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U.S. to Hit Russia with New Round of Sweeping Sanctions Today; More Atrocities Revealed as Russian Troops Leave Russian Towns; Major Fighting in Eastern Ukraine; Ukrainian Soldier Says War Has Divided His Family. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 06, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's special coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues right now.

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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): New this morning, a coordinated crackdown on Russia in the form of new sanctions and new weapons.

President Biden as well as the European Council putting new restrictions on the energy sector, banks and even members of Vladimir Putin's family as the U.S. prepares to hand over $100 million worth of weapons to Ukraine.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Jim Sciutto. For its part, Russia, so far, in terms of military action, undeterred. A new series of attacks overnight, including in the western part of the country, barely 50 miles from the Polish border.

In the town of Borodyanka outside Kyiv, the capital, we are getting new images -- goodness -- just of the devastation there.

Entire apartment buildings, keep in mind those civilian targets, leveled. Police believe that hundreds of people could be buried under the debris.

And there, as we saw in Bucha, more civilians found lying in the streets, the evidence suggests, killed by Russian forces. In the southern port city of Mykolaiv, shocking surveillance video

shows an ambulance parked at a children's hospital, blown up in a Russian attack.

GOLODRYGA: Our Phil Black is live in Lviv, where some of those strikes happened just overnight.

And, Phil, we're getting new images of the atrocities Russia is committing, including in Bucha and, as expected, they're just horrific.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, that's right. You might remember that some of the very first images out of Bucha that shocked the world showed the bodies of 20 men, lying along one stretch of road.

We can now show you how one of those men died. In video that was shot by a drone, before March the 10th, it shows someone on a bike, riding through Bucha. That person is then shown to approach a corner.

Around that corner, you can see a Russian armed vehicle of some kind. And as that person moves around that corner, that armored vehicle is seen firing a heavy weapon several times, a number of times.

And then in the aftermath of that firing, there is a large amount of smoke and dust that lifts up into the air around that corner, where that cyclist has just moved to.

In a separate video, geolocated to that specific street corner, we can see the body of someone fallen next to a bike.

So these are the final moments of that person's life. And it shows how their brief encounter with Russian forces that day ended in death.

But as I said, this is just one person who was killed in Bucha, seemingly at the hands of Russian forces. There are many others, whose brutal deaths are still being investigated and people are still trying to understand.

SCIUTTO: Well, it is important to show that, right, because Russia has been claiming, without any evidence, that all these videos, pictures, eyewitness accounts are somehow false.

And to geolocate that and tie it to one of those still photos is important counterpoint. We're hearing stunning claims from officials in the southern city of Mariupol.

They say Russian forces now starting mobile crematoria to dispose of bodies there?

Is this talking about disposing of civilian bodies?

BLACK: Well, that seems to be the implication. That's the allegation. We can't confirm this. But within the city of Mariupol, this besieged, blockaded, bombarded city, that has been cut off and under enormous Russian attack for well over a month now, there is the claim from the city council there that some sort of mobile crematorium facilities are being used to dispose of bodies.

And, yes, we presume civilian bodies. We don't know. In fact, no one really knows how many people have died in that city. We know from the images that there is so little of it that has been untouched by the fighting. The estimates are that 90 percent of buildings have been struck by Russian munitions in some way.

The estimated death toll around 5,000. But even the officials there say they have no way of knowing for sure. So it is thought it could be much, much higher, within the rubble and so forth.

And so now there is this claim that the Russians are cleaning up evidence, covering up, taking care of anything that could be incriminating in the form of human bodies and remains. And undoubtedly they're talking about civilians there.

The allegation is that they are burning human bodies to hide the truth of what has taken place in that city throughout its period under siege -- Jim.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, the local officials there in Mariupol comparing it to Nazi concentration camps, actually using the word "Auschwitz" in describing what is happening on the ground in that besieged city. Phil Black, thank you.

