Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Drone Footage Shows Russians Gun Down Cyclist; European Commission Leader To Meet Zelenskyy In Ukraine; Russia Suspended From U.N. Human Rights Council; CNN Meets Survivors Of Russian Attacks In Mykolaiv; 4.3 Million Refugees Have Fled Ukraine Since War Began; Wounded Civilians Transported Hundreds Of Miles To Lviv; Ukrainian Families Searching for their Missing Children; History in the High Court; COVID Outbreak Infects Washington Power Players; Most of China's COVID Cases are in Shanghai; Creating a Bright Birthday in Dark Times. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired April 08, 2022 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:00:37]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm John Vause live in Lviv, Ukraine. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. For Ukraine now getting some high tech help from the United States in its fight against the Russian military. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledging for the first time the U.S. is providing intelligence to Ukraine as the war moves to the Donbas region.
Russia is concentrating on areas in the east which it already partly controls. Regional Authority say Russian forces have been hitting hospitals, train stations and other civilian infrastructure. And Ukraine's foreign minister says the heaviest fighting in the Donbas region is yet to come and when it does, battles will be reminiscent of World War II.
Meantime, Russian forces have withdrawn from areas around the capital Kyiv and they've left behind an apocalyptic scene of death and destruction. 26 bodies have been found in the rubble of two buildings in Borodianka. Ukraine's President says Russia is the greatest threat on the planet to freedom and security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): After Bucha, this is already obvious. And the work on dismantling the debris in Borodianka began. It's much worse there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Ukraine's Foreign Minister says negotiations will continue with Russia to try and prevent more Buchas but more atrocities from that city are now coming to light, as well as the stories of the victims. And Phil Black's report now contains some very graphic images and very disturbing details. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iryna Filkina in a happier time before the Russians came. It's likely this video shows Iryna after the invasion in early March just moments before her death. She seems cycling through Bucha, heading towards a large number of Russian vehicles. As she approaches a corner, she dismounts.
One of the vehicles fires. She moves around the corner out of sight, and it fires again and again, at least five more times. Then a large muzzle flash from a second concealed vehicle. Moments later, smoke rises from near that corner.
A different video, geo located by CNN, to the same corner shows a dead woman on the ground next to her bike. Other images of that body clearly show her hand and her distinctive nails. The woman who only recently taught Iryna how to apply makeup recognize them instantly.
ANASTASIA SUBACHEVA, MAKEUP ARTIST: She draw a heart on her finger because she started to love herself. This woman was incredible.
BLACK (voice-over): Olga Shchyruk didn't need to see the nails to know that was her mother's body.
OLGA SHCHYRUK, IRYNA FILKINA'S DAUGHTER: She tells me she doesn't know what she feels now. It's such a void, she says. When I saw that it was my mother, the war faded away. The war ended with her and I lost the war.
Olga says her mother called her while she was cycling that day, not long before she was killed. She'd been sheltering at her workplace and decided to go home because she thought it would be safer.
BLACK (on-camera): Tell us about your mother. How would you like the world to know her?
(voice-over): She says Iryna had a hard life overcoming obstacles, only really starting to live in the last two years. But she could do the impossible and inspired others to believe they could too.
Elsewhere in Bucha, someone recorded the moment three men were found, all shot in the head. This video is how Olga Gavriluk found out her son, Roman, and son-in-law Sergei had been killed.
She says, I don't want to live anymore. The grief. I cried day and night. I don't know how to live.
Images from Bucha have taught the world undeniable truths about the brutality of Russia's invasion. For some, that knowledge is deeply personal and impossibly painful.
Phil Black, CNN, Lviv, Ukriane.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:05:03] VAUSE: A symbolic show of support in the coming hours, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet with President Zelenskyy in the capital Kyiv. The time of their meeting has not been disclosed for security reasons.
On Thursday, the E.U. also slipped a fifth wave of sanctions on Moscow. They include a ban on coal imports, and selling high tech products to Moscow. E.U. ports will also would now be off limits to Russian vessels.
