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Ukraine Says, Major Fighting in the East as Russia Shifts Strategy; U.S to Hit Russia With New Round of Sweeping Sanctions Today; Attorney General Garland Announces International Enforcement Actions on Russia. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 06, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: In moments, the Justice Department is expected to crack down on Russia, the attorney general and FBI director at that podium there, will reveal new actions aimed at disrupting and prosecuting Russian criminal activity. We're going to bring you those comments, that announcement as soon as it begins.

A very good morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

Also this hour, a critical meeting in Brussels, foreign ministers from NATO countries coming together amid Russia's assault on Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledging the changing Russian strategy and emphasizing the importance of coordinating with allies today.

In Ukraine, we are seeing the effects of Russia's shift on the battleground, the Western Lviv region targeted by apparent strikes overnight. Russia is also targeting Ukraine's fuel supply. It claims it has destroyed five bases used for fuel storage.

SCIUTTO: In the south, just the desperation, the devastation continues in Mariupol. Look at those images there. The city council says that Russian forces are using mobile crematoria to dispose of the dead, they allege, in effect, to cover up the evidence of civilian deaths. The U.S. now responding to these atrocities with a new round of sanctions today, cracking down in specific on banks, energy, as well as Vladimir Putin's children.

CNN's Brianna Keilar is live in Lviv this morning, where, overnight, there were more strikes.

Brianna, so we are learning there is more documentation, more video evidence of the atrocities in Bucha, important because it helps counter this fantastical claim by the Russians that this is all made up.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, or that it was made up after the Russian forces left town, Jim, exactly to your point. What we're seeing is some drone video of a bicyclist being gunned down by a tank. This is essential because one of the awful iconic pictures that has come out of Bucha has been that bicyclist who was killed and lying on the side of the road.

And The New York Times has been able to independently verify this. This is the location where you see in the photos and the video of that killed bicyclist. But it shows in this drone video from the Ukrainians, it shows a bicyclist walking his bike, and he comes into a lane, basically into a street -- this is a civilian on a bike -- and there is a tank there waiting that fires high-caliber rounds at that bicyclist.

We don't see where he is killed. He is around the side of a fence, but we have now seen the video as it has come later, so these huge bullets that were fired just as someone walking a bicycle.

And perhaps the most awful thing about all of this is that these are pictures that were actually taken in early March. We didn't see the devastation in Bucha until early April. So, this is a body that was there very clearly when the Russians were occupying the city there.

In the meantime, there is a shift, of course, as you mentioned, of Russian forces focusing more now on the east and the south. And there are cities, for instance, like Kherson, which is the first Russian- occupied city, but also where you have a lot of Ukrainian infrastructures still working, the Ukrainian government is still sort of intact there, they're fearful now. They're trying to escape. They're fearful of what's coming their way.

I spoke with the mayor of Kherson, and here's what he told me.

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MAYOR IGOR KOLYKHAEV, KHERSON, UKRAINE: As of now, this is surely not an easy task. And, obviously, given the recent news that people have seen the news that have come from the towns in Kyiv region and also in Chernihiv, and I'm talking obviously about Bucha, Hostomel and other towns. I can see that there is panic is growing in the city of Kherson. And we've noticed that yesterday and the day before yesterday, people have been increasingly trying to leave Kherson and the Kherson region.

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KEILAR: What they fear is bombardment, the mayor said. They're fearful of what we've seen happening in Mariupol and some other cities as well, that they're going to be hit by artillery, they're going to be hit by missiles there. And the mayor said, right now, the curfew is lifted after 7:00 A.M. in the morning and goes into effect at 8:00 P.M. But he said, you're seeing people line up as early as 4:30 in the morning trying to leave the area. And as you heard him say, Jim and Bianna, he is starting to see people panicking.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, and they're right to be panicked and fearful. I mean, you watch Russian state media, and not only are they supporting the war, they are suggesting that Russia and troops crack down even further and go all the way inside Ukraine.

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So, clearly, this is something that is riling up not only Russian support but what we're seeing physically there on the ground in terms of the troops' behavior.