SCIUTTO: You know, Bianna, just for a moment there, we have to highlight that point, because we have often said historically, "never again."

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SCIUTTO: Right, when we speak of the crimes committed in World War II, targeting civilians deliberately, disposing of bodies.

I mean, the kinds of scenes we have seen on the streets of Bucha, to see that in the 21st century and documented, in many cases, is something this needs to be highlighted.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And I think we all deserve to look at those images and that news with shock and alarm.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. I feel that we're, every day, reaching closer and closer to that threshold, where, you know, it does become more realistic to compare to Nazi atrocities that we have seen in the past, as we're getting more evidence, video evidence, documented evidence, of what is happening on the ground there in Ukraine.

Well, today, both the U.S. and the E.U. are expected to announce new sanctions on Russia. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is at the White House and CNN international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, is in Moscow.

Jeremy, to you first, an official familiar with the plan says the U.S. could be targeting Vladimir Putin's two adult daughters.

What more are we learning?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. One thing to keep in mind here it is was just two days ago that President Biden said that he believes Russian forces have committed war crimes in Bucha and other places in Ukraine.

And he vowed that additional sanctions would be coming in response to those war crimes and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Today, we expect to see many of those additional sanctions announced. They will include banning all new investments in Russia, increasing sanctions on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, as well as sanctions on Russian government officials and their family members.

That's according to an administration official. Now a Western official, familiar with the planning of these sanctions, also says the U.S. could apply those sanctions you mentioned on Vladimir Putin's two adult daughters.

That would be significant and we know there has been reporting that the European Union is considering similar steps as well.

It is also possible that those sanctions would include expanded sanctions on Sberbank, the largest Russian financial institution, that has already previously been sanctioned, and new sanctions on Alfa Bank, another Russian lender as well.

It is important to note that, as all of these sanctions are coming down, they will be happening once again in coordination with the Group of Seven nations as well as the European Union.

That is something that the Biden administration has tried to do throughout this process in raising the cost on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. To do so with a united front, with those European nations and other likeminded nations around the world.

SCIUTTO: Nic, as we look at this, what has not happened yet is the E.U. targeting oil and gas. And that's really the bulk of the energy business between Europe and Russia.

You have an E.U. official saying today that Russia has been paid $35 billion for energy since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, about $1 billion a day.

Is there any genuine movement toward sanctioning the oil and gas sectors?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: There is talk about oil. There is less talk about gas; although, you know, we just heard from a representative of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, saying that they're aware of gas being a sensitive issue for some countries.

But they're trying to work toward that, because that really would eat into those payments to Russia. There was an indication from the E.U. yesterday, from the commission president, Ursula van der Leyen, that they will talk about oil as well.

There is an estimated $25 billion a quarter going to Russia for oil. But gas would be the real place to target Russia with sanctions. And, at the moment, the E.U. is just going after coal.

And to give you a scalable figure to that $38 billion, 35 billion euro figure, that the E.U. has spent so far on all energy products to Russia since the beginning of the conflict, coal is only $4.3 billion a year.

So what the E.U. is actually planning to sanction this time, once it all gets approved, is a fraction of the monies going to Russia for energy. The E.U. is also going to put its ports off limit to Russian vessels and Russian operated vessels.

They're also going to target four key Russian banks; they'll target high tech exports to Russia, $10.9 billion worth of exports there, computers, rare semiconductors will be amongst the items there.

So the E.U. is working toward finalizing this package. But as you say, the place that they could really do the most hurt, economic hurt and pain, to Russia right now, they just don't seem to have the agreement, because Europe is so dependent, still, on the gas and oil.

SCIUTTO: Yes, remarkable reality. They're doing business, right, even as Putin carries out increasingly aggressive actions in Ukraine. Jeremy Diamond at the White House, Nic Robertson in Brussels, thank you so much.

