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British PM Boris Johnson Meets With Zelenskyy In Kyiv; Ukraine Braces For Major Russian Offensive In Eastern Part Of Country; Zelenskyy: More Countries Should Follow U.K.'s Lead And Impose Full Energy Embargo On Russia; U.N.: 2.6M Refugees Have Fled To Poland Since Russian Invasion; Ukrainian Mom Of Two Boys Describes Horrors Of Escaping War; Pressure Grows On Biden To Increase Sanctions As Evidence Of Russian Atrocities In Ukraine Mounts; White House Says Its "Possible" Biden Could Get COVID Amid Outbreak in DC. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 09, 2022 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:25]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Welcome to this special edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Brianna Keilar live in Lviv, Ukraine.

And we begin this hour with a show of solidarity. Today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveling to Ukraine's capital city to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy face-to-face, promising more military and economic support and telling Zelenskyy that the U.K. is in this fight for the long run.

The European Union also resuming its diplomatic presence in Kyiv. Now, the Russian forces have largely left the area and are preparing for a potentially massive offensive in eastern Donbas, according to Ukrainian government officials.

In the meantime, we are just starting to get a clearer picture of how much damage Russian troops left behind in the north. Officials in towns near Kyiv, including Bucha and Makariv say they found hundreds of civilian bodies.

Now President Zelenskyy is renewing calls to the international community to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: In the middle of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kyiv, promising new sanctions against Russia and military aid for Ukraine.

Johnson follows a stream of European diplomats visiting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer, top E.U. diplomat Josep Borrell and European Commission president, Ursula Von Der Leyen who toured the atrocities committee in Bucha and gave Zelenskyy paperwork to begin joining the E.U.

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Ukraine belongs to the European family. It is where your path towards Europe and the European Union begins.

KEILAR: As the European Union and Italy announced they would be resuming their diplomatic presence in Kyiv, the Russian front has shifted to the east where death, destruction and chaos are unfolding.

A day after a Russian missile struck the train station in Kramatorsk, a hub for Ukrainians trying to escape Russian-controlled areas in the region of Donetsk and Luhansk, there is a clearer sense of the carnage.

At least 50 people died and nearly 100 people, including 16 children, were injured as they waited for a train to take them to safety.

ANASTASIA RADINA, UKRAINIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: I can't -- I don't just -- I even don't have words to describe that. This is undescribable, unbelievable. And more importantly, this is unforgivable.

KEILAR: President Zelenskyy demanding an international response.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We expect a firm global response to this war crime. Like the massacre in Bucha, like many other Russian war crimes, the missile strike on Kramatorsk must be one of the charges at tribunal, which is bound to happen.

KEILAR: It is likely the start of a larger assault on eastern Ukraine. In the hard-hit northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainians are evacuating and bracing for an onslaught that government officials believe is on the horizon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Let's bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera, who is live in the southern port city of Odessa, Ukraine.

You know, for some time now, Ed, it seemed that folks there were worried about Russia coming into the area. It seems that that is now being realized and there is a curfew there.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So there's a couple of different things going on. It's a rare curfew where it is extending into daylight hours. So basically this city and the area around it is locked down from 9:00 tonight local time, which is about three hours ago, until 6:00 a.m. Monday morning.

And officially, military officials are saying that this is due in large part because of the attack in the train station there in eastern Ukraine. Concern that those the missile strikes could happen here as well.

But there is something else going on as well. Tomorrow is a special city holiday here. It's Odessa's Liberation Day where they celebrate the liberation from the Nazis back during World War II. It is a day that many people would traditionally come out and lay flowers at memorials and gather in public spaces. And we learned late tonight that there was new information about an explosion that happened here in the city that is being investigated as an act of sabotage.

[17:04:44]

LAVANDERA: So, you know, how all of this is kind of mixing together and playing together, you know, you can kind of sense the heightened tensions that exist around here where you have public gatherings of people and you see what happened there at that train station in eastern Ukraine. And officials here are saying they are doing this for public safety.