Brianna Keilar, thank you s much.

Well, in Southern Ukraine, officials say heavy fighting and Russian airstrikes are still plaguing Mariupol. Today, humanitarian corridors are open across the country, including one from the besieged city.

Earlier today, a Red Cross convoy, buses and private cars carrying more than 500 civilians arrived in Zaporizhzhia from Mariupol.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Ivan Watson is there. And, Ivan, this Red Cross effort to get people out of Mariupol, as we know, has been very difficult these past few weeks. What are we hearing about the conditions currently inside the city now?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I met with the Red Cross team shortly after they arrived here, leading this convoy of some seven buses, but then maybe 40 privately owned cars that kind of just joined in to bring a total of 500 people from Russian-occupied territory to the city of Zaporizhzhia.

The ICRC has been trying for five days and four nights to get into Mariupol, to follow international law, which says that they're supposed to be allowed to, as a neutral aid organization, to deliver humanitarian aid and to help some of the estimated a hundred thousand of civilians trapped there by Russia's military siege to be evacuated, to escape. But, actually, at one point in their four or five days, they were detained from Sunday until Monday, overnight, and then released.

Now, the ICRC is a neutral party, is not going to blame the Russians for this, but who controls the countryside and the gates to this shattered city? It's the Russian military. So, who isn't letting in the Red Cross? It's the Russian military.

Anyway, take a listen to what a spokesperson for the team who had just arrived here had to say about the civilians that they were able to rescue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LUCILE MARBEAU, SPOKESPERSON, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS: At first, you really see the emotion, the relief when the buses arrived. We arrived yesterday. Some people were waiting since 5:00 in the morning. And once they were in the buses, many started to cry, but it was cries of relief, really. And some don't really know exactly where they'll be going. Some also still are extremely anxious for those that they have left behind, of course. As I was talking about this teenager, her parents are still there. There is almost no connectivity. So how is she going to know if they're safe from harm?

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WATSON: Now, the conditions inside that besieged city are hard to truly describe, because people don't have electricity, they don't have running water, they don't have heat, they don't have internet or telecommunications. And the city is still being bombed daily by the Russian military from land, sea and air.

There are still Ukrainian defenders there. I spoke with a commander of the Ukrainian Marine Corps who is still holding out. He's saying they need help. It is horrific what is happening to the civilian population there.

Meanwhile, the Mariupol city council has issued claims that the Russian military is using mobile crematoria, as they put it, to cover their tracks, to remove dead bodies. We cannot independently confirm that, but city officials are arguing that the Russians are trying to clean up so they don't leave behind bodies the way they did around Kyiv when they withdrew. Back to you.

SCIUTTO: Echoes to World War II before our eyes in the year 2022. Thank you, Ivan, for helping us bear witness to it.

Today, the U.S. is expected to announce new sanctions against Russia. It's part of a continuing coordinated effort with G7 nations and the E.U. An official familiar with the plan says the U.S. could go as far as to target Putin's adult children. That's important, Bianna, right, because the supposition is that a lot of his wealth hidden, or attempted to be hidden, with his children.

GOLODRYGA: And he has long said, leave my family alone. He's a very private man and this would target his two adult daughters.

CNN's John Harwood is at the White House with more. John, what more can you tell us about these potential sanctions not only against Putin's family but against Russian banks?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bianna, right as we're talking, the administration officials are briefing reporters on a conference call about the nature of these sanctions. What we expect to hear is, as you indicated, sanctions on the two adult daughters of Vladimir Putin. In addition to that, an attempt to block new investment in Russia by sanctioning those who were engaged in it, and also more sanctions on Russia's largest bank, the Sberbank, and perhaps Alfa Bank as well.

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This is part of a gradual ratcheting up of tensions in coordination with allies. It is not the strongest option, the one Jim was discussing with one of our guests in the last hour, the full sanctions on Russian energy exports. That's how you would, in one fell swoop, really have a substantial impact. And nobody is under any illusions, I think, that in the immediate term, this is going to change Russian behavior. Pope Francis said today, we are witnessing at this moment the impotence of international --

SCIUTTO: Stand by there. We're going to the attorney general there at the Justice Department announcing these new measures. Let's listen in.