In a response, Russia singled out Italy, saying its support for sanctions is indecent. Italy's prime minister called that hypocrisy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIO DRAGHI, ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translation): About that declaration of indecent sanctions, your indecency are the massacres we see every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Russia has also lost his seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council because of the brutality of its military offensive here in Ukraine. The General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Moscow's membership. But before the vote, sources say Russia circulated a letter threatening, quote, consequences against countries that supported that measure.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said the suspension sent an important message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Right now the world is looking to us. They are asking if the United Nations is prepared to meet this moment. Today, the International Community took one collective step in the right direction. We ensured our persistent and egregious human rights violator will not be allowed to occupy a position of leadership on the human -- on human rights at the U.N.
Let us continue to hold Russia accountable for this unprovoked, unjust, unconscionable war, and to do everything in our power to stand with the people of Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: But the big question, how much effect can these diplomatic and economic moves have on changing minds in the Kremlin? For that, we're joined by CNN's European Affairs Commentator, Dominic Thomas. He's with us now from Paris.
Dominic, thank you for joining us. Suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council, sanctions on Putin and his daughters, all of this is symbolic. It's meant to send a message to the Russian President, but is Putin not hearing the outreach and disapproval, but is he hearing sort of weakness and impotence? DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: At the end of the day, I don't think he cares one little bit about the sort of international attempts to have recourse to courts legislation and so on, and is not concerned about the enforceability of all of this. Having said that, these are part of the multipronged, you know, Western response to his actions that include, you know, sanctions, humanitarian assistance, military aid, and so on.
I think that beyond seeing a kind of weakness here, I think what he is asking in upon is a kind of vulnerability, where he sees a question around the kind of the will of the United States, of the European Union and of the different European Unions, different countries, and different relationships, of course, to this conflict, and to what Ukraine has been asking all the time, and is persistent in his goal of trying to undermine the multilateral order. And the more he does that, the more he can attack on some kind of level of weakness here.
VAUSE: Yes. And when it comes to the impact of these economic sanctions, I want you to listen to a former Deputy General Secretary of NATO, on her opinion on how Putin sees all of this. Here she is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY GENERAL, NATO: I think in the end of the day, President Putin doesn't care that much about the economy. He's -- he would be happy enough returning to the planned economy of the Soviet Union. That's what he seems to indicate. I don't think he understands a lot about the nuance of the international economic practice and what a healthy economy looks like from a Western perspective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So he doesn't care. He doesn't care the impact on Russian population, the hardships they'll be feeling. So does this now come down to Russian oil and gas? If economic sanctions are effective, Europe has to bite the bullet, shut off the Russian gas. Forget about China throwing Russia economic lifeline, Europe is sending Moscow a lifeline everyday pays for energy?
THOMAS: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. And within that equation, which is not surprising that the leadership went and predictably singled out Italy because of their gross dependency on Russian energy. But Germany is the one that stands up. And as you know, it's a country going through a remarkable transition after 16 years of Angela Merkel being at the helm.
It's a complex coalition government in which the Greens play a major role. In fact, the foreign secretary is one of the former leaders of the Green Party. And the long term goals of Germany are renewable energy, but short term, they're struggling to manage and balance their economic goals, their economic policy, interests and so on.
But it is unambiguously clear that until they stop buying Russian energy and until they do that as soon as possible, they are effectively undermining the efforts that are being made to curb Russian's aggression towards Ukraine.
[01:10:14]
And so that is, at the moment, the question of the embargo on oil and gas is absolutely front and center in terms of impacting the Russian economy and Putin.
VAUSE: I want you to listen to the former U.S. President Barack Obama and his assessment of the Russian President right now. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't know that the person I knew is the same as the person who is now leading this charge for him to bet the farm in this way, I'm not -- I would not have necessarily protected from him five years ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So, is the West working from an outdated assessment of Putin assuming that he's rational?
THOMAS: I think that certainly historically. Dealing with Russia has meant appeasing, managing. Let's not forget that former President Trump was pushing to have Russian Federation back into the group of the G7, G8. Those days are clearly over.
I would actually say that, on the contrary, there is a clear awareness that they are dealing now with a non-rational actor, and that there's been tremendous restraint, therefore, because of the real risk of escalation being presented here by President Putin. But having said that, the recent coverage, the incredible work that's been done by correspondents, by journalists and by reporters are uncovering war crimes, genocide, and a clear link between the language of the Russian leadership and the intentionality and the actions that are taking place on the ground.
