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At Least 39 Dead After Missiles Hit Train Station Filled With Evacuees; Turkish Drone so Effective, Ukrainian Troops Are Singing About It; Zelenskyy Calls on Diplomatic Missions, Embassies to Return to Kyiv. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 08, 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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BILL NELSON, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Look what our American astronaut, Mark Vande Hei, that just returned on the Soyuz after a year in space. Look what he said. So, it's two different things.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Final question just quickly before we go, all set for launch?

NELSON: We're go for launch. And then this is another means of bringing commercial activity into space, and we will see that increase. We'll see manufacturing, we'll see pharmaceuticals, we'll see new research opportunities as a result of commercializing the activity.

SCIUTTO: It is a new normal, certainly. Bill Nelson there on a beautiful day at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, thanks so much for joining the program again.

NELSON: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, we begin this morning with deliberate slaughter, that is how Ukrainian officials describe it, the latest strike on innocent people in Ukraine. A Russian missile, perhaps more than one, hit a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. Ukrainian officials say, 39 dead now, dozens more wounded. Witnesses say that thousands of people were at the station heeding warnings to evacuate the city there before heavy fighting -- heavier fighting begins in the region.

You see the evidence of the aftermath in just that one image there, suitcases, what people chose to bring with them, all they could bring with them, a baby stroller, a pool of blood.

As we cover this story, we should warn you, some of the images are graphic. It is how this war is playing out. It is the brutal reality there.

I'm Jim Sciutto.

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

Jim, I can't get that image of that blue baby stroller out of my mind, giving you a sense of the casualties there.

Ukrainian officials say there is no doubt that Russian forces knew exactly what they were doing. Russia, of course, is denying responsibility, as they have been throughout this war, instead, accusing the Ukrainians of killing their own people. Think about that.

In the last hour, we spoke to someone who went to the scene and saw the devastation firsthand just moments after the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATE MOOK, WENT TO TRAIN STATION AFTER ATTACK (voice over): We saw all of the people on the platform. About two minutes later, we were driving to our warehouse to pick up flowers for one of our bakeries. We felt the explosion. There were multiple of them, between five and ten booms. It's hard to know which ones were missiles, which ones were air defense intercepting. One of our individuals at the warehouse said he could see the missiles were so close, he could see the wings on the missile as it was flying before it was intercepted by Ukrainian -- some sort of response and did not want them out.

We were able to get to the train station just a few minutes later after we heard that it did target there. The scene at the train station was simply catastrophic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: The victims, the civilians victims of this, CNN covering the latest across Ukraine.

I want to go to CNN Anchor Brianna Keilar, she's in Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Brianna, you need to take a sigh, take a moment, because every day, we see evidence of not accidental crimes against civilians but it seems deliberate attacks on civilians, with horrible consequences. What do we know at this point?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Jim. And you mentioned that there might have been more than one strike here. What we've heard from the head of Ukrainian railways is that, yes, there were two strikes here and he says that the entire train station has been damaged.

Just horrific video that we are seeing out of this showing the victims, the elderly, the young, the women, because those are the people who were trying to escape from Eastern Ukraine. They've seen the brutality of the Russians in the west and they are panicked and trying to escape.

But what we also heard from the CEO of Ukrainian railways was that about a day before, the Russian forces struck an overpass in Donetsk. It's a critical overpass. He described it as the only Ukrainian controlled railway exit from a number of cities there in the area.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALEXANDER KAMYSHIN, HEAD OF UKRAINIAN RAILWAYS: Yesterday, they bombed the bridge, which connects all the cities, like Kramatorsk, (INAUDIBLE) and others with Ukraine. And they keep shelling stations, they keep shelling trains and they do whatever they can to stop the evacuation program of civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, his point there, Jim and Bianna, was that striking that overpass actually had temporarily blocked some evacuations by rail from the area. That created a backlog of people. There were more people even than normal at that train station when it was struck by a Russian missile, just many people waiting there trying to get out.

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So, when you hear the Russians accusing Ukrainians of actually doing this, saying it's a provocation, it's just incredibly hard to believe that they would even attempt to make that claim considering what you've seen as sort of a strike on the railway and then a double tap strike on this train station.