KEILAR: All right. Ed Lavandera reporting live from Odessa, Ukraine. Ed, thank you so much for that. Please stay safe as you are under curfew there.

Here now with us is CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson, who has just spent a month reporting in and around Ukraine and also neighboring countries. But last we spoke you were on a moving train with internally displaced people, people coming from the east seeking safety. What is about to happen in the east?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there are concerns and real fears that the hostilities on the ground are going to expand dramatically.

Traveling west in cars for the last couple of days, I've seen troop movements of Ukrainians headed east. We know that the Ukrainian authorities in the eastern provinces and regions have been telling women and children and the elderly to evacuate. So there is anticipation that the fighting will expand dramatically. And that's, you know, it's another potential just awful chapter of this awful war.

KEILAR: Is it a different kind of fighting? Is it a different kind of terrain for the Ukrainian forces than it was for them near Kyiv where they had more success?

WATSON: You know, one story that I heard again and again from everybody, from the level of members of the armed forces to city government officials, to doctors and hospitals was that this is an extension of a war that's been going on in the east since 2014. That they say, hey, we have experience from 2014 when Russian-backed separatists started fighting with the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region, this Russian-speaking region.

It's just that this is much larger now than what they were dealing with at that point. So everybody is, to a certain degree, battle hardened. Everybody is a veteran. Again, whether or not they're an emergency room doctor or an officer leading a platoon out in the field.

KEILAR: We actually talked to a military family the other day. And the dad, the husband in the family, he was a veteran of 2014 and had gone back out with his entire unit. We were seeing a lot of that. When we spoke two days ago, and you were on the train with women coming from Mariupol, one of them talked about how she had been discussing with her friends how women had been raped.

I think it's something that's really -- it's tough to talk about but I think it's so important because we are hearing more and more about it. What did you learn?

WATSON: Well, I mean these women weren't from Mariupol proper, they were from one of the other towns that have been occupied for a month. And I can't name the town because she's got family there, you know, and she's terrified.

This story of rape was not something that she had seen or witnessed firsthand. She heard about acquaintances who sent photos of people. So it's not, according to our rules of journalism, we have to be a little bit careful about this. This is second and third-hand stuff.

But it does tell you about the levels of fear among Ukrainians who are occupied by an invading hostile Russian force. And that was one reason she said that she decided to leave.

The other stories that I heard from her and from the other women and children that were traveling with them who had just escaped a month of Russian military occupation were astounding. They were saying that the Russians were hanging up Russian flags all over town. As if they're going to try to change our minds -- our Ukrainian minds with these Russian flags.

They talked about the Russians insisting that they speak Ukrainian -- there are different dialects -- sorry, speak Russian. People speak different dialects here, a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian in the center parts of the country. Ukrainian here in the west. Russian over there in the east.

They talked about the Ukrainian TV channels being cut off after the Russians invaded and occupied their town, trying to get control. Hearing about the Russians trying to organize a referendum in their town that never eventually happened.

But these are kind of the steps of annexation basically that we saw in Crimea in 2014 and that these Ukrainians just don't want. They say, hey, I'm a Ukrainian citizen. Why should I become part of somebody else's country.

It's a very basic question that is at the root of this war, which is why Ukrainians say this is an imperialist invasion from Moscow, a power that has occupied and colonized Ukraine in centuries past.

KEILAR: Do you think it's fair to say that there are so many Ukrainians where we are about to see a lot of action who -- they didn't necessarily feel animosity towards Russians even as there was a war that was kind of ongoing, sort of a static war that was ongoing but their resolve has been hardened now that --

WATSON: 100 percent. [17:09:57]

KEILAR: -- Russia has actually created this resistance.

WATSON: There was -- there were pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine before this invasion. There were Ukrainians who were Ukrainian citizens who had close cultural ties, familial ties and sympathies for Russia who were not necessarily -- who were still tied to the separatists in the Donbas region.