And I think that we're at a crucial turning point where public opinion does not understand why they are watching this country being systematically destroyed, and why they are witnessing the kinds of crime crimes and massacres that are taking place on the ground. And thus far, certainly, the ways in which they've been dealing with this have been conscientious, restraint but, ultimately, you could argue that they are not achieving the desired impact. And I think that the days and weeks ahead are therefore going to be crucial in recalibrating this policy to stop this kind of outcome.
VAUSE: Dominic Thomas, thank you so much for being with us. It does beg the question, when will the West grow a spine and stand up to this land? But, thank you. Thank you, Dominic.
THOMAS: Yes.
VAUSE: Well, to the southeast now and the port city of Mykolaiv, where nowhere is safe from Russian strikes, including the city's cancer hospital, or a market full of civilians. CNN's Ben Wedeman and some of the victims of Russia's brutality there, and others desperately trying to flee to safer ground.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This has become Mykolaiv's daily routine, picking up the pieces, sweeping away the wreckage from Russian missile attacks. Random shelling throughout the city, with what appeared to be cluster munitions. Glass shards and shrapnel tore into Marina (ph). As she lies in a hospital, her thoughts are with her teenage daughter also injured now at a children's hospital.
My daughter and I were caught between two bombs, she recalls. It's a miracle we're still alive. It was terrifying. The hospital where Marina (ph) is recovering was hit in the morning. Dirt covers the blood from one of the injured.
Closed circuit television video from the city's cancer hospital captures the moment it was struck. Earlier this week, a missile barrage killed nine people and wounded more than 40 at this market.
(on-camera): We were able to count 23 impact points in a radius of just 100 meters. And each one of these incoming rounds sprays shrapnel in every direction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language).
WEDEMAN (voice-over): Danilo (ph) was working in this store and rushed outside when he heard the blasts.
Over there, a woman was screaming, help me. Her leg was shattered, he says. Behind the store, two people were killed. Dried blood and flowers mark the spot where people died. Last week, a bomb struck the regional governor's office killing 36 people.
Every day in Mykolaiv, this relentless bombardment shatters any semblance of normal life. Mid-afternoon and people line up to escape the danger. This bus bound for Poland.
Victoria cradles her one-year-old daughter Ivana (ph). Her husband stays behind.
[01:15:05]
Soon we'll be back home, says Victoria. Everything will be alright. How soon that will be? Nobody knows.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Mykolaiv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: When we come back, for many Ukrainians who have been wounded by Russian shelling or airstrikes, missile attacks, there are now no nearby medical facilities to treat their injuries. They've all been damaged or destroyed. So they come here to Lviv, hundreds of miles away for a chance to live. That story just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: 19 minutes past the hour. Welcome back, everybody. Well, this war now into its seventh week. And as it drags on, more and more Ukrainians are making that difficult decision to pack up everything they have and leave their homes behind and head to safety.
[01:20:01]
The U.N. says more than 4.3 million Ukrainians have made the decision to leave this country. Over 7 million have fled and are now internally displaced leaving the East for the West. Hospitals among the civilian infrastructure which has been targeted, the World Health Organization says there have been more than 100 attacks on Ukrainian health care facilities with dozens killed and wounded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WHO DIRECTOR-GENERAL: Attacks on health care are a violation of international humanitarian law. Peace is the only way forward. I again call on the Russian Federation to stop the war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Health care facilities especially in the East have been so badly damaged by the Russian onslaught. Many wounded civilians must now come here to Lviv in the West for lifesaving medical care. It is a long and difficult journey.
CNN's Jake Tapper has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just as Putin's forces did in Syria, so too are they targeting hospitals and medical centers here in Ukraine. Two hundred seventy-nine hospitals have been damaged since the war started, according to the Ukrainian health minister, with 19 of them completely decimated. Forcing thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians wounded in Russian attacks in the east and south to be shuttled hundreds of miles to hospitals in western Ukraine to fight to stay alive. Such as Olga Zhuchenko.
(on camera): Do you ever think you'll be able to go back to your normal life?
(voice-over): She ran a grocery store in the Luhansk region with her husband Maxim Aleksandrof (ph) when seven bombs hit their neighborhood, shrapnel pummeling her apartment balcony.