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SCIUTTO: The U.S. is now set to send another $100 million in military aid to Ukraine. President Biden authorized a drawdown, as it is known, of Javelin anti-tank missiles from U.S. military stocks. So more of those missiles going there and that will then allow those weapons to be shipped to Ukraine quickly.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Joining us now to discuss is retired Army Maj. Gen. James "Spider" Marks, CNN military analyst and the head of geopolitical strategy at Academy Securities.

Maj. Gen. Sparks, thank you so much for joining us. Give us a sense of what this new funding in equipment will do to help bolster Ukrainians there, fighting back Russians.

GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, essentially what it is going to do is ensure that the pipeline of all of the kit that has been going to the Ukrainians -- excuse me -- continues to be extremely robust. That's essentially what we're talking about.

I don't want to say this is normative behavior but it is what we would expect at this point. So simply more of the same.

But what is really important is you see some additional NATO nations stepping up to provide additional forms of equipment and military support to the Ukrainians in the form of tanks; in particular, from the Czech Republic, which I think is superb.

And I think the discussion needs to be at this point (ph), let's keep this pipeline very robust. But there should be a level of outrage with what we're seeing right now, where NATO members need to come to grips and kind of look back at our past.

We have some great experience from World War II, when you look at the lend-lease program and how the details of that were exact, were worked through where the United States and its NATO partners could continue to increase the type of equipment that the Ukrainians need.

SCIUTTO: Yes, those 272 tanks coming from the Czechs, very similar to the kind of tanks the Russians are operating in Ukraine.

I am going to speak in just a few moments to Ukraine's former national security chief, who has been very public in his criticism -- he's not alone, by the way -- saying that, to date, in his view, the U.S. and NATO have been arming Ukraine to stand up to Russia but not to win.

In other words, to exhaust Russia, in his terms, but not quite enough to win the war. And I wonder if you agree with that criticism.

MARKS: Well, it is the definition of win. We use the term we're going -- the Ukrainians should win, that we can't allow Russia to win. But I'm not sure what winning looks like. I don't think anybody would assume at this point that Putin is going to do an about-face and leave Ukraine and say, I've been beaten up in a number of places. I really need to re-evaluate what I'm doing here.

Oh, no, not at all. The narrative has changed. His strategy has been to pulverize the nation of Ukraine. Let's be frank. His tactics now are changing. His strategy is not changing. His strategy has always been just to be a terror on top of the Ukrainian people.

And now his tactics are changing to go -- let's go cover down, let's go reinforce the success that Russians have been having in Eastern Ukraine.

And so if the United States and NATO want Ukraine to win, then the only way that's going to happen is there has to be U.S. presence, NATO presence in Ukraine, attacking Russian targets and Russian forces.

That's a bridge that nobody wants to cross.

So what can we do short of that to assure we can have increased -- ?

Let's go back to the MiG-29 discussion. I don't know why that was so difficult. It could have been done. During World War II, in the early stages, lend-lease in the U.K. said we need jets, we need fighters, we need help.

You know what the U.S. did is they flew their airplanes up to the Canadian border, the U.S. side of the Canadian border, and then the Canadians dragged those bad boys across the border and said we own them. The U.S. did not ship the to us. I mean, there are ways that we can do

that if we're imaginative about what really needs to be done. And the Ukrainians, we've stated all along, their will to resist is not matched by their capacity. So that's a dangerous, dangerous gap.

GOLODRYGA: Major General Spider Marks, thank you. We appreciate it.

MARKS: Thank you, folks.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, as I mentioned, I'll be speaking to Ukraine's former national security chief about whether these new weapons, new sanctions, can actually bring victory or at least change the war on the ground.

GOLODRYGA: Plus, CNN goes inside a hospital, where wounded Ukrainian soldiers are being treated. What they want the world to know.

And after days of trying, a Red Cross convoy manages to finally get 500 people out of Mariupol. But intel suggests there are still more than 150,000 people trapped there, with no food, water or power. We'll have details on the desperate attempts to get people to safety.

