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Atrocities In Bucha Fuels Outrage; Jake Sullivan Updates The American People; President Biden Want A War Crime Trial For Vladimir Putin; U.S., NATO, And E.U. Allies In Full Support Of Ukraine. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 04, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy saw firsthand today the atrocities done to civilians in Bucha, that's a town near Kyiv. He called it genocide. A warning, we are about to show you some images of the aftermath. And they are graphic. Bodies scattered in the streets in Bucha. One man's groceries just tossed next to him as he's there lifeless.

Some victims, their hands tied behind their backs, and Bucha's mayor says that men and women were killed execution style. Some of them in the back of their head. He also says that Putin and his defense minister gave and he called this the green light to have a safari (Ph) in Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: President Zelenskyy stressed he wants the world to see what the Russians are doing do civilians.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): The longer the Russian Federation delays the meetings, the worse it will be for them and for this war. Every day when our troops are liberating occupied territories you can see what is happening here. It's very difficult to negotiate when you see what they have done here. Every day we find people in barrel strangled, tortured in the basements. So, I think if they have any brains left, they should think faster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The Ukrainian foreign minister says Bucha is the tip of the iceberg and the situation in the port city of Mariupol will be worse. The carnage is now exposed after Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv region.

The atrocities are sparking worldwide condemnation and calls for consequences for Vladimir Putin. President Biden also calling for more sanctions and for Putin to be tried for war crimes.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen saw the atrocities firsthand in Bucha. And Fred joins us now from Kyiv. Fred, just tell us what you saw.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Alisyn. Well, certainly the situation in Bucha is really devastating. It's really the only way that we can describe it. One of the things that we, for instance, saw there was a mass grave behind the main church in Bucha that was getting filled and has been getting filled since the early days of the Russian occupation.

The people were telling us that so many folks were getting killed on the streets while the Russians occupied that city that they started putting them in mass graves. You are seeing some of the video there now. There's layers of bodies in that. Most of them wrapped in plastic bags but also, unfortunately, you have limbs sticking out as well.

We spoke to the local authorities there. They told us they think there's about 150, maybe more people in that mass grave alone. But they simply don't know because the situation there has been so difficult that it's been impossible for anyone to actually count how many people are being killed and how many people were being killed.

And at the same time, you have teams of body collectors. One has to call them who are still going through the streets right now collecting dead bodies and sometimes going into basements when corpses are found there.

And I think one of the things that we also have to keep in mind, Alisyn, that this is something that has happened in Bucha, but it's also happening in other places as well. In fact, we were in a town called Borodyanka when a dead body was found there. I want to play a little video of what we witnessed there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (voice over): We met a family just returning to their house in Borodyanka which they say was occupied by Russian soldiers. They show us the body of a dead man in civilian clothes they had found in the backyards. His hands and feet tied with severe bruising and a shell casing still laying nearby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: So that's one of things that we witnessed in a separate town. But of course, also something that Ukrainian authorities are saying they've witnessed in Bucha as well. And of course, there were those videos of those dead bodies in the streets what we have just been seeing there.

The Russians we always have to say claim that they did not kill any civilians that this is all fake news as they put it, but the Ukrainians are extremely angry from what saw today from the authorities. And they say that there is going be a full investigation into this, guys. BLACKWELL: It's horrific some of things we're seeing. You talk about

these collection teams, Fred, that are going around collecting potentially from these basements and there were signs at one location of torture. What can you tell us?

PLEITGEN: Well, that's exactly what the Ukrainians were saying. And it's something that we witnessed today, and we were brought to today by the Ukrainian authorities. This was in a place that was allegedly used as a base by the Russians. Also in Bucha, it's actually it used to be a camp for children before that.

There were also signs for children in that camp. And they're in a basement where the Ukrainian authorities led us, there were five bodies. All of them with gunshot wounds. Some to the heart, some to the head.

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All of them had their hands tied behind their backs. And what we found there on the floor was the shell casings of bullets and also pock marks from bullets in the walls as well. And I can tell you those five bodies were definitely were an awful sight.

And the Ukrainian authorities call this a Russian execution chamber. Again, for us, it's impossible to independently verify what exactly happened there. But what we did see in that place was there were a lot of leftover Russian gear, there were leftover food rations.

There were obviously four to five positions where Russian forces had their tanks and other armored vehicle. And there was a V symbol painted in mark -- in many parts of that compounds. And V is of course the letter that the Russians painted on their vehicles when they invaded that part of Ukraine, guys.