I have talked to some of them who said, I felt culturally close to Russia until it destroyed my home city of Mariupol. And now I feel 100 percent Ukrainian because I did not ask Vladimir Putin to destroy my home, and my city and my workplace and turn my city into a wasteland. And now, now I feel more Ukrainian.

And that's where you've got to wonder about the Russian strategists. I mean they had soft power here by launching a World War II style invasion, that's been crushed. You know what I mean? Like how can -- the battles, the big ground battles are being fought in Russian- speaking cities and towns.

KEILAR: Yes. It's a huge miscalculation.

WATSON: That's these people's backyards that are being destroyed and being rocketed and shelled.

KEILAR: Yes.

WATSON: And even if you sympathize with Russia, you didn't necessarily want a Russian tank to roll through your tomato patch.

KEILAR: It's a very, very good point.

Ivan, you and your team have been doing a phenomenal reporting all throughout Ukraine, throughout the region and it's great to have you on set here. Thank you.

WATSON: Great to see you.

KEILAR: So today Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is calling on more countries to fully ban Russian energy. Next, why that may be easier said than done.

Plus, escaping some of the worst of this war. See one family's incredible journey out of hard-hit towns just minutes before Russian tanks rolled in.

[17:11:45]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Today after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said other countries should follow the U.K.'s example and impose a full embargo on Russia's energy sector. As the former Ukrainian minister of energy and current CEO of Naftogaz Ukraine, Yuriy Vitrenko is sending a stark message to Europe, quote, "You don't pay in euros or rubles for Russian gas and oil. You pay in the lives of the same Europeans as you."

And Yuriy Vitrenko is joining us now to discuss more about this. Europe is reticent to go for an energy embargo because it gets about half of its energy from Russia. How would it work if they were to do it? How could it work?

YURIY VITRENKO, CEO, NAFTOGAZ, UKRAINE: First of all, energy efficiency should come first. So sometimes you just need to consume less energy. It's completely doable. It is good for the climate but it's also good in the current situation not to pay euros to Putin.

Also you have to develop alternative energy supply. You have to, for example, get more oil and gas from the U.S. or from other countries without rogue regimes like Putin's one.

So there are ways how to do that if there's a wish (ph). Also, for example, when they say that they are dependent on Russian gas and oil, we still insist on an embargo. We are just saying that there can be some exemptions but fair ones.

Like for example, only some countries really depend on some pipeline supplies with Russian oil and gas. They could keep it, for example, for some time. But then there should be -- to make it fair, there should be a special duty on tight (ph) supplies. So they are not just benefiting off Russian oil and gas if they say they are so critically dependent. Again, they can pay some additional tax on it.

Then we are advocating an idea of escrow accounts. When we say, ok, you can get this energy but don't give Putin this money now. Freeze it. And then make it conditional on full withdrawal of troops from Ukraine and some payment of reparations for the damages in Ukraine.

So, again, I think that it's more about -- I say some lack of understanding what to do in order to get rid of this dependence. Or maybe even some corruption among some big businesses in the E.U. or some politicians as we know.

KEILAR: Let me ask you this. There -- I think the impression is that an energy embargo of Russian oil and gas would just defeat Vladimir Putin's regime. But there is some possibility it would not completely do that. What then?

VITRENKO: It's a major source of revenue for Russia's state budget. True (ph) that if we have a full embargo on Russian oil and gas, Putin would not be able simply to pay for his soldiers and buy support from the Russian people and it would complicate his life enormously.

So if we're honest about so-called crushing sanctions, then full embargo is a must.

KEILAR: Can you talk to me a little bit about what's happening here in Ukraine when it comes to the energy sector, when it comes to supplying the armed forces and when it comes to humanitarian efforts that you're involved in. VITRENKO: I cannot discuss supplies to the army for obvious reasons.

But yes, we do for example, we do supply gas and oil to the Ukrainian people. About 90 percent of Ukrainian households depend on natural gas for heating.

So we are keeping basically all the Ukrainian homes warm. And it's a challenge, of course, during the war. It's also an economic challenge because it is more humanitarian assistance at the moment rather than a business.