GOLODRYGA: Listen, it's just lazy, it's gross and it's obscene to hear them respond this way. Brianna Keilar, thank you.

Well, I want to go now CNN Senior International Correspondent Ivan Watson in Vinnytsia. And, Ivan, it's chilling given that you rode with evacuees along a similar route yesterday, just to remind our viewers, that Ukraine has one of the largest rail systems in Europe. Talk about what you heard from them and some of the fears that they expressed to you then.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I did not travel through Kramatorsk, I've never been there, but we were on another railway line from Eastern Ukraine with more than 1,100 evacuees. All of them were Ukrainian civilians moving from different parts of Ukraine who wanted to get out.

The Ukrainian railway company is giving everybody free passage Western Ukraine and people were leaving for different reasons. Some, the fighting had approached their villages, other, I talked to a pregnant woman who was eight months pregnant, and she's waited to the last minute and said she had to go. Another woman had lived for a month in a town under Russian occupation. And I believe we have an excerpt of my conversation with her. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: How long did you live under Russian military occupation?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One month, from 27th of February.

WATSON: How would you describe that experience?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All this time, I went outside only two times just because I heard a lot of cases of -- WATSON: Rape?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rape, raping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Now, this woman had heard reports of rape, she had not witnessed it firsthand, but it gives you an indication of the fear that people feel and that they're all running away from one thing. That is the Russian military, which invaded this country on February 24th. It's all the more chilling to see that people waiting at a train station trying to get out of the danger zone, appear to have been mowed down by a missile now, the kinds of people that I was traveling with who were simply trying to get to safety and freedom, in many cases, with their children. It's just absolutely awful.

SCIUTTO: There's no more ruthless target than a train station in Ukraine today because those refugees are largely, as you say, Ivan, made up of women and children. The men cannot leave the country and elderly people. It's a deliberate civilian potential crime. Ivan Watson, thanks so much.

Joining us now is Yevhenya Kravchuk. She is a member of Ukraine's parliament. Yevhenya, it's good to have you.

Russia is claiming once again this attack is fake, as they claimed about Bucha, as they claimed about what we've seen in Mariupol so far. They say, in effect, that Ukraine is killing its own people deliberately to somehow pin it on Russia. What's your response to that?

YEVHENYA KRAVCHUK, MEMBER OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT: Thank you, Jim and Bianna, for having me. Well, they say this nonsense since 2014. Remember the MH-17? They said that Ukrainians hit the Malaysian Boeing and afterwards everyone, even in the court, said that it was Russian- controlled forces that did it.

So, they do it for years, trying to lie to the face of the whole world, trying to say something that Ukrainians are killing their own people, which is absolute nonsense because we did not have any casualties until Russian soldiers came and started bombing our cities. And I'm sorry to say, but we have just a few minutes ago, we had new numbers, and now it's 50 people that died because of these cruel attacks. 5 of these 50 people were children.

This is inhuman, absolutely inhuman. And when Russian troops cannot do anything on the ground, they're just behaving like a covert terrorist and they send these missiles to the train stations, to maternity wards, to hospitals, to schools, that's what they do every day.

GOLODRYGA: Yevhenya, it's just heartbreaking to hear you update us with those numbers, specifically with the five children. And I'm curious to get your perspective, given that you work on teaching Ukrainians about social media awareness in the country.

[10:10:06] We talk about media awareness in Russia and the hold of social media there and everything really beholden to the Kremlin and state propaganda. I'm curious, after Bucha, after this attack today, you know, forget media in Russia, there are Russians that speak with family members and friends in Ukraine that are sent images like this. At what point do you think we'll finally see a change and see more pressure from the Russian people on the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself?

KRAVCHUK: I don't really see that happening. They've been under propaganda for 23 years and they just refuse to believe these images. Even if they have relatives in Ukraine and relatives who would call them saying like my house is ruined, our relatives are dead and your soldiers are behind that.

So, right now, we have to understand this is not just a war that Putin does. Actually, people of Russia, they do support it. And those who don't, they probably already fled the country and they do not have the free media.