CAMEROTA: So, Fred, the Ukrainian foreign minister said that Bucha is just the tip of the iceberg. And he predicts it will be worse in other towns. How could it be worse in other towns?

PLEITGEN: Well, it could be worse because there's a lot of things, I think that haven't come to light yet. I mean, one of the places that we keep speaking about is Mariupol, which of course has been encircled for a long period of time, and where the Russian military, the Ukrainians said, the U.S. says and other say as well has been shooting with some really heavy weapons into the town center there.

So, that, of course, is something that just causes a lot of carnage. You know, when you fire heavy rocket artillery, other artillery cruise missiles into civilian areas then a lot of people are going to -- are going to die and be hurt.

The other thing that you also have in places like Mariupol and in Chernihiv, by the way, as well, is a distinct lack of any sort of food, medication, or anything else for the population there --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Fred, we apologize if we have to interrupt you and go to the White House. This is national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Number of points I want to get through before opening to questions. First, you heard the president today condemn in powerful terms the atrocities committed by Russian forces retreating from Bucha and other towns in Ukraine.

The images that we see are tragic. They are shocking but unfortunately, they're not surprising. We released information even before Russia's invasion showing that Russia would engage in acts of brutality against civilians included at -- including targeted killing of dissents and others they deem a threat to their occupation.

And as the horrific images that have emerged from Bucha have shown, that's exactly what they have done. We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of war crimes.

And as the president said, we will work with the world to ensure there is full accountability for these crimes. We are also working intensively with our European allies on further sanctions to raise the pressure and the raise the cost on Putin and on Russia.

Today, I'd like to take a step back and talk about where we are and where we think we're going. Russia wants its invasion of Ukraine more than a month ago. When Russia started this war, its initial aims were to seize the capital of Kyiv, replace the Zelenskyy government and take control of much, if not all of Ukraine.

Russia believe that it could accomplish these objectives swiftly and efficiently. But Russia did not account for the strength of the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian people or the amount of effectiveness of military assistance provided by the United States and its allies and partners.

The Ukrainian people backed resolutely by the United States and other nations have held firm. Kyiv and other cities still stand. The Ukrainian military has performed exceptionally well. And many Ukrainian civilians have joined local militias in addition to using non-violent means to resist.

Vladmir Putin also believed that the west would not hold together in support of Ukraine. Russia was surprised that President and the United States were so effective in rallying the world to prepare for and respond to the invasion. And after President Biden reenforced and reinvigorated western unity at a series of summits in Brussels just 11 days ago, the Russians have now realized that the west will not break.

At this juncture, we believe that Russia is revising its war aims. Russia is repositioning its forces to concentrate its offensive operations in eastern and part of southern Ukraine rather than target most of the territory.

All indications are that Russia will seek to surround and overwhelm Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine. We anticipate that Russian commanders are now executing their redeployment from northern Ukraine to the region around the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. [15:09:55]

Russian forces are already well on their way of retreating from Kyiv to Belarus as Russia likely prepares to deploy dozens of additional battalion tactical groups, constituting tens of thousands of soldiers to the front line in Ukraine's east.

We assess Russia will focus on defeating Ukrainian forces in the broader Luhansk and Donetsk provinces which encompasses significantly more territory than Russian proxies already controlled before the new invasion began in late February.

Russia could then use any tactical successes it achieves to propagate a narrative of progress and mask or try to discount or downplay prior military failures. In order to protect any territory it seizes in the east we expect that Russia could potentially extend its force projection and presence even deeper into Ukraine beyond Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. At least that is their intention and their plan.

In the south, we also expect that Russian military forces will do what they can to try to hold the city of Kherson to enable their control of the water flow to Crimea and try to block Mykolaiv so that Ukrainian forces cannot proceed to retake Kherson.

In the north, Russia will likely keep pressure on Kharkiv. During this renewed ground offensive in eastern Ukraine, Moscow will likely continue to launch air and missile strikes across the rest of the country to cause military and economic damage and frankly to cause terror, including against cities like Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv and Lviv.

Russia's goal in the end is to weaken Ukraine as much as possible. Russia still has forces available to outnumbered Ukraine, and Russia is now concentrating its military power on fewer lines of attack. But this does not mean that Russia will succeed in the far.

So far, Russia's military has struggled to achieve its war aims, while Ukraine's military has done an extraordinary and courageous job demonstrating its will to fight and putting its considerable capabilities to use.

The next stage of this conflict may very well be protracted. We should under no illusions that Russia will adjust its tactics which have included and will likely continue to include wanting and brazen attacks on civilian targets.