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SCIUTTO: Russian forces are wreaking havoc on Eastern Ukraine. This after the withdrawal from the Kyiv region in the north central part of the country. And we should warn you, you have a new image that is graphic here, from the area, that shows an attack on a humanitarian distribution point, follows a pattern of attacks on civilian targets.

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SCIUTTO (voice-over): Officials say this is in the town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region in the east. A Russian rocket hit civilians in front of a school. You're seeing some of the bodies there, at least two people were killed, five more injured.

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GOLODRYGA: Those images are just horrifying, especially when you look at the context in which Russia is describing this as all "fake" videos.

Fighting has also intensified in the Luhansk region, with settlements coming under heavy shelling there. CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson spoke with injured Ukrainian soldiers inside one hospital.

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GOLODRYGA: We will not name it or even the city it is in, for fear they could be attacked.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shattered bodies in the intensive care unit of a Ukrainian hospital. Men and women from the Ukrainian military whose war wounds are so catastrophic, they need machines to breathe.

These deeply uncomfortable images, a glimpse of the physical toll this conflict is taking on both soldiers and civilians.

WATSON: The general director of the hospital says that after the first couple of days of this new war, at least 30 medical personnel resigned because of just the trauma of seeing these kinds of injuries up close.

WATSON (voice-over): A soldier named Yuri wants to communicate.

WATSON: He can't speak because he's still on a ventilator. He has regained consciousness after 11 days in a coma.

WATSON (voice-over): We won't identify him because doctors say his family does not yet know of his injuries.

WATSON: He has one child.

WATSON (voice-over): A daughter, he signals, 13 years old. Writing in my notebook, Yuri tells me he's been in the military for two years.

WATSON: The doctors say that he has a very good chance of surviving very serious shrapnel injuries to his body.

We were given permission to film here provided we not name the hospital nor the city that we're in and that's because the Ukrainian authorities fear that that information could lead to the Russian military directly targeting this hospital.

WATSON (voice-over): In every room here, there's a patient whose bones and tissues have been ripped apart by flying metal.

WATSON: Vladimir (ph) is a volunteer. He signed up on the second day of this war in 2022.

WATSON (voice-over): This electrician turned volunteer comes from the Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv. Three days ago, a battle left him with two broken arms and wounds to the stomach.

WATSON (voice-over): Vladimir (ph) says his sister lives in Russia and he no longer communicates with her. I asked why. He said that she believes that the Ukrainians are enemies. And this is a family that is split apart by this war and different narratives of who started it.

Vladimir and the soldier with the fresh amputation lying next to him both insist that only force can stop Russia's war on this country.

Down the hall, I meet a young civilian, also horrifically wounded. WATSON: Dima (ph) is 21 years old.

Where are you from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mariupol.

WATSON (voice-over): Dima (ph) is a recent university graduate, photographed here with his mother, Natasha. My mother died when this happened to me, he says, adding, I've cried enough already. I'm calmer now.

He says on the night of March 9th, he and his mother were hiding in the bathroom of a two-story house in the center of Mariupol when they heard war planes overhead bombing the neighborhood. Mother and son were hiding in the bathroom, shortly before 1:00 am, he says, when the bomb hit the house.

When he woke up, his legs were gone. He never saw his mother again. During my visit, a friend gives Dima (ph) a phone.

WATSON: This is the first time he's seeing the building where he and his mother were sheltering when they were hit. The red car here that is destroyed in front of the ruined building was his mother's car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Of course, I get angry. I get sad. I get depressed at times but I can't lose my cool because those who did this to me, they probably want me to sit here crying and weeping.

WATSON (voice-over): don't let the silence in these halls fool you. There is deep, seething anger in this hospital at the country that launched this unprovoked war on Ukraine.

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WATSON: Now the reason for keeping the name and the location of the hospital secret is very clear: the United Nations has counted at least 85 attacks on health facilities in Ukraine since Russia, the military invaded Ukraine on February 24th.