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: -- task force last month. I said we would leave no stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute those whose criminal acts enable Russia to continue its unjust war in Ukraine. That is a promise we are keeping.

I'm joined here today by Deputy Attorney General Monaco and FBI Director Wray. Also here are Assistant Attorney General Olsen, Principal Deputy Attorney General McQuaid, FBI Cyber Section Chief Frigm and Klepto Capture Task Force Director Adams.

Today, we are announcing several actions the Justice Department has taken to disrupt and prosecute criminal activity associated with the Russian regime.

The first action we are announcing today is the unsealing of an indictment charging Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev with sanctions violations. As the indictment charges, the Treasury Department previously identified Malofeev as one of the main sources of financing for Russians, promoting separatism in Crimea and providing material support for the so-called Donetsk people's republic.

After being sanctioned by the United States, Malofeev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe.

We are also announcing the seizure of millions of dollars from an account at a U.S. financial institution which the indictment alleges constitutes proceeds traceable to Malofeev sanctions violations.

The Justice Department will continue to use all of its authorities to hold accountable Russian oligarchs and others who seek to evade U.S. sanctions.

The second action we are announcing today is a disruption of a global botnet controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency commonly known always the GRU. The Russian government has recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets. Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used.

Thanks to our close work with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices. We were then able to disable the GRU's control over those devices before the botnet could be weaponized.

Today's announcements are part of a series of actions that the Justice Department has recently taken to disrupt and prosecute criminal activity associated with Russia. Yesterday, together with our German law enforcement partners, we seized the Russia-affiliated Hydra Darknet Market, the world's largest illegal marketplace on the dark web.

We also filed criminal charges against a Russian national who we allege administered the market's technical infrastructure.

And on the day before that, again, with our international partners, we seized the Tango, a super yacht owned by Viktor Vekselberg, another sanctioned oligarch, with close ties to the Russian regime.

On that same day, we obtained seizure warrants targeting the assets of several additional sanctioned Russian nationals.

The Justice Department will continue to work alongside our international partners to hold accountable to those who break our laws, threaten our national security and harm our allies.

Our message to those who continue to enable the Russian regime through their criminal conduct is this. It does not matter how far you sail your yacht. It does not matter how well you conceal your assets. It does not matter how cleverly you write your malware or hide your online activity. The Justice Department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots and hold you accountable.

Finally, I cannot close without acknowledging the horrible images that all of us have seen coming out of Ukraine, particularly from Bucha this week.

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We have seen the dead bodies of civilians, some with bound hands, scattered in the streets. We have seen the mass graves. We have seen the bombed hospital, theater and residential apartment buildings. The world sees what is happening in Ukraine. The Justice Department sees what is happening in Ukraine.

This department has a long history of helping to hold accountable those who perpetrate war crimes. One of my predecessors, Attorney General Robert Jackson, later served as a chief American prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials.

Today, we are assisting international efforts to identify and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine, and we will continue to do so.

I'm now going to turn over the program to Deputy Attorney General Monaco, who will share more information about the indictment that was unsealed today.

LISA MONACO, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thank you, Mr. Attorney General, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today.

As the attorney general said, we are here today because of actions the Department of Justice has taken today and in recent weeks, actions that make clear that the same Russian government struggling to defend its unprovoked and unjustified war in the Ukraine is also corrupt at its core.

The world has watched with outrage as innocent Ukrainians continue to suffer at the hands of the Russian government, and for decades, the regime has been propped up by pervasive corruption.

The corruption starts at the top with Vladimir Putin's oligarch cronies who earned billions of dollars by committing crimes, often at the expense of the Russian people. The crimes these billionaires facilitate, in fact, facilitate Russia's unprovoked aggression and fuel a life of luxury for the very few.

The world watches in horror as Ukrainians are forced to flee their homes, schools and hospitals, and as they bury innocent civilians.

Last month, the attorney general asked me to establish a task force, Task Force Klepto Capture.