OLGA ZHUCHENKO, SURVIVED SEVEN BOMBS DROOPING ON NEIGHBORHOOD (through translator): I have lost everything. I have lost my flat, my property, my health. We didn't expect to see it. We always have counted Russians as brotherly people. We never hoped they will exterminate us like that.
TAPPER (voice-over): Olga has been here in this hospital, in this bed for one month. She may never walk again.
Their elderly neighbor was killed in the same attack. They tell me she had been so scared she stayed with them for a few days before her life was so brutally and unfairly snuffed out by Putin's bombs.
By now it is clear these attacks on civilian apartment buildings are no accident. Entire civilian city blocks in Irpin and Mariupol residential apartment buildings have been obliterated. The facts lead to only one conclusion, the Russians are purposely slaughtering Ukrainians, moms and dads, children, grandparents. The Russian government, of course, denies targeting civilians.
A group of American doctors with expertise in war injuries, because of unfortunate American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, were visiting the hospital when we were there, meeting with the mayor of Lviv, sharing what they knew about war wounds.
DR. JOHN HOLCOMB, PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, UNIV. OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: We wanted to share information from our experiences in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the civilian hospitals in the U.S.
MAYOR ANDRIY IVANOVYCH SADOVYI, LVIV, UKRAINE: Thank you for visit. Thank you for support. And thank you for cooperation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
SADOVYI: This is very important for Ukraine, and for the United States and for the future.
TAPPER (voice-over): These are brutal injuries that are unfamiliar to young surgeons in western Ukraine. Dr. Hnat Herych, chief surgeon, has seen an influx of thousands of these patients.
DR. HNAT HERYCH, CHIEF OF SURGERY AT A UKRAINIAN HOSPITAL: The injury that we have now is unbelievable.
TAPPER (on camera): What do you want the world to know about what you're seeing here?
HERYCH: I want the world to know that -- they need to know that the Russian forces they don't fight with the Ukrainian army, they fight with the Ukrainian people. They're killing civilians, they're killing children, they're destroying our country.
YURIY KHANIN, UKRAINIAN PATIENT, HOME DESTROYED BY BOMBS (through translator): Shrapnel, shrapnel now in my back, in my feet, everywhere.
TAPPER (voice-over): Before he was a patient whose body is now riddled with shrapnel when his home was hit, Yuriy Khanin from the Luhansk region was an anesthesiologist.
KHANIN (through translator): The flat where we lived in is destroyed. My parents' flat is destroyed. My wife's flat is destroyed. We lost everything. TAPPER (voice-over): He has a number and Army medic wrote on his arm so they could keep track of patients needing help in the chaos of the war.
(on camera): Causing war, creating war is not just directly inflicting pain with bullets and bombs on people. It's also creating conditions of desperation, which poses a whole other set of problems whether disease or starvation or panic.
[01:25:09]
(on camera): And these secondary effects from the chaos of Putin's war can also be fatal.
OLHA ARKYNSHYN, UKRAINIAN PATIENT (through translator): We had a happy life. Everything was perfect. And then everything changed very abruptly.
TAPPER (voice-over): We met Ola Arkynshyn on her 45th birthday. She and her husband Alex and 10-year-old son had been hiding in their basement in the Kharkiv region for a month. The shelling, they say, was relentless.
ARKYNSHYN (through translator): We were so afraid, especially our kid was so afraid that we couldn't stay anymore.
TAPPER (voice-over): When the building next door was flattened, she was so scared for her son's life they got in their car and fled. She had not slept for two days. She was in a horrific car accident.
ARKYNSHYN (through translator): When I got in my first hospital in Khmelnytskyi, they couldn't help and operate severe broken skull and bones.
TAPPER (on camera): So you can't see right now?
ARKYNSHYN (through translator): Only silhouettes like very far away.
TAPPER (on camera): Do you think you'll ever go back to the life you had?
AKYNSHYN (through translation): I hope it will. The school where my child learned has been destroyed. But I hope if our house stay safe, that we will return, rebuild. Our neighbor will rebuild, our village or town. I love my Ukraine so much. I would only want to live here in Ukraine.