[17:19:52]

VITRENKO: This month alone March, Naftogaz, the company I'm leading, subsidized Ukrainian customers for more than $1.3 billion because we understand that during this war people cannot -- many people cannot pay at all. Some cannot pay the full price.

We need to maintain the infrastructure despite the missiles attacks. So again-- our costs are up and people cannot pay. But we cannot just cut them off from some critical utilities like heating, again, electricity, and other stuff.

That's why we believe that as a national company we have to do it. We would welcome, of course, any international assistance because it is important to make sure that those who stay in Ukraine, and we are talking about tens of millions of Ukrainians who are still here, they can get some critical supplies.

And the (INAUDIBLE) sector of Ukraine is very important in terms of again maintaining the lives of Ukrainians here.

KEILAR: Yuriy, I thank you for joining us today.

VITRENKO: Thank you.

KEILAR: Thank you so much.

VITRENKO: Thank you.

KEILAR: Yuriy Vitrenko, we do appreciate it.

Up next, hidden wounds of war. Ukrainian families describe scars that will last a lifetime, including the account from one mother who hid in a cellar with her children as Russian troops attacked their home.

[17:21:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Almost four and a half million Ukrainian refugees have fled Vladimir Putin's brutal, bloody war, according to the United Nations. 2.6 million of them have taken refuge in the neighboring country of Poland.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is in Poland speaking with the exhausted and traumatized victims of Russia's war. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: what does it take to care for just a few dozen refugee families? Store rooms packed with food. Endless hot meals. Hundreds of bunk beds. And lots and lots of love, says volunteer Kamil Prusinowski.

KAMIL PRUSINOWSKI, VICE PRESIDENT, POLAND WELCOMES CHARITY: As you saw, women with their child on hands. And you see they have nowhere to go.

ABDELAZIZ: This abandoned school dormitory was in disrepair, unused for over a decade. But in just three days, Kamil and his best friends turned it into a shelter for women and children fleeing Ukraine.

PRUSINOWSKI: I get to use my skills, everything what I've got to help these people.

ABDELAZIZ: Now the challenge is to keep this place up and running, the organizers say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Up to now we receive zero U.S. aid. (INAUDIBLE) or whatever from any NGO or government and there are huge bills we shall need to pay.

ABDELAZIZ: Behind each of these doors is a story of trauma. Viktoria and her grandkids arrived here only yesterday. They still feel so raw.

"It was so scary. But we had to go for the children," she says.

Do you finally feel safe?

"It will come, she says. Every time we hear a loud sound, we flinch and look up at the sky. We still feel fear."

Erna and her son Krial (ph) fled from Chernihiv after spending days hiding in a cellar.

"It's getting easier," she says, "but he flinches in his sleep."

"Mom, I have nightmares," he tells her.

Does he still feel scared? "Yes, sometimes. But I try to calm him. We go outside and breathe fresh air," she says.

And that is what is most needed here, a sense of security, stability. But Kamil doesn't know how much longer he can provide it.

You have zero money. How does this work?

PRUSINOWSKI: Good friends were helping, some volunteers who are helping. But there is no sustainable support for us.

ABDELAZIZ: These helpers need help to keep their doors open for the many forced out of their homes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABDELAZIZ: Kamil's story is not unique, Brianna. Across this country, volunteers are calling for help. They're calling for assistance. The Polish government says the international community needs to step it.

They can't shoulder the burden of more than 2.5 million refugees, who as you saw in that story, are still so fragile, alone. Brianna.

KEILAR: Salma, thank you so much. Salma Abdelaziz in Poland for us. We do appreciate it.

A pair of Ukrainian brothers have already experienced more than any children ever should. The 6-year-old is undergoing treatment for cancer. His older brother, just 10, saw the horrors of war firsthand.

And their mother is with us now. Her name is Maryna Kamenna. She's with us from Poland, which is where the family has, thank God, been reunited.

Maryna, first off, just tell us a little bit about how your family, how your boys are holding up.