SCIUTTO: Announcement there from the Justice Department, a number of things, in fact, the attorney general announcing sanctions on some powerful Russian figures, promising to seek out their assets even as they attempt to hide them around the world, sailing their yachts, Bianna, they attempt to outside of the reach of the law.

But also notably, I think, announcing there that he, and he says, we have seen the dead bodies of civilians, some with bound hands scattered in the streets. We have seen the mass graves. The world sees what is happening in Ukraine, the Justice Department sees what is happening in Ukraine. That key because he's saying that the Justice Department will lend its help in pursuing the investigation of possible war crimes there.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, and alluding to one of his predecessors, right, who helped oversee the Nuremburg trials and suggesting that that could very well play out here in the months and years to come, given all of the documented evidence of atrocities being committed there. But you're right, going after oligarchs and once again noting the corruption at its core going all the way to the top at the Kremlin.

SCIUTTO: You know that Jackson (INAUDIBLE), Bianna, and I want to get to Whitney Wild, who has been watching this is notable, because we saw Senator Tom Cotton make an alleged distinction between what Ketanji Brown Jackson, asking would she have gone to Nuremburg like Jackson did then. It was a notable mention.

Whitney Wild is here with us. Whitney, there were a lot of names there that the attorney general listed. Who is significant among them and how far-reaching are these criminal prosecutions here, or rather pursuit of criminal activity and criminally obtained assets?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are significant. I mean, just to recap too, I mean, it's only Wednesday and this is the second announcement that we've seen from the Department of Justice that there have been these massive seizures. The Department of Justice going after Russian oligarchs who have been previously sanctioned, by the way, so people who were already on the radar who are now accused by the Justice Department of a list of crimes, namely all these efforts to try to hide where their money was going in these worldwide transactions of their just enormous wealth. Wow, as you just heard, the Department of Justice pointing out that these oligarchs were propping up this Russian regime that Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, says is corrupt at the core. The Russian government corrupt at the core because it is being propped up by Putin's cronies, as she put it.

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So, these sanctions today are significant. I mean, one of these men whose name I'm going to pull up here in just a moment was also named in an indictment that came out of the SDNY in March. So, our brilliant reporter in New York, Kara Scannell, was covering that case for us. But it's possible I might butcher this name pronunciation, but Malofeev, one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea, someone who had been previously sanctioned, obviously, on the radar of the Justice Department.

Again, the Justice Department going after these people who, again, creating enormous wealth at the expense of regular Russians. And now, the concern is that all of these efforts over the last several decades have put Putin in a position to now, you know, steal the lives of Ukrainians. So, all of these things tied together.

And I think the most important thing that you heard from the Justice Department is that this is all an effort to go after the people at the very core, and they will stop at nothing. The message very obviously, if you are an associate of Putin, they are coming for you and they are coming for you very hard, again, coming on the heels of an announcement Monday that there was the seizure of this 255-foot super yacht seized in a marina in Spain. Back to you.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, going after these oligarchs, their yachts. Also global botnets, right, that are overseen and funded and controlled by the GRU, as well in coordination with European allies and Hydra, sort of a dark web of crime activity there associated with Russians. That was announced yesterday.

Whitney Wild, thank you so much.

Well, joining us now is Ambassador John Herbst, Senior Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. Good morning. Welcome to this program at this hour with us. And yet more indictments, right, and more sanctions against Oligarchs who have become quite familiar with this. Just curious to get your reaction to this specific oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev and what relation he plays in getting us into the situation we are now in Ukraine.

JOHN HERBST, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Konstantin Malofeev is a legitimate bad actor who should have been sanctioned long ago, so it's good to see him sanctioned. He was directly tied to the Russian military activities in the east of Ukraine when they began their undeclared war in the spring of 2013.

The first president of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, a political consultant in Moscow, was an employee of Malofeev. The minister of defense, quote/unquote, of that republic, Girkin Strelkov, was also employed by Malofeev. He has used his money and his influence and his employees to promote Kremlin aggression in Ukraine since the start of this war over eight years ago.