That's more than one attack a day. The U.N. goes on to say they have counted least 72 people killed in those attacks and many more wounded, all of which suggests that there seems to be a pattern of deliberately targeting hospitals -- Jim, Bianna.

SCIUTTO: Well, there's history there, Russia did the same in Syria. And we should remember that. Ivan Watson, thank you very much.

With all the atrocities committed now by Russian forces, the question remains.

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SCIUTTO: Can sanctions do enough to stop Putin, to stop the war in Ukraine? Joining me now to discuss, Oleksandr Danylyuk. He's the former Ukraine finance minister, also serves as the secretary of the national security and defense council in Ukraine.

Thank you so much for taking the time this morning.

OLEKSANDR DANYLYUK, FORMER UKRAINE FINANCE MINISTER: Yes, good morning. Good morning.

SCIUTTO: You're aware there are new sanctions coming today from the U.S. We saw more from the E.U. As of yet, they have not yet targeted the key oil and gas sectors. A European Union official notes, since the beginning of the invasion, the E.U. has paid Russia $35 billion -- or euros, rather; that's more actually -- for energy.

In your view, is the delay in targeting the energy sector, in effect, financing Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

DANYLYUK: Well, yes. First, generally, you know, sanctions are building up. And they have their effect. But this effect will -- Russia will feel in a midterm, long-term kind of horizon.

I do believe that sanctions cannot stop the war. It actually wouldn't prevent the war and they cannot stop the war. So what I think about sanctions, an alliance (ph) of sanctions being imposed, I understand when it's actually -- takes some time to develop sanctions, so for them to work.

But if this gradual introduction is the reason that there is a political discussions, consideration, what will be painful, not painful for the countries who impose it up to Russia, that actually worries me.

Because -- and I think when you ask me about the energy sanctions, this is actually the case. I think Germany is looking at this, you know, how much GDP will Germany lose if those sanctions will be implemented. That's the same applies to other European countries.

I believe this is a wrong approach. The war will cost to Europe and the world, actually, much more than the cost of the sanctions being imposed. And so I think that the approach, instead of just gradual introduction of sanctions, needs to be just full-scale sanctions on Russia. And at the core of the sanctions needs to be full energy embargo, coal, gas and oil.

Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it is also will change the way the European economy works. But it is better to do it once right, just accept it, this is the case. There is no gas and oil from Russia. That's it. And Europe will be able to quickly adapt to it --

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DANYLYUK: -- if it acts together.

SCIUTTO: You say that sanctions are not enough to stop the war. You told "Politico" the West is, in effect, trying to exhaust Russia rather than help Ukraine defeat Moscow.

So what does stop the war?

Are you saying more direct military intervention?

DANYLYUK: Well, again, my -- yes, first of all, as I said, sanctions don't stop the war. The military support would. And we don't need the, you know, the NATO boots on the ground. We have enough of our own motivated Ukrainians who are fighting to protect their -- you know, to defend our land, to defend our freedom.

What we need is equipment and arms that --

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DANYLYUK: -- weapons that could change the tide. And, you know, what I see is that the West politicians finally started to hear us. And we started to receive the armed vehicles, tanks. You know, we received the artillery, which we desperately need.

But some Western -- you know, NATO generals recognize that this war is going to last. And if this war is going to last -- and that was my position since very beginning of the war, that it is going to last for at least two years -- you know, we need -- everyone needs to recognize that we need to have, you know, Western equipment, Western produced equipment, not the old Soviet equipment but Western equipment, because the old Soviet, we will run out of it.

Heavy fighting will destroy it on both sides, on Russian and Ukrainian sides. This is unavoidable. And so moving to the NATO standards, this is the only solution, really, that would, you know, first of all to change us, will provide us more powerful equipment, so we can actually win this war, right, but also will ensure there will be no interruption in the military supply.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, you have said that this war must end on Russian territory.

What do you mean by that?

You mean that Ukraine has to take this fight all the way up to and into Russia?