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New Sanctions Targeting Russia; Russia Shifting Troops in Ukraine. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 06, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:40]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

The U.S. believes Russian forces have completely withdrawn from the area around Kyiv and to the north of Chernihiv. Analysts do not detect any Russian troops in or around those cities.

But the U.S. now warns that Putin's war on Ukraine could be entering a new protracted phase in the east of the country.

This afternoon, President Biden talked about the long road ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, Kyiv still stands and that government still presides.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: This fight is far from over.

Here's the point. This war could continue for a long time, but the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the fight for freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Ukraine's troops are seeing the arrival of new Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine. This is according to a regional governor there. The local leaders in the Luhansk and Donetsk areas close to the Russian border say heavy fighting is happening right now, and they're calling for everyone to evacuate.

Further north, Ukrainian officials say Russians launched 27 strikes against residential areas near Kharkiv overnight.

BLACKWELL: Global outrage continues to grow as we see more evidence of the atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians. And the U.S. and Europe, they're answering back. They're issuing a new package of sanctions that hit Putin's adult daughters and Russian financial institutions. And for the first time since Russia's invasion, federal prosecutors have indicted a Russian oligarch for sanctions violations.

The U.S. calls this latest round of actions the most impactful, coordinated and wide-ranging economic restrictions in history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Just in one year, our sanctions are likely to wipe out the last 15 years of Russia's economic gains.

We're going to stifle Russia's ability and its economy to grow for years to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We're also hearing from Pope Francis. During the Vatican service, he held up a flag from what he called the martyred city of Bucha. And then he kissed that flag, surrounded by Ukrainian children seeking refuge in Italy.

CAMEROTA: CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour is in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

And, Christiane, we know that you just got back from Borodyanko -- Borodyanka, I should say. What did you see there?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, Alisyn, it is the pattern that's unfolded of all that happened there while Russia actually did control that and other cities around -- towns and cities around this capital.

So, there what we saw was not the terrible, terrible atrocities in terms of individual killings and bodies laying on the street in places like Bucha, but what we saw was that there was a number of people who are believed to have been killed, and they think the death toll will be significantly high there because of the indiscriminate Russian bombing of civilian structures, homes, and apartment blocks and the like.

And we certainly saw a lot of that. And also we know that, in Mykolaiv, the Russians have struck a hospital, potentially with a lot of children in it. And this is the kind of thing that is causing -- I spoke today to the U.N. ambassador for the U.S., Linda Greenhouse Thompson (sic), and she said that they are going to isolate Russia at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

She believes they have the votes and they're going to do that. Plus, the U.S. is upping sanctions. And I also spoke to the Ukrainian prosecutor general just a little bit ago, and they are collecting all this evidence in order to eventually be able to mount an international war crimes trial to try and really get command accountability for what's happened on the ground. BLACKWELL: Christiane, we have learned from a senior U.S. defense

official, who says that all the troops have withdrawn from Kyiv and Chernihiv.

And we're also hearing that Ukrainian forces see new Russian troops in the east. So what do we know about the Russian troop movements?

AMANPOUR: Well, we do know that, certainly, they have all gone from Kyiv. And, as you said, local officials and presumably satellite imagery and U.S. intelligence can see what's happening around Chernihiv.

But we have been told by NATO, by local commanders, by military experts and former commanders in Europe and elsewhere that what Russia seems to be doing -- actually, even the Russians are saying that they are going to be regrouping and concentrating their firepower and their next strategic moves on the east, because, as you know, they do control a little bit of what's known as the Donbass region.

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This is the sort of Russian separatist region that they stoked and created all sorts of false flag issues in 2014, in order to be able to invade. And then they presumably want to catch Mariupol, Odessa maybe, and cut, cut Ukraine offer any access to the sea, which will be quite dramatic.

But the most important thing that many military analysts and commanders are saying is that, right now, there is a window of opportunity, quite limited, while Russia is on the back foot, has not yet regrouped to do its second phase, as it says, in Eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine has the momentum, but it needs the extra support. And so they're saying, if NATO wants to help, if the U.S. wants to help support the defense of Eastern Ukraine, now is the time to do everything possible to get them everything they need to ward off a serious Russian offensive in the east -- Victor.