MARYNA KAMENNA, UKRAINIAN REFUGEE: Hi. Thank you for having me here today. Now we are respectably (ph) ok. I mean my youngest son, who has blood cancer, he asks me every day, mom, am I safe now? You know, it's a big trauma for him and for my eldest son who stayed for 10 days in (INAUDIBLE) a well-known town near Kyiv, near Bucha.

KEILAR: Your 10-year old -- you were in Kyiv with your 6-year-old who is getting cancer treatment.

[17:30:00]

Yes. Your 10-year-old was in Hostomel with your mom and had to take refuge, like so many people, underground. And you were not able to talk to him. You feared that he maybe had died.

What was it like to find out that he was OK? And tell us a little bit about his experience.

KAMENNA: Actually, it was awful experience for me as a mom. Because, you see, one of my child was sick, and another was there. We didn't have a viable connection with them because everything was cut by the Russians during the Russian occupation.

And one day my mom managed to call me. It was the day of the evacuation. And she told me that we are going to the evacuation point. Someone took us in their car. So we will be together with these people and we will stick together.

They didn't manage to evacuate that day. They tried the next day, the following day.

After six hours of silence from my mom, she called me and she was crying. And she was crying to me, we are free now and we are alive now. We are on Ukrainian checkpoint. We are free. We are alive. It was heartbreaking for me. But I was so happy that I can't even

describe my state at that time. I was so happy my son and my mom were OK after all the hell they experienced in Hostomel.

KEILAR: And we are so glad that they are OK. And you were telling us about being reunited.

I wonder, Maryna, what is your message to people around the world. What do you want them to know about what your family has gone through that so many Ukrainian families have gone through?

KAMENNA: Yes. Of course. I have several messages.

This war, which started not now, but in 2014, this war broke a lot of people's lives. And now this full-scale invasion, it's terrible.

It's terrifying for hundreds, millions of families of people, of children. Because we have to flee to other countries. We have to flee to other cities inside Ukraine.

And we left everything we had. We left every single thing. We left our houses and some of our relatives and loved ones are dead because of the Russian invasion and this war. And it's terrible.

But my message to the world is thank you for supporting us. Thank you for your help. Thank you for taking care of us. It's really priceless.

But when I see this kindness, you know, when I see these sensitive people and this help, this assistance, I can't help but cry because it's really touching, really moving.

And I know we are not alone in this big world. But still our children and we want to go home.

And like our president, I will ask the leaders of the democratic world, give us weapons, as much military assistance as possible to protect our children from being killed and abducted by the Russians and to make Ukraine safe again for our children.

Do all in your powers to help us, to bring our children home to a safe place like Ukraine once was.

KEILAR: Maryna, I am so sorry for what you and your family have been through. I'm so happy to be talking to you as your family is reunited. But I know you have a long road to recovery ahead of you.

KAMENNA: Thank you.

KEILAR: All the best to you and to your 6-year-old and his cancer treatment.

Thank you so much for talking with us.

KAMENNA: Thank you for letting me share my story and the experience of my family. Thank you so much. It's really very important for us. Thank you. KEILAR: Thank you for telling it. We do appreciate it.

[17:34:51]

Another woman's incredible journey, escaping a hard-hit Ukrainian town just minutes before Russian forces moved in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The United Nations estimates 1,600 civilians have been killed so far in Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine.

It is likely higher as we learn how Russian forces are targeting civilians and committing atrocities like those revealed in the city Ukrainian city of Bucha that captured the world's attention.

I spoke with a woman who enduring that siege, trapped in a cellar with her elderly mother and several other families.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[17:40:04]

KEILAR (voice-over): At first Natalia Gaidei said she couldn't believe Russia would invade her adopted Ukraine. She was born in Russia, a native Russian speaker, and was busy running a language school in Bucha.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NATALIA GAIDEI, SURVIVED RUSSIAN OCCUPATION OF BUCHA: After Putin's speech on the 21st of February, I just burst into tears, feeling that something was going to happen.