SCIUTTO: Ambassador Herbst, as I listen to that press conference, and I don't want to downplay the whole host of actions both on the economic side and in terms of military support, lethal assistance, we have tanks going in this week, et cetera.

So, there is a big picture that we all have to be aware of. But when I listen to the Justice Department announce targeted sanctions against Russian oligarchs, powerful ones with lots of money and then I contrast that to what we've been reporting and our colleagues have been seeing with their own eyes on the ground there of civilians lying in the streets, reports now of crematoria being brought into Mariupol to, in effect, cover up the evidence potentially of war crimes there, is there a mismatch, in your view, between the international efforts to counter Russia in Ukraine? Is there a slowness, at least, to respond to the degree of aggression and wrongdoing we're witnessing there now?

HERBST: My view is that the United States, as the leader of the west, but the west overall, has been, as you just said, slow and not as strong, not as robust as they should have been against this Kremlin aggression, which is eight years old, but which escalated significantly two months ago, or a month and a half ago.

The policies are getting better, but it still has a ways to go. For example, you talk about weapons. We are now sending, as you say, tanks and so on, but the weapons we're sending are old Soviet weapons. We should actually be thinking about sending some of our own weapons, which are now going into storage, like F-16s, like Bradley fighting vehicles. We don't see that sort of forward-looking, we've got to do this approach that is necessary. Again, the policy has not been bad, it just could be better.

GOLODRYGA: Well, let's look forward, let's look at the calendar. Because I see May 9th as a big day in Russia, obviously the Victory Day parade that Vladimir Putin is expecting to hold this year. Obviously, he has got to show something to the Russian population in terms of what is taking place in any sort of victories that he has made in Ukraine.

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How concerning is that given that we've seen a regrouping as U.S. intelligence, western intelligence suggests away from Kyiv but towards the east and towards those really important port cities down in the south? HERBST: I think that's a smart observation. May 9 is a date of particular power in Soviet and now Russian history. But the thing to keep in mind is that the Russian troops have really been chewed up in this fight, thanks to the brilliance of the Ukrainian defense. They're going to need some time to send new troops in there with weapons to renew their offensive.

You may be right, maybe they get this done by May 9. It might take them a month or two longer, but we should use this time to get Ukraine the equipment they need to stop that offensive, and that includes the stuff which we're already talking about now, old Soviet tanks, old Soviet -- we should do planes too, anti-aircraft, high altitude anti- aircraft systems to shoot missiles, but we should be thinking a little bit beyond that. There's only a limited supply of those old Soviet weapons. We have weapons which are actually better which we're not going to be using ourselves. We should be thinking seriously about getting that to Ukraine and quickly, training them and getting that in their hands.

SCIUTTO: Briefly, before we go, Ambassador, I spoke to former national security adviser to the president in Ukraine as well as finance minister last hour, and he said, in his words, there can be no sustainable peace agreement with Russia until the regime has changed. Do you agree with that?

HERBST: I am agnostic on that question. I can tell you yesterday we hosted Mikhail Khodorkovsky who said roughly the same thing. He said, if there's a peace agreement or a peace settlement for the moment reached in Ukraine and Putin is in power, he'll come back for the rest of the country. And it's true that everything Putin has said, despite the military setbacks, is consistent with that analysis. We should be prepared for that possibility, but we're not going to be able to take Putin down, but we can help Ukraine defeat the Russians in Ukraine, and that, in effect, could lead to changes in Russia that we all would like to see.

GOLODRYGA: Khodorkovsky, the Russian billionaire who was then imprisoned by Vladimir Putin back in 1993 was sending us alarm signals way back then that we would perhaps be in this situation now. Ambassador John Herbst, thank you so much.

HERBST: Thank you, my pleasure.

GOLODRYGA: Well, still to come, Ukrainian officials have warned that the atrocities in Bucha are just the tip of the iceberg. And now, CNN is seeing firsthand the similar scenes in other Ukrainian cities. We go inside the town of Borodyanka.

SCIUTTO: And right now on Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifying on the significant cost the war in Ukraine is expected to take on the global economy. Her projection coming just as the first major bank is now warning late next year the possibility of recession.

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