PUTIN (voice-over): Putin fashions himself an alpha male, a tough guy. One has to wonder why Putin thinks slaughtering civilians, seniors, women and children, mutilating women, such as Olga and Olha. Are those the actions of a strong, powerful man, or are they the actions of someone else? Someone weaker and pathetic?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thanks Jake Tapper for the record. When we come back, thousands of Ukrainians are missing. And a group say the Kremlin is deporting them to so-called filtration camps in Russia. Details when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:31:23]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm John Vause, live in Lviv, Ukraine. We've just heard the air raid sirens going off here warning of a possible strike but we will keep an eye on that and see what happens.
Ukraine's prosecutor general says search crews have found 26 bodies under the rubble of two houses in Borodyanka. The town northwest of Kyiv has been left in ruins by Russian forces. Ukraine's president says he expects more atrocities will be discovered there proving Russia is the greatest threat on the planet to freedom and security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): So far, the Russian state and the Russian military are the greatest threat on the planet to freedom, to human security, to the concept of human rights as such. After Bucha, this is already obvious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: There are also disturbing reports of Ukrainian troops executing a wounded Russian soldier. This is a still photograph of the scene. The video itself is too gruesome to show. And it shows uniformed Ukrainians coming across four Russian casualties after a firefight. Three appear to be dead but one is badly wounded and gasping for air. Three shots were then fired into the body which then stops moving.
When asked about this, Ukraine's foreign minister said the Ukrainian military adheres to accepted rules of warfare, but added there may be isolated violations which would be investigated.
And then, there are other stories emerging of Ukrainians being deported to Russia, forced to pass through what's called filtration or registration camps. Mariupol city council said that Russia's failure to agree to evacuation corridors and its creation of the filtration centers are part of a broader effort to cover up potential war crimes carried out in his city.
The council says Russian forces want to identify potential witnesses to the atrocities and destroy them.
CNN cannot verify the claims, but we are hearing residents who say they were sent to Russia against their will, as well as reports of missing children.
Katie Polglase has our report from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE PRODUCER: Post after post of missing children in Ukraine. Families, desperate to find their loved ones. Most come from the cities most severely impacted by the fighting.
And at the top of that list is Mariupol. These pictures of missing children were provided by parents and police to Magnolia (ph), the Ukrainian NGO tracking missing children. Their Ukrainian director told CNN they are inundated with cases.
MARYNA LYPOVETSKA, MAGNOLIA MISSING CHILDREN SEARCH SERVICE, NGO: The number of missing children is closer to 2,000 per only one month.
POLGLASE: A scene of utter devastation. Amid the chaos, and uncertainty families told CNN, relatives, including children, went missing. And now from this void, a story has emerged of people not missing but deported.
LYPOVETSKA: Some (INAUDIBLE) of the people are stolen, forced -- stolen by Russians, some were displaced in Russia, but no one knows information on where exactly, and for what.
POLGLASE: CNN has spoken to multiple Mariupol residents who say soldiers from the Russian army, forcibly evacuated them to Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of those who asked to stay were told, no.
POLGLASE: This testimony is from Anna. We're using a pseudonym to protect her identity and a CNN producer is reading her words. Like many others, Anna, a young woman, was living under bombardment in Mariupol.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They came in and said, it's an order. He told us, if you make a fuss, things will get worse.
[01:34:49]
POLGLASE: Many told us that it started with a promise of evacuation. Soldiers came to where they were staying and told them it was dangerous, and that they needed to get out.
And so they went to shelters and then camps, further and further into Russian territory. It was then that they realized that there was very little option to get out.
CNN spoke to multiple people on the condition of anonymity and using Anna's testimony we started tracking the key locations along the deportation route.
We are not identifying individual routes for the safety of our interviewees. This is the town of Bezimenne. These tents indicate one of many sites across the town where interviewees told us, they were taken on the first step of their journey.
Anna described her stop as a, quote, "registration camp" where they said they were interrogated for hours by Russian and Russian-backed forces. Russia claims these camps are to harbor refugees. Another shelter seen here in Tagnorov (ph). And while some interview saw the journey to Russia as a necessary passage to safety, others including Anna found the experience distressing and forced.
This is Anna's migration card, a standard document provided ahead by Russia upon entry but it masks a troubling journey. Anna told CNN they were forced to surrender their phones and passports during intense security checks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They photograph you from angles. I felt we were treated like criminals or being held as a property of the Russian Federation. I didn't feel we were free to leave.