KEILAR: On February 24th, Natalia's mother called to say the war had started.

GAIDEI: My balcony just has a view on to the highway, from Kyiv to Warsaw. And I saw a lot of cars leaving.

KEILAR: She headed for the grocery store with her 17-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter. A little over a mile from the town of Hostomel.

(GUNFIRE)

GAIDEI: We heard some shots. I heard explosions. There appeared a motor biker, and he was shouting, the airport is being bombed, the airport is being bombed.

KEILAR: Natalia and her kids headed home and then to her mother's flat nearby where they surveyed the basement just in case they'd have to take shelter.

GAIDEI: I can see the sky over the airport, a lot of smoke over the airport.

KEILAR: They were waiting outside the building.

GAIDEI: Something exploded again and then it was the first time I ran into the cellar. There were many, 30 people at that moment.

KEILAR: The next morning, Natalia decided her kids would be safer if they left Ukraine and stayed with friends in Poland. Her car was old and difficult for her to drive. But another friend in Bucha knew of a reliable car with extra seats.

GAIDEI: The bridge between Kyiv and Bucha, it has been exploded. And it was the main reason I decided that the children should go.

KEILAR: She stayed in Bucha, tracking their progress, through Borodianka just down the road.

GAIDEI: We just got this information 30 minutes later that there were tanks.

KEILAR (on-camera): Your kids got through Makarov like minutes before there were tanks there?

GAIDEI: Thirty minutes, yes.

KEILAR (voice-over): At the time, Natalia still thought the Russians would never attack civilians. But this was Borodianka after the tanks came through.

Back in the basement --

GAIDEI: We started getting to know each other. So there were families with children, with dogs, with cats. We heard shots. They were nonstop shots.

KEILAR: She and her mother slept on plastic chairs. At first, there was electricity and gas. Though later, she said both would be shut off. And there were lighter moments.

(SINGING)

KEILAR: Natalia said she would sneak up to her mother's apartment only to use the bathroom.

GAIDEI: One of the biggest fears in my life at that moment was if I start doing my toilet procedures, if I just put down my trousers and they would kill me. I was afraid to die without my pants on.

KEILAR: Sometimes from the flat, she could see tanks coming down the street.

She recalled the women and children mostly stayed below ground as the men ventured out for food. When they did, they would report back on the dead bodies they saw.

GAIDEI: One of our managers came and said that he had seen a dead body and he recognized him. This was his neighbor, his friend. And 200 meters approximately, there was the street that is shown in all the magazines, in all the news, about Bucha. It is called Dogzana (ph) Street.

And we just heard that battle, just shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. One day, there was shooting, nonstop shooting for 15 hours.

KEILAR: On March 8th, after two weeks in the basement, Natalia was able to call a friend, whose husband convinced her to make a run for it.

GAIDEI: He just pushed me with his words and, besides, I just shouted to everyone, let's jump into the cars.

KEILAR: Bucha was covered in smoke from a burning building. She drove through snow and ash, joining a miles-long line of other cars.

GAIDEI: It was very easy for me just to leave. It was a hell then. Around there was the hell. I didn't recognize the town I had been living for 17 years.

KEILAR: Natalia says she heard shooting behind her and passed bullet riddled cars displaying signs that read "children," spelled out in Russian.

GAIDEI: It was shots, missiles, and probably there were just burned people, burned bodies.

KEILAR: She drove by the city of Irpin, through a number of Russian checkpoints.

At one point, Natalia says, a line of tanks merged into the middle of the column of civilian cars.

[17:45:04]

GAIDEI: They were hiding behind us. They were using us like living shield.

KEILAR: After a few more miles, Natalia finally came to a Ukrainian checkpoint.

GAIDEI: All the time, I have been calm. But at that point, I couldn't -- I just burst into tears. And it was kind of relief on the one hand and, on the other hand, it was just -- yes.

And we spent --

KEILAR (on-camera): Natalia, can you finish that thought? You said it was relief on one hand, but what else were you feeling?

