korean military it's saying not so fast. After analyzing details from the launch last Thursday, South Korea's military and several missile experts believe it was actually an older and smaller ICBM that was tested.

Now part of the reason for them casting doubt is that the rocket that was launched last week had two engine nozzles similar to the Hwasong- 15 ICBM that was launched in 2017. Now the ICBM North Korea claims to have launched the Hwasong-17 has four engine nozzles.

Now there are also question about the video that was released which showed shadowing and cloud cover which didn't match the time and conditions on the day of the launch. Now that being said, to your point, experts say that last week's launch shouldn't be discounted because it was successful and it was likely an improved version what we've seen before. Now based on the missile's altitude and flight time, analysts say this

is the longest-range missile ever tested by North Korea. And shows that the North has a missile capable of reaching all of the United States. But the big question here that still remains is whether or not this missile, or any of their other missiles, can carry one or several nuclear warheads. To that point, experts say that Pyongyang hasn't proved whether or not its weapons systems are capable of surviving re- entry into earth's atmosphere.

Now following last week's ICBM test, North Korea leader Kim Jong-un said that they will continue to develop powerful offensive means to reinforce the army. And that the country's forces will be fully ready for a potential military confrontation with the United States.

Now so far this year, North Korea has already attempted 11 missile launches. And according to South Korean officials could actually be preparing for a nuclear weapons test. Now South Korea said that the North has been working to restore several tunnels at Punggye-ri -- its main nuclear test site. Now, this is the same underground test facility that North Korea has previously claimed to have destroyed in front of CNN and other journalists back in 2014 after Kim Jong-un declared the country's nuclear arsenal complete -- Isa.

SOARES: Blake Essig there for us in Tokyo. Thanks very much, Blake, good to see you.

And still to come right here on the show, why U.S. officials are expecting thousands of migrants to show up at the U.S. border with Mexico in the coming months. We'll have the details when we return.

[04:50:00]

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SOARES: The U.S. could see a surge of migrants at the border with Mexico as the White House eyes ending pandemic restrictions on immigration. Title 42 is a Trump era restriction put in place to block migrants from entering the U.S. at the start of the pandemic. The CDC is analyzing the move from the health perspective. Officials near the border are already preparing for a possible influx of up to 80,000 migrants per day.

Meantime, U.S. President Joe Biden received a second COVID booster shot on Wednesday. The president got the jab after the U.S. CDC extended Emergency Use Authorization, to second booster doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for adults over 50 years old. But the CDC says being up-to-date on vaccinations doesn't include a second booster yet. The president is urging lawmakers to continue funding COVID-19 responses. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're now in a new moment in this pandemic. It does not mean that COVID-19 is over. It means that COVID-19 no longer controls our lives. That's what it means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Well meanwhile, in China, Shanghai is directing all of its residents to stay home, effectively putting the city of 25 million people under lockdown. And it comes as the city tries to contain the worst COVID outbreak China has seen in, what, two years or so.

CNN's Steven Jiang joins me from Beijing with more. And, Steven, what more can you tell us about this citywide lockdown, as well as the COVID testing under way which I believe is pretty massive here.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Isa, the situation in Shanghai has become so dire, local officials just a few hours ago basically apologized for being ill-prepared for this surge of COVID infections in their city. Acknowledging problems in mass testing and quarantine, as well as providing medical care and daily necessity items to millions of residents.

This kind of mea culpa, if you will, came after days of confusion and chaos. Remember initially for days they denied there would be a citywide lockdown. And then of course, it's been a flawed rollout and enforcement leading to a panicked buying throughout the city. Which some experts have blamed for further spreading of this highly contagious Omicron variant.

[04:55:00]

And then of course, when thousands of people started testing positive, they were cramming to hastily built makeshift isolation facilities, really into a very crowded and primitive conditions with very little medical care being provided onsite.

We have also seen growing reports of elderly citizens being left to fend for themselves in the city that boasts the oldest population among all major Chinese cities. And a growing number of patients seeking medical attention for non-COVID causes being turned away by hospitals that are either closed or became COVID only. Leading to at least two tragic deaths that have now been acknowledged by local officials.

So, all of this is really painting this increasingly bleak picture in China's biggest, wealthiest and long considered best managed cities. As you can imagine, really for the first time a lot of serious debates and backlashes against this zero COVID policy with many questioning the science and true costs behind the strategy. Especially as the rest of the world continues to reopen and move on.

But, Isa, amid all of the controversies and confusion, one thing is clear, this continuation of zero COVID is under the personal order of the Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping as state media has made clear. So, it's very unlikely local officials will change course anytime soon -- Isa.

SOARES: And I know it's a story you'll stay on top of for us. Steven Jiang for us in Beijing. Thanks very much, Steven.

And finally, in a first public comment since the Oscars, comedian Chris Rock says he's still processing really what happened at Sunday night's ceremony. Rock performed at a sold-out show in Boston on Wednesday. He said at some point he'll talked about the slap he received for That for telling a joke about Smith's wife. Meantime, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences begun proceedings against Smith. They say Smith was asked to leave the Oscars after the slap but the actor refused.

And that does it here on CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks very much for your company. I'm Isa Soares from London. Do stay in touch. Our coverage continues on "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. You are watching CNN. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.

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