POLGLASE: After questioning, interviewees told CNN they were transferred to other locations dotted across Russia and Russian occupied territory. Some made onward journeys as far as Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The limitations on freedom of movement for those interviewed by CNN seem to vary based on their access to money and family ties in Russia.
Ukraine's government claims 45,000 people have been forcibly taken to Russia so far which CNN, cannot independently verify. International human rights conventions prohibit the forced deportation or transfer of civilians.
After a week of transfers across Russian territory, Anna was finally given permission to leave and decided to drive to the border with Estonia, a route others have also managed to take, according to the Estonian authorities.
However others still remain in Russia or unaccounted for entirely. And while the conflict in Ukraine continues, the panicked search for the missing feared dead or deported goes on.
Katie Polglase, CNN -- London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: It's just gone 37 minutes past the hour, and I will back at the top of the hour.
In the meantime, history in the U.S. on Thursday. The Senate confirmed the first black female Supreme Court justice ever. And my colleague and friend Paula Newton has all the details in a moment.
[01:37:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 47. And this nomination is confirmed.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: At the round of applause there, the U.S. Supreme Court will have its first, black woman justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. Now she watched the vote President Joe Biden Thursday. The confirmation follows a contentious hearing in the senate. Despite that, Vice President Kamala Harris as you just saw there calls it a victory for the entire country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I think it makes a very important statement about who we aspire to be, who we are and who we believe ourselves to be.
The statement about -- on our highest court in the land we want to make (INAUDIBLE) full representation and the finest, and brightest, and the best. And that's what happened today. I'm very proud.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Jackson will be sworn in after Justice Stephen Breyer retires and that will be sometime this summer.
Now an outbreak of COVID among Washington's power players is triggering an alarm because of their proximity to President Joe Biden.
Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has in fact tested positive for COVID. That happened on Thursday, a day after standing right next to the president at a bill signing. You see her there.
And the Justice Department confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland tested positive for COVID as well. He is not said to be experiencing any symptoms and is fully vaccinated.
And Republican Susan Collins of Maine also has COVID-19. She and Garland were among 37 people who tested positive after attending a dinner of Washington elites over the weekend.
Now we have to stress here, so far, Mr. Biden has not tested positive for COVID.
Now Shanghai has yet to get a handle on the COVID outbreak there. Now in the last few hours government officials announced more than 21,000 new cases in the city. That is nearly all the cases in the entire country. The outbreak has reached nearby cities and they too are now being put under lockdown.
Kristie Lu Stout is live for us in Hong Kong. And you've been following all of this, including this late breaking details.
I mean all of these details, to be frank, are kind of shocking with China's punishing zero COVID lockdowns, you know, still in force. It really seems like people in Shanghai are really being driven to the brink here.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. you know, Shanghai is buckling under the citywide lockdown with no end in sight. And some residents have hit breaking points and they are speaking out. Earlier today, Shanghai reported over 21,000 new cases of COVID-19. And as the cases continue to rise, China continues to cling on to this tough, zero COVID policy that is punishing to both lives and livelihoods in Shanghai.
Now, this next video clip that we're going to air has gone viral this week in China. And I want you to watch and listen to this man vent his frustration about life under lockdown in Shanghai. Listen.
[01:44:57]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyday, my business is shut but my employees need to eat. I don't have money. I have to pay for mortgage. In two days my mortgage is due.
I don't care anymore. Just let the Communist Party take me. Where is the Communist Party?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STOUT: He has reached his limit. Now CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of that video. That video has gone viral.
There's also rising anger over the continued food shortages in Shanghai. In this next clip, you will see this really angry confrontation, a standoff between residents in a residential compound and police.
At some point in this clip, the residents say, we are starving. We again, cannot independently verify this video. But on Thursday, the Shanghai government did say and did pledge that they're working to resolve the food distribution issues in the city.
And there is also rising concern and anger over this video that has gone viral this week. It's a disturbing account, basically this medical worker was caught on camera beating someone's pet to death -- a pet corgi.
It happened after the pet's owner apparently tested positive for COVID and was taken away to quarantine. And the dog, in view of eyewitnesses and to the person the shot this video, was bashed to death.
CNN has made several attempts to reach out to the residential committee overseeing this compound. We are waiting to get comment and any more clarity on what happened here.