CAMEROTA: Because that window will close, we -- soon, we assume.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So, Christiane, you were talking about Mykolaiv. And you were saying that they had struck a hospital.

So we know that they struck an oncology hospital, as well as a children's hospital, as you were saying. There was an ambulance that was struck in Mykolaiv. So, these seem like awfully specific targets. Are they just designed to inflict the most suffering?

AMANPOUR: Well, these kinds of attacks, in my experience, are designed to create terror, to sort of lower morale, as a force tries to gain access and to be able to hold -- well, not to hold, but to get people moving from this bit of territory so that maybe they can come in. Here, it seems that it's even more, not random, but just relentless

and indiscriminate, because they are apparently now in a phase where they are trying to harass -- I mean, it's a very sort of benign word for what they're doing, but to inflict as much pain on as much of Ukraine as they possibly can to tie down Ukrainian military forces, while they now regroup to a -- the Russians, to a slightly narrow objective around the east.

So that's why you're seeing missile strikes on, for instance, fuel depots, whether it's in Lviv, whether it's in central, southern or other parts of Ukraine. That's why you're seeing attacks around Kharkiv, because it is the last big city -- it's Ukraine second city -- before you get to the east, before you get to the Donbass region.

So that seems to be what's happening. And I will say, though, that all these areas -- well, many of them -- and we have seen in our own driving around, and you have seen with satellite pictures and others -- so many of them have clearly marked -- sorry -- clearly marked, children, people live here, civilians. So many of them have.

And yet that has not spared them for a relentless attack.

CAMEROTA: Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much for reporting, obviously, in very tough conditions. We will check back with you.

BLACKWELL: Well, we have talked about the attacks in the east and on the south, but Ukraine's western region was also hit by apparent strikes overnight.

Let's go to CNN Phil Black in Lviv.

Phil, tell us about these attacks in the region there near where you are.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, you heard Christiane talking about attacks on petrol depots and fuel depots and so forth.

This is -- these are attacks on essentially civilian infrastructure, but infrastructure that could in some way also support the military effort, the defensive effort across the country. Overnight, Russia says it struck five sites that are involved in supporting and refueling and these sorts of things in terms of the military effort all across the country.

We know that one of those strikes happened and was successful. This is in Central Ukraine, the Dnipropetrovsk region, where a fuel supply point burned through much of the night, yet another one. We have seen so many go up in flames in recent weeks.

And, yes, you're right. According to the Ukrainians, they tried to strike targets here in the Lviv region as well. But we are told by Ukrainian officials air defense systems kicked in. They knocked two cruise missiles out of the sky.

Some debris fell. There were some explosions. But we are told that that was all resolved relatively harmlessly. Fires were put out there and so forth.

But it is again Russia showing its capability and its willingness to use its long-range cruise missiles to hit key infrastructure all across the country, either just to instill fear, unease or terror, or to try and genuinely degrade the ability to resupply, support, fuel Ukraine's defensive efforts.

CAMEROTA: And, Phil, what about Mariupol? That's where we understand more than 100,000 people are still trapped.

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BLACK: We have no idea how terrible things are in there in reality.

But everything we hear points to it being an absolutely calamitous humanitarian situation. Much of the city has been destroyed. You're right. It could be as many as 150,000, 160,000 people still there. And they are running out of food, water, medicine.

And it has been like this for some time, while still living in a siege under bombardment, with fighting taking place in the city. Now we are hearing disturbing reports. We can't confirm, but this is from Mariupol's city council. They say that Russian forces are bringing in essentially mobile cremation facilities.

And the accusation from the Mariupol council is that they're going to use these to cover up what has happened. And that means burning bodies. No one knows precisely how many people have died in Mariupol during the many weeks of the siege. But given the scale of the destruction that has taken place there, the expectation is, the number is very, very high.

And now, if the accusation is true, we may never know, if bodies are going to be cremated in very large numbers.

CAMEROTA: Just awful.

Phil Black, thank you very much for the update on what's happening on the ground.

BLACKWELL: Today, the U.S. is escalating efforts to punish Russia with several new steps to increase economic pressure on Russia, Vladimir Putin himself.