GAIDEI: Sorrow. Sorrow. Yes, probably sorrow.

KEILAR (voice-over): Days later, Natalia reunited with her children in Poland. And through connections with friends, they have been taken in by a German family in Dusseldorf, Mariana and Ulrich Padver (ph). UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm happy now to give also something back to

Natalia and her family.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Ulrich is the son of a Nazi soldier who died in World War II. He says he makes a practice of supporting refugees in Germany, including recently from Syria as well.

Which is a pretty astounding arc in the story of his family, especially considering how Natalia's is divided by this war.

Her brother still lives in his native Russian. Natalia says he is adamant that it isn't Russian forces that destroyed his sister and mother's city. He says it was actually Ukrainian Nazis.

The day the war started, Natalia says, mother wrote to him and said, "Do you understand everything now?" And he wrote back one word, she says, "No."

For the first time since Vladimir Putin's invasion, new U.S. sanctions against Russia are now coming from Congress. We have the latest punishment for this war, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:51:16]

KEILAR: President Biden has signed two bills levying further sanctions on Russia and Belarus. But there's growing pressure on the Biden administration to further increase that pressure on the Kremlin.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is joining us live now from the White House.

Arlette, the U.S. has now suspended normal trade relations with Russia. It's prohibiting certain energy imports as well. How is the White House responding to these calls to do more?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, White House Press Secretary Jen Paki said the U.S. will continue to work with allies to find ways to ramp up and tighten sanctions on Russia.

Especially as Russia continues to carry out these atrocities against Ukrainians over the course of this war.

These two pieces of legislation that President Biden signed were the first sanctions that directly came and were imposed by lawmakers up on Capitol Hill.

And they followed those sanctions that the U.S. announced earlier in the week that were basically payback for what Russia carried out in Bucha over the course of last weekend. That included sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin's

daughters, who U.S. officials believe could be hiding many of his assets and wealth.

But the administration at this time is facing more pressure to do more.

And especially raising questions about the effectiveness of these sanctions. While it is impacting the Russia economy, so far, President Vladimir Putin has yet to change any of his calculus about waging this war.

KEILAR: Arlette, there are several people who have been in very close proximity to President Biden and they tested positive for COVID in the last several days.

Is the White House confident that they have protected the president thus far, and that they can continue to protect the president?

SAENA: The White House says they've been taking extra precautions to try to ensure the president remains safe. But he has been at very public events without masks that are crowded and has been near people who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Take a look at this picture just earlier in the week. He was standing next to two lawmakers who later in the week did test positive.

The White House said that he was not considered a close contact based on those CDC rules.

But the White House has started to say there is a possibility the president could contract COVID but they are hopeful that they are taking those mitigation measures to prevent that from happening -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Arlette Saenz, live for us at the White House, thank you so much.

Turning now to some remarkable work during the pandemic. As many restaurants started to close and workers lost their jobs, this week's CNN Hero couldn't let her community go hungry.

She is Chef Kim Calichio. She, herself, was out of work but went above and beyond to help others.

Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHEF KIM CALICHIO, CNN HORO: I had a choice to either sit here in my house and be overwhelmed, or I can do whatever it is that I could possibly do without thinking about whether it's going to work or not.

We're going to do two apples, a bunch of bananas, two tomatoes --

We started a GoFundMe to direct-deliver groceries to families across queens.

Great. And these guys --

And within a week, we raised $10,000.

We thought the pandemic was going to be over in two weeks, so we were like, we'll spend this 10-grand and then we'll go back to work. And that never happened.

(LAUGHTER)

CALICHIO: The first week, we delivered 25 grocery packages to 25 families. And within a month's time, we were delivering 400 to 500 groceries to families every single week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: To see Kim's operation in action, go to CNNheroes.com. While you're there, you can nominate a hero doing good work in your own community.

[17:54:59]

A glass of wine and a game of chess in the park. Little moments of life in Odessa as the threat of increased Russian assaults loom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:05]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: Welcome to this special edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I am Brianna Keilar live in Lviv, Ukraine.