But look, in all these clips, Paula, they showcase the brutality and the desperation that are caused by these extreme measures all done in the name of zero COVID.
Back to you.
NEWTON: Yes. And what's so disturbing is 21,000 cases now. This is clearly going to go on for some time yet. STOUT: Yes.
NEWTON: Kristie, we really appreciate you giving this update.
Now ahead here for us on CNN NEWSROOM, distance and dark times couldn't stop a Ukrainian family from celebrating their daughter's birthday. Their emotional story when we return.
[01:47:03]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEWTON: Now, as you might imagine, the war has affected every aspect of Ukrainian life even something as ordinary as celebrating a birthday. Despite these dark times, one Ukrainian family did their best to give their daughter a bright and joyful celebration.
CNN's Rafael Romo has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The cake is ready, and most of the family has arrived. And what's a birthday party without birthday hats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Happy birthday.
ROMO: Grandpa and grandma get their hats too. And it's time to light the candles.
But there is something missing or rather, someone -- the birthday girl herself. Is that why her father seems pensive, sad perhaps?
Darina Pelenskyy (ph) a girl from the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, turns ten today. But she is far, far away -- 1,500 kilometers away.
Technology allows for long distance birthday wishes.
"We congratulate you on your birthday," Darina's grandmother tells her on the phone. "We wish you happiness and health. And although we are not together, our hearts are with you."
The story about how this family is celebrating a long distance birthday is a story of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian families whose lives have been upended by a Russian invasion.
How would you describe the experience of having witnessed the bombing?
YURY PELENSKYY, LVIV RESIDENT: It was scary.
ROMO: Yuri Pelenskyy (ph) is Darina's father.
You told me that you could actually hear the bomb coming here?
PELENSKYY: Yes. Yes.
ROMO: He says he wanted to keep his family together in their home, but when bombs flew right above his apartment building and exploded at a military base a few kilometers away, he knew it was time to say goodbye.
PELENSKYY: It's horror. It is like a horror film. It is like a bad dream. And you wake up in the morning you understand that it is not like bad dream.
ROMO: The following day, he drove his daughter, wife Marta and mother, Lesya (ph) to Krakow, Poland. There, they took a flight to Milan, Italy, where they are currently staying with family, far away from any airstrikes.
How do you explain to a 10-year old girl that the only country she has ever known is at war and that bombs are falling?
PELENSKYY: We explain that it's Russia come to our country and bad things are happening now, people die. And it is very dangerous.
ROMO: When the family finishes singing "Happy Birthday", there is not a dry eye in the room. Everybody gives the birthday girl a virtual kiss. And moments later, they all have to run to the underground shelter after the air raid siren goes off once again.
What is your hope for the future?
PELENSKYY: I hope for the future is that everything will be ok. I know that everything will be ok. We will win the war.
ROMO: And when Ukraine wins the war, Pelenskyy says, he will be able to be reunited with his family. Darina's eighth and ninth' birthday parties were canceled because of COVID-19. Her father hopes the whole family will be able to celebrate her 11th birthday next year together in a country at peace, where children are no longer afraid of falling bombs.
Rafael, CNN -- Lviv, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:54:47]
NEWTON: And millions looking for similar reunions. Now if you would like to help people in Ukraine, please go to CNN.com/impact. You'll find several ways to help.
So many of you already have. Already viewers and contributed more than $7 million for humanitarian relief effort in Ukraine.
And finally for us, we are just hours away from the launch of Axiom One, which will carry four civilians now to the International Space Station.
It is the inaugural mission for the commercial spaceflight company known as Axiom Space and the first time an all private crew will go to the ISS. Now, they are expected to dock with the orbiter on Saturday and spend eight days working on experiments alongside American and European astronauts, and of course, Russian cosmonauts.
Despite tensions between Russia and the West, hope remains the ISS can remain a symbol of cooperation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK VANDE HEI, NASA ASTRONAUT: Honestly, I think that is one of the reasons we've been able to have an International Space Station. Some people that don't care so much about space, care about international relations and having a space station where we can cooperate, I think is really important for a peaceful future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: And I want to thank you for watching. I'm Paula Newton.
Stand by, right after the break, we will have live coverage from Lviv Ukraine.
[01:56:07]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