This is a direct response to the horrific images emerging from Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: So, let's bring in CNN's M.J. Lee -- she's at the White House -- and CNN's Kara Scannell.

So, M.J., the Biden administration just announced these new sanctions on Putin's inner circle, including his adult daughters. So tell us about how they're being targeted and who's being targeted.

M.J. LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let me just walk you through the top headlines from this announcement of a new round of sanctions being imposed on Russia.

There is a ban on all new investments in Russia. This would come in the form of an executive order that the president would sign. We are also talking about full blocking sanctions on Russia's largest financial institution, its largest private bank, and then a number of additional individuals, including, as you noted, Putin's two adult daughters, and the wife and daughter of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in addition to other Russian government officials.

Now, why are they targeting Putin's daughters? A senior administration official explaining that they believe it's possible that Putin has tried to hide his assets by way of his family members. This, of course, is a relatively common practice believed to be deployed by some of these oligarchs and wealthy Russians.

We did also just hear directly from the president talking about all of this, and he essentially promised that there could be more punishment for Putin himself and the Russian economy. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Civilians executed in cold blood, bodies dumped into mass graves, a sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see unapologetically.

There's nothing less happening than major war crimes. Responsible nations have to come together to hold these perpetrators accountable. And together with our allies and our partners, we are going to keep raising the economic cost and ratchet up the pain for Putin and further increase Russia's economic isolation.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Now, a senior administration official also suggesting today that, if Putin were to change course, that some of these sanctions could be reversed, that they are not permanent. But you see some of these very horrific images coming out of Ukraine, and they don't seem to suggest that Putin is anywhere near close to changing course -- Victor and Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: M.J., what have we learned about this first criminal charge announced -- I'm sorry.

Kara. Let's go to Kara with that, about the first charge from the Department of Justice against a Russian oligarch since the invasion began.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, so the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the unsealing of these charges against the Russian oligarch, Konstantin Malofeyev.

Now, he was sanctioned in 2014 for providing the financing for Russian separatists in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. They announced the charges today against him, saying he violated those sanctions working with an American to run and operate television stations in Russia and Greece.

Now, Merrick Garland said that this is the first charges against an oligarch since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but it won't be the last. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: Now, this indictment was just one of a series of actions the Justice Department has taken this week. They also announced that they have disrupted a bot that was -- that is controlled by the Russians military, the GRU.

They also announced that they seized a dark online marketplace in Russia, their biggest one. It's called Hydra. And they also had seized a yacht ties to Putin earlier this week.

[14:15:10]

Now, Garland also said that us prosecutors are working with their law enforcement counterparts in Europe, including Europol and Eurojust, and working directly with Ukrainian prosecutors to help them collect evidence for the potential prosecution of war crimes -- Victor, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Kara Scannell, M.J. Lee, thank you.

All right, we're following the horrors in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Just-released video shows Russian soldiers killing a cyclist. And yet the Kremlin continues to not -- deny that this massacre even happened.

CAMEROTA: And NATO's secretary-general says Ukraine's war could last for years. We will discuss why they think that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BLACKWELL: Some viewers may find the video in this next story to be disturbing.

It's new drone video from Ukraine. And it shows the moment that a cyclist was killed by Russian forces in the town of Bucha. Now, you can see him making his way down the street and around a corner here. And then a Russian tank on the left side of your screen highlighted there suddenly fires there in the direction of that cyclist. CAMEROTA: And then there was the second video posted on Twitter, and

it was geolocated by CNN. And it shows his body sprawled alongside the bike.

You can also see destroyed buildings and infrastructure, burned-out cars and debris all along the street. Now the U.S. believes that it will be able to identify the Russian units that carried out the atrocities in Bucha.

CNN's Barbara Starr joins us now with more.

Barbara, how will they go about doing this?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they don't want to talk about that.

But, look, what we know just from years of watching the intelligence community, there's communications intercepts. There's the kind of imagery that you showed. There's eyewitness accounts. There were people there.

Now, days later, after these atrocities have emerged, it is becoming apparently more clear to the U.S. intelligence community, I am told by a U.S. official familiar with the latest information, that they are now narrowing down the possibilities of which Russian units were in Bucha and carried out these unspeakable atrocities over a several-day period.