I'm a journalist myself. I follow them, the media closely. They banned all independent media, they closed Twitter, they closed Instagram. They are closing YouTube. So, you can't really get this information. And probably most of the people, they do not want to hear this information and they do not want to be part of these atrocities that Russian soldiers do.

But, I mean, you can't really hide it because the neighbors will see that a family received, I don't know, a refrigerator or something from -- that you saw, that they are just murderers, they're stealing things from the houses and sending them to their families. How pervert (ph) is that?

SCIUTTO: Yes. There's video of them in Belarusian post offices doing exactly what you say there.

I do want to ask you, given what you were saying about Russian support for this war, as best we know it, do you hold the Russian people responsible for this, not just Putin?

KRAVCHUK: Yes. They elected Putin. They elected this Duma. They did not go to protest while they could. And now, they say they can't go to protest because all these policemen will put them to jail. Well, we are from the country that had two revolutions. We know what freedom is, and Russians don't.

GOLODRYGA: It shows you what happens when someone is elected to be in power for 22 years now. And, by the way, there's election in two years from now, where he will likely win again.

Yevhenya Kravchuk, thank you so much for your perspective and everything that you're doing on the ground there.

KRAVCHUK: Thank you for having me.

GOLODRYGA: And still to come, the Turkish drones that have inspired an anthem for the Ukrainian army, why they have been so effective. And also, CNN gets an exclusive look inside the facility where they're made.

Plus, no water, no sewer, no electricity, the losses are just incredible. Now, we're learning more about the, quote, prehistoric conditions in Borodyanka.

SCIUTTO: And President Biden will speak from the White House in just a few hours alongside incoming Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. We'll speak with the man who guided her through the confirmation process, former Senator Doug Jones.

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SCIUTTO: It's catchy. That is an anthem that's now gone viral in Ukraine, an ode to the Bayraktar drones made in Turkey that have proven so effective in Ukraine's war against the invading Russian army. You're seeing footage there of strikes on Russian armor by the drone.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now urging President Biden to start including the drones and weapons that the U.S. is providing to Ukraine.

CNN's, Jomana Karadsheh joins us from Istanbul. And Jomana, you got an exclusive tour of the drone's production facility inside Turkey. How significant of a tool has this been for Ukraine throughout this war?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Bianna, the TB2, the Bayraktar TB2s have been used in combat for years, since 2014. They've been credited in the past for turning the tide in a number of conflicts, including Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, but it was really in Ukraine where they are really in the spotlight right now.

Ukrainian officials are saying that it is one of the most effective weapons in their arsenal. Ukrainian as well as western officials are saying that Ukrainian military has been able to use them quite effectively in reconnaissance, surveillance and using them in these targeted strikes against Russian convoys, Russian targets, that they were actually quite effective early on in the invasion in slowing down the Russian advance.

But, look, Turkey has been very careful in, really, talking about this drone, and touting this drone. Ukraine was the first country to buy it from Turkey back in 2019.

[10:20:02]

And up until now, they've ordered at least 36 of those drones. But for Turkey, it's quite a sensitive subject because, as you know very well, Turkey is a NATO country but it also maintains very close ties with both Ukraine and Russia. It is really trying to mediate between both countries. And while it has condemned the Russian invasion, it has been very, very careful when it comes to criticizing Moscow.

And, you know, at the same time, talking about this drone, it has been a major irritant for the Russians even before the invasion. So we got exclusive and rare access to the drone production facility and we got to speak to the drone's creator, Selcuk Bayraktar, who also happens to be the son-in-law of President Erdogan. So, you can imagine how careful he was in talking to us about this issue.

He said, look, technology has played a big part in the conflict but he says that shouldn't take away from what the Ukrainian people are doing. He says they are the ones who should be getting credit, saying it is the brave people of Ukraine, in his words, and the brave leadership of Ukraine who have put on this righteous resistance in the face of an illegal invasion.

And he says, from what he's seen, this drone has given people hope and it's become one of the many symbols of the resistance.

SCIUTTO: small weapons like that, the shoulder-fired missiles, anti- tank, anti-aircraft, the smaller weapons against a far larger army with larger weapons and they're having success. Jomana Karadsheh, thanks so much.