And while Moscow may be interested now in using military pressure to find a political settlement, if this offensive in the east proves to gain some traction, Russia could regenerate forces for additional goals, including trying to gain control of yet more territory within Ukraine.

Now as the images from Bucha so powerfully reinforced, now it's the time for complacency. The Ukrainians are defending their homeland courageously and the United States will continue to back them with military assistance, humanitarian aid and economic support. We know that military assistance is having a critical impact on this

conflict. Ukrainians are effectively defending themselves with U.S. produced air defense systems and anti-tank systems such as Stingers and Javelins, as well as radar systems that give the Ukrainians early warning and target data and multiple other forms of arms ammunitions.

The administration is working round the clock to fulfill Ukraine's main security assistance request. Delivering weapons from U.S. stocks where there are available and facilitating the delivery of weapons by allies where allied systems better suit Ukraine's need.

This is happening at what the Pentagon has described at an unprecedented pace. Last Friday, we announced an additional $300 million in security assistance. Bringing the U.S. commitment to $1.65 billion in weapons and ammunition since Russia's invasion and $2.3 billion since the beginning of the administration.

The latest package includes laser-guided rocket systems, Puma unmanned aerial systems, armored high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles and more. Material is arriving every single day, including today from the United States and our allies and partners. And we will have further announcements of additional military assistance in the coming days.

We are working with Ukrainians, as I said, to identify solutions to their priority request. In some cases, that means sourcing systems from other countries because the U.S. either doesn't have the system or doesn't have a version that could effectively be integrated into the fight. Sorts of systems like this include longer range anti- aircraft systems, artillery systems and coastal defense systems.

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So, let's take coastal defense systems as an example. President Biden went to Brussels to talk to key allies 11 days ago about how to get coastal defense systems to Ukraine because there is not at the moment a good U.S. Option.

Last week, the U.K. announced at the close of its donor conference that coastal defense systems would be provided to the Ukrainians. It is a good example how working with allies and partners we're successfully responding to Ukraine's request. We expect additional new capabilities to be delivered in the near future. We can't always advertise what is being delivered out of deference to our allies and partners or for operational sensitivities but we're moving with speed and efficiency to deliver.

Let me close with this. Even as Russia acknowledges the failure of its initial plan and shifts its goals, three elements of this world we main constant. First, Russia will continue to use its military to try to conquer and occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory.

Second, the Ukrainian military and people will continue effectively and bravely defend their homeland. And third, the United States will stand by them for as long as it takes. Russia has tried to subjugate the whole of Ukraine and it has failed. Now it will attempt to bring parts of the country under its rule.

It may succeed in taking some territory through sheer force and brutality but no matter what happens over the coming weeks, it is clear that Russia will never be welcomed by the Ukrainian people. Instead, its gains will be temporary as the brave Ukrainian people resist Russian occupation and carry on their fight for an independent, sovereign nation that they so richly deserve.

And with that, I'd be happy to take your questions. Yes?

UNKNOWN: Jake, can I ask you about the president's call to a war crimes trial to Vladimir Putin, what are the mechanics of how the presidency is playing out, would it be at the International Criminal Court or in some other tribunal?

SULLIVAN: So, we have to consult with our allies and partners on what make most sense as a mechanism moving forward. Obviously, the ICC is one venue where war crimes have been tried in the past. But there had been other examples and other conflicts of other mechanisms being set up.

So, there's work to be done to work out the specifics of that and between now and then, every day what we are focused on is continuing to apply pressure to the Russian economy and provide weapons to the Ukrainian people to be able to defend themselves.

UNKNOWN: Other -- I'm sorry, forgive me. Other forms for this might include something that the U.N. general -- the U.N. Security Council might adopt. Is that what you're suggesting in regard to the security council?

SULLIVAN: Well, obviously with Russia as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, it would be difficult to imagine that they would not attempt to exercise their veto to block something. But there have been creative solutions to the questions of accountability in the past and I'm not going to pre-judge what solution would be applied here or what forum or venue would be applied here.

What I will say is what the president said this morning. There has to be accountability for these war crimes. That accountability has to be felt at every level of the Russian system and the United States will work with the international community to ensure that accountability is applied at the appropriate time.

Yes?

UNKNOWN: The president was careful to say he does not see this as genocide. Many Ukrainians believe that it is because their nation, their people are being attacked. Where is the line in your view and how would you counsel the president between genocide and war crimes?

SULLIVAN: So, this is something we have of course continue to monitor every day. Based on what we have seen so far, we have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes. We have not yet seen a level of systemic depravation of life of the Ukrainian people to rise to the level of genocide. But again, that's something we will continue to monitor. There's not a

mechanical formula for this for this. There is a process that we have run just recently at the State Department to ultimately determine that the killing, the mass killing of Rohingya in Burma constitute a genocide.