They believe they will be able to narrow it down to who was responsible and that they will be able to make a case based on the information that they have, they will be able to identify the unit.

Now, it is not at all clear to us would take that extra step and announce it itself. It may leave it up to the government of Ukraine to do that, because, of course, all of this is in the context of trying to gather sufficient legal evidence for some kind of tribunal, some kind of war crimes proceeding against perpetrators.

So, there's chain of custody issues, evidence, how evidence is handled, all of those issues still very technical, very much something that they are working on with Ukraine. But what we now know is, they believe they will be able to identify the unit.

I will tell you, a second official, a senior defense official said, when they look at the pictures that the world has seen, people with their hands tied, people with their feet tied, people executed, they come to the conclusion that it was deliberate, planned, premeditated, call it what you will.

They are looking at a possibility that there was more than one Russian unit there. Maybe one unit was moving out, another unit was coming in. They're trying to determine everybody who was there and what commanders may have been responsible.

There's a complicating factor. Bucha, of course, is northwest of Kyiv. And now the U.S. assesses that most of the Russian troops northwest of Kyiv have withdrawn over the border back into Belarus, back into Russia. So whether they will be able to get to these people remains another question.

CAMEROTA: Yes, really interesting reporting, Barbara.

Thank you for sharing that.

BLACKWELL: Joining us now is Andrei Kozyrev. He's a former Russian foreign minister and the author of "The Freebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy." "Firebird." I'm sorry.

Thank you for being with me.

Let's start here. With all the video that Barbara Starr just mentioned, the video out of Bucha, with people with their hands tied, that drone video we just saw, the world sees it. The people in Russia do not. And what they see, Russian state media dismisses as fake.

So is Putin winning the propaganda war here?

ANDREI KOZYREV, FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: No, he's not winning the war in Ukraine. Neither he's winning the propaganda war.

But he might protract. And it's probably his idea to protract this horror, both in Ukraine and so-called siege fortress mentality, which they very much like. Stalin liked it, and Soviet leadership liked it, because their dictatorship cannot survive but behind the iron curtain, that is, behind the screen which does not allow truth to come inside.

So, that's the old strategy. But the problem is that, if that continues for years, like, today, yes, he could sustain it, because the sanctions, the new sanctions are very welcomed, but they are not enough to actually stop him. They are not enough to hit Russian economy, to the extent that he will feel like he cannot go on anymore with this war.

[14:25:25]

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: So, then what is? What is enough, then?

KOZYREV: Well, oil exports. Only oil experts banned could do it.

BLACKWELL: So, then, you mentioned the oil experts, the -- exports are the only thing that can do it. And this number that I heard today from an E.U. official who said that, since this war began, Europe has paid Russia $38 billion for energy, and given a little more than a billion dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine.

If that is the number and only oil experts -- exports will stop him, create enough of a pain for Putin, Europe can't do without those at this point. So how do you solve that?

KOZYREV: Yes, oil and gas. I mean gas too, of course. But, OK, if Germany and some other countries cannot do it right away, then there is another tool which Putin uses. That is the military force. And then the West, especially the United States, the NATO, should provide Ukrainians with much more powerful military tools, military -- the weapons which would actually change the situation on the ground.

The heroism of the Ukrainians, with, of course, the help of the supplies from the West, already show that they can do it in around Kyiv. So now it's high time to provide them with additional, much more powerful means to stop these barbarities, to stop this free launch, so to say, free bombardment from Russia.

I am not military expert, but I have some ideas about that. But I'm sure, at the Pentagon, they know what (INAUDIBLE) this barbarity.

So, if you cannot stop the oil and gas from Russia, and, of course, the revenue which is used for the war, then you can stop their -- them militarily there without direct participation of the boots on the ground.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

KOZYREV: But, in that case, it will also stop him.

BLACKWELL: All right, former Russian Foreign Minister, also the author of "The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy," Andrei Kozyrev, thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, Ivanka Trump spent more than eight hours talking with the January 6 Committee on Tuesday. What did she tell them?

BLACKWELL: And a U.S. defense official says Russian forces near Kyiv and Chernihiv have completely withdrawn, but there's a new warning that Vladimir Putin may take another shot at capturing the Ukrainian capital.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)