Well, right now, Turkey is one of the few countries that has now returned its embassy into Ukraine. It comes as President Zelenskyy is calling for more diplomatic missions to come back to the capital, Kyiv, as a significant gesture but also a signal of support to Russia.

GOLODRYGA: And joining us now is Susan Glasser, Staff Writer for The New Yorker and CNN Global Affairs Analyst. Susan, good to see you.

So, what do you make of Turkey now returning its embassy to Ukraine? Obviously, a huge symbolic move, but are we going to see and should we see, at this point, other countries following suit?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it will be interesting. You're going to see certainly the Ukrainian leadership and President Zelenskyy urging them to return. The more that he can shore up Ukraine's standing as an intact state in the world, the more that it benefits his diplomacy and his case for maximal support.

I think you're going to continue to see high level visits certainly to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. I think there's top European security officials going there today. I wouldn't be surprised if you'll see other European leaders also coming to stand in solidarity, whether they will be able to bring their staff back or not, unclear. But I do think this is a priority diplomatically for Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Why doesn't the U.S. president go or vice president? Is that a security issue or is it an issue to worry about Russian reaction, about the direct U.S. involvement or symbol of direct U.S. involvement?

GLASSER: I suspect it's all of the above, right? It's certainly -- you know, I know Secretary of State Antony Blinken right at the beginning of the war very symbolically sort of stepped over the line from Poland to Western Ukraine in a gesture of solidarity, but that's as close as American officials have come. And I find it hard to imagine certainly in the short-term that you're going to see President Biden there.

I saw one Ukrainian yesterday saying, why doesn't President Biden come and speak to the world from Bucha and talk about these atrocities? It would be dramatic, for sure.

SCIUTTO: Tear down this wall, right? It makes you think Reagan at the Berlin wall.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And as much as obviously President Zelenskyy and Ukrainians would want to see that image, we all know that what they would prefer, most of all, is to see Europeans and European nations put an embargo on all oil and gas exports from Russia. And, in fact, that's not what we're seeing, Susan. I mean, E.U. foreign ministers are reportedly not going to address or discuss an oil embargo on Russia when they meet Monday in Luxembourg.

So, does this seem like a lost cause at this point?

GLASSER: Well, I think you're absolutely right. Symbolism is one thing and it's certainly not to be discounted in diplomacy but action right now is what's needed. This is not the end of the war. It's, in effect, a strategic pause, as Russia regroups.

The horrific attack today on civilians into train station is a reminder of the havoc that is continuing to be wreaked. There's a prospect that even worse and more strategic attacks on civilians as part of Russia's next phase of the war in an effort to bring Ukraine to the table with concessions, and so the west refusing to turn up, in a sense, the pressure on Russia.

[10:25:00]

As long as Russia has a market for its energy, Russia is not cut off from the global economy, and that's just a fact.

SCIUTTO: I spoke with European diplomats last week who spoke, and it's not the first time we've heard this, about the possibility of E.U. membership for Ukraine as a step below NATO membership. And they noted that while there was certainly no mutual defense commitment with the E.U., as there is with Article V with NATO, there is some language in there about mutual security assistance, France, for instance, invoked it after the Paris attacks. Could that be a middle ground here for Ukraine going forward?

GLASSER: Yes, absolutely. And I think, by the way, it's something that would be very much of interest to President Zelenskyy and to the Ukrainian people. That's something -- again, remember that that Maidan revolution was triggered not by Ukraine's desire to join NATO but by its desire to look to the west and to the European Union. And I think you're right, people often misstate the extent to which it's a security arrangement as well.

But remember, the E.U. has some serious troubles within as well. Viktor Orban, who has often carried Vladimir Putin's water, was just reelected. This weekend, we have an election in France, in which Marine Le Pen, another Putin apologist, is polling surprising me strongly. So, the E.U. is not sort of shoulder to shoulder united on what to do next either.

SCIUTTO: And that's something that -- that is a rift that Putin wants to take advantage of, if he can. Susan Glasser, thanks so much.

GLASSER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Soon, incoming Supreme Court Justice Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will appear at the White House with President Biden. We'll take you there live to speak with the former senator, Doug Jones. He helped her navigate the confirmation process. There he is right there. We're going to speak to him in a couple of minutes.

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