That was a lengthy process based on amassing of evidence over a considerable period of time and involving, frankly, mass death, the mass incarceration of significant portion of the Rohingya population. And we will look to a series of indicators along those lines to ultimately make a determination in Ukraine. But as the president said today, we have not arrived at that conclusion yet. Yes?

UNKNOWN: Thanks. I just have three quick questions for this. You said it will be protracted. Do you mean years? I mean, Russia has been in Crimea and Donbas since 2014. What's protracted?

SULLIVAN: So, we can't predict. But I would just say that so far this conflict has lasted a little more than five weeks, and yet in that time we've seen an enormous amount of killing and death. And also, an enormous amount of bravery and success on the part of the Ukrainian forces.

What I'm saying when I said protracted is that it may not be just a matter of a few more weeks before all is said and done. That first, quote, unquote, "phase of the conflict" of the Russians put it was measured in weeks. This next phase could be measured in months or longer.

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UNKNOWN: In the beginning the consensus seem to be Russia was unstoppable because kind of make the prices high as possible for them. Then you thinking, as maybe Ukraine can actually win. Do you agree with that, and what would winning look like?

SULLIVAN: So, we believe that our job is to support the Ukrainians. They will set the military objectives. They will set the objectives at the bargaining table. And I'm quite certain they are going to set those objectives at success, and we are going to give them every tool we can to help them achieve that success.

But we are not going to define the outcome of this for the Ukrainians. That is up for them to define and us to support them in. That's what we're going to do, and we do have confidence in the bravery, skill and capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces and the resilience of the Ukrainian people.

UNKNOWN: One quick thing on chemical weapons, the president and other allies have promised consequences without saying what they would be. Last time Russia used chemical weapons, there were sanctions but not very stiff ones. Are you ready to define consequences?

SULLIVAN: So, I'm going to say the same thing I've said from this podium that the president has said from a podium down the hall in this same building, which is that Russia will pay a severe price. We have communicated to them directly. We have coordinated with our allies and partners. And I'm not going to go further in terms of the specifics here today.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The administration initially did not call this war crimes. Eventually that they did after what they saw on the ground. Do you think that's going to be the case with calling it a genocide?

SULLIVAN: Well, so, first, it's not just that we sit around and debate terms and then ultimately decide to apply a term based against static circumstances. We watch as things unfold. We gather evidence. We continue to develop facts.

And as we gather evidence and as we got the facts together, we ultimately came to the conclusion that war crimes were committed. And in fact I would say on this front, President Biden was a leader. He went out and said, Putin is war criminal. And many of you raised your eyebrows at that. Many people out in the public raised their eyebrows at that.

And now you see the scenes coming out of Bucha today. And so, he's not going to hesitate to call a spade a spade, to call it like he sees it and neither is the U.S. government. So, as the facts develop, could we see ourselves reaching a different conclusion on that question, of course we could, but it's going to be based on evidence and facts as we gather it along the way.

COLLINS: And two more quick ones. On the sanctions that the president was talking about today, should we expect those this week or what's the timing?

SULLIVAN: You can expect further sanctions announcements this week. And we are coordinating with our allies and partners on what the exact parameters of that will be. But yes, this week we will have additional economic pressure elements to announce.

UNKNOWN: Thank you --

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: My last question quickly, you keep using the word retreat instead of reposition. How much is that in part due to the spring condition, the muddy conditions that are on the ground in Ukraine?

SULLIVAN: The reason I use the phrase retreat is just kind of quite simple common sense. It's not some fancy technical military term. It's a term that all of us understand which is, if you run pell-mell for an objective and you get stopped and then you start to get beaten up, and the you withdraw you pull out, that's what I would call a retreat. That's what happened to Russians in Kyiv.

They attacked Kyiv, they failed. They started to get beaten backwards by the Russian -- by the Ukrainian military and they ultimately retreated back across the border into Belarus.

Now, with those forces as I said in my opening comments, they are not intending to stand pat. They are going to reposition those forces to go after a different objective. A scale down objective but nonetheless dangerous and deserving objective which is to conquer and occupy territory in eastern Ukraine, and now it's our job to help the Ukrainian people have the tools they need to be able to stymie that objective. That is what we intend to doing at this time.

UNKNOWN: Jake, thank you.

UNKNOWN: I may not call -- going to call it a genocide but does the U.S. government have information that you can -- that you can use to independently corroborate Ukraine's allegations about atrocities in Bucha?

SULLIVAN: So, we have, obviously, got access to a lot of the information that you all have. We also have information that the Ukrainians have provided us directly and we will also work with fact finders, independent fact finders as we go forward to get to a level of documentation that allows us to help build very strong dossiers of evidence for war crimes prosecutions.

And that is what we intend to do. Now on the question of the genocide determination, obviously we will continue on a daily basis to have consultations with Ukrainians to reach determinations, and if it's on point we reach the judgment that there in fact has been a level of atrocity, a level of killing, a level of intentional activity that rises to meet our definition of genocide, we'll it for what it is. We have never hesitated to call out the Russians for what they have done in Ukraine, and we will not start now.

(CROSSTALK)

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UNKNOWN: I'm sorry, one quick question on France, Jake. They are -- they have suggested that, you know, a hefty E.U.-wide tariff should be imposed opposed to a blanket ban on Russian energy imports into the E.U. Does the U.S. support that and will that be part of what you're planning to do next in terms of sanctions?

SULLIVAN: We are having conversations as I stand here at this podium with senior officials in the main European capital, as well as in Brussels on the full range of sanctions options including sanctions options or pressure options that relate to energy. I'm not going to negotiate that out of this podium. We want to make sure that we're able to pull together a consensus along with the rest of the European Union.

UNKNOWN: The Kremlin is denying the images out of Bucha saying that they don't show any kind of apparent execution. What is the U.S. doing to try and expose Russia's actions to its own citizens? I mean, what can we do to sort of fight this disinformation war?

SULLIVAN: Well, first, I would note that the Kremlin is working overtime to close down the information space inside of Russia which is not exactly the action of a strong and confident government that feels really good about the story that it would be telling if it were allowing independent news sources to come in.

Second, we are of course, supporting through a variety of means the provision of information about these atrocities and about the entire effort by the Russians to unjustly and unlawfully invade a sovereign neighboring country not just to the Russian people but to people everywhere, we will continue to do that.

UNKNOWN: And just really quick. Is it your sense that the atrocities that we're seeing in Bucha are based on orders coming from Putin or his senior military officials or is there a chance that this sort of Russian forces acting on their own and is there even a distinction?

SULLIVAN: I don't want to get into the specific intelligence related to Bucha at this point, but I will say as I said at the outset. Because even before the invasion happened, we shared information with the public, with the press, including from this podium that Russia was intending, as a matter of policy, not as a matter of one guy in a unit in a suburb of Kyiv but as a matter of policy in this war to kill dissidents, to kill those who caused problems for the occupation and to impose a reign of terror across occupied territories within Ukraine.

That is what we are seeing play out. So, no, we do not believe that this is just a random accident or the rogue act of a particular individual. We believe that this was part of the plan. We declared it from this podium as part of the plan and now we're seeing it play out in real life and living color in these terrible tragic images we are seeing come from Bucha. Yes?

UNKNOWN: Thanks. I know you don't want to talk about possible venues for a war trial, war crimes trial. But can you talk a little bit about the evidence gathering aspect of it. That's going to be crucial to combatting disinformation and what Russians will say that Ukrainian rebels are fighting as that was legitimate warfare what happened that could be a tactic.

So, can you walk us through the evidence gathering who is doing it, are there people on the ground gathering evidence. How long does that take to sort of build a case and what does that look like?

SULLIVAN: So, I will directly answer your question but I also think it is important for our team at the State Department which will take the lead on this, including our global war crimes coordinator to give you a fully elaborate answer to this question in technical detail so that everybody understands exactly how this process works.

But, with that being said, there are four main sources of information that we will develop in an effort to help build the case for war crimes. The first is the information we and our allies and partners gather including through intelligent sources.

And we actually within our intelligence community had previously stood up a team to be able to document and analyze war crimes and work closely with the State Department in doing so. And we're also coordinating with key allies and partners who have their own capacities. The second is what the Ukrainians themselves will do on the ground to

develop this case to document the forensics of these tragic and senseless killings in this particular instance and in other instances across Ukraine.

The third is international organizations, including the United Nations but others as well, prominent international non-governmental organizations with real credibility and expertise in this area. And the fourth is all of you.

Because of building this case is relying upon the global independent media who has images, interviews, documentation. And when you put all of those four sources together you can build, we believe a package that can stand up to the relentless disinformation we are likely to see and have already started seeing from Russia, and that ultimately the truth will withstand the assault on the truth that we can expect to come from Moscow

(CROSSTALK)

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