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U.S. Official: Russian Troops Who Retreated Appearing In Donbas; Ukraine Says It Hit Enemy Warship, Russia Blames Onboard Fire; Feds Warn of New Hacking Tool Designed to Hit Energy Facilities. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 14, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:06]

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But what is significant about that is they did so only after the approval of President Trump. And we've seen this as a pattern where a number of allies were either under subpoena or facing legal challenges presented by the January 6th committee are finding ways to get in front with the blessing of the former president but at the same time escaping the legal repercussions that could come if they choose to fight a subpoena request or just a voluntary request from the January 6 select committee.

But, ultimately, what this means the committee is getting closer and closer to the former president himself. Stephen Miller, one of his closest allies, someone who was in and around White House and the Oval Office in the days after the election, leading up to January 6, and as you point out, Victor, was part of that group of people that was pushing this kind of false narrative about the 2020 election results which the committee believes played a big role in bringing so many people to the Capitol on January 6th.

And then you have the Cipollone and Philbin end of this. They were members of the counsel's office who at the time were pushing back against that pressure campaign that was put on former Vice President Pence to stand in a way of the certification of the election results. This is all part of that big, wide net that the committee is casting to try and get as much information as possible as they get closer and closer to issuing that final report, we believe, sometime this fall -- Victor and Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK. Ryan Nobles, thank you for the update.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: All right. Thank you for staying with us. I'm Victor Blackwell.

CAMEROTA: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

Fifty days into Putin's war in Ukraine, and new signs the frontline is intensifying in the east. Senior U.S. defense officials are seeing those Russian troops who retreated from northern Ukraine starting to show up in the Donbas region. This is the latest indication that Vladimir Putin's forces are about to launch a major assault in the east, involving thousands of troops. Satellite images show increasing numbers of Russian troops and armored vehicles pouring into this area.

This is where the terrain is more open. This video here shows Ukrainian forces training on flatter ground than they -- this is in Luhansk.

BLACKWELL: Now, that's different than the urban iron in the Kyiv area, where Russian troops started this war and then left earlier this month.

Today, CIA director said that potential Russian use of low yield nuclear weapons inside Ukraine cannot be ruled out if Putin suffers more set backs on the battlefield.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BURNS, CIA DIRECTOR: Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Director Burns added right now, the U.S. has not seen any evidence of that kind of deployment.

Now, Ukrainians may have made major headway in the battle at sea. The flagship of the Black Sea fleet for Russia is still burning right now. Ukrainians say they hit the warship with a cruise missile.

Now, Russians admit only to a fire onboard, forcing the crews' evacuation. But moments ago, the Pentagon said the U.S. is not sure what the loss of the Moskva will mean to the Russian navy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Their naval component here to the war has been fairly limited to two things, one, cruise missile strikes inside Ukraine and, two, replenishment and resupply of their efforts in the south. Now, they've only conducted one amphibious landing and that was on an uncontested stretch of beach near Berdyansk and the Sea of Azov. I guess it remains to be seen exactly what the major impact is going to be. Again, that said, this is a cruiser. They only have three in this class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN's Jake Tapper joins us now from Ukraine's capital city, Kyiv.

So, Jake, let's talk about this, because it sounds like the Ukrainians may be making some strides in fighting so that Russian warship, the Pentagon confirmed, it was damaged by a big explosion. Ukraine, as you know, says they hit it with a missile, have you -- we can hear the air raid sirens behind you. Have you been able to learn -- I know that's just a ubiquitous sound there, so we'll try to press on. But have you been able to learn anything about this warship?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, THE LEAD: Well, first of all, we should say, I mean, if this was the result of the Ukrainians firing these Neptune anti-ship missiles, that is a huge achievement by the Ukrainians against the Russian navy. As Victor noted, the Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea fleet and the Russian territorial ambitions in the Black Sea are considerable. But we don't know the truth.

You have the Ukrainians say, yes, we are the ones that did this.

[15:05:02]

We hit them with a Neptune anti-ship missile. The Russians are saying, no, no, the Russian defense ministry, no, no, there was a fire, and it detonated ammunition and that's what happened, and the Pentagon confirming there was an explosion but not being able to say more.

I would suggest that the Pentagon probably knows a lot more than it's saying. But in any case, all we know right now is that the Moskva is damaged perhaps irreparably.

And we should note for those who are paying attention, we all remember the beginning of the war when there were a number of Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island which is a key island in the Black Sea and they were told to surrender by a Russian warship. They said, Russian warship go F yourself, which is -- you can buy that on shirts here in Ukraine. Russian warship, go F yourself. I think there's an even official stamp.

That was the Moskva. So, it is in lore as well as in military history, a very significant ship.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, we all remember that exchange and the image of the Ukrainian troop with the salute.

So, let me ask you about this other claim of victory of sorts from the Ukrainians that they hit a Russian convoy in Kharkiv. What do we know about that one?

TAPPER: So, again, the fog of war, this is based on what the Ukrainians are saying and we're not there when this happened, but what they are claiming is their special forces, Ukrainian special forces, detonated a bridge in the Kharkiv region, which is a town in the northeast of Ukraine not far from the border with Russia. And they timed the charge so as to cause significant damage to a Russian convoy including a tiger armored vehicle and various trucks.

So that is the information that we got. You're quoting the tweet of the general staff of the Ukrainian army. That's what they're claiming and we have not heard back from the Russians about what they say this was. But, again, this is -- these are victories for the Ukrainians.

We shouldn't get overwhelmed by these moments because the bottom line is the Russians still have much more armaments, much more power when it comes to military versus military.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, such a great point.

So, Jake, we know you sat down with the chief of the International Criminal Court after he visited two of the Kyiv suburbs, Bucha and Borodianka. So, what did he tell you?

TAPPER: Well, one of the questions I had for him, Karim Khan, he's the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, one of the questions I had was everybody here likes to talk about Nuremberg, especially the international lawyers and the human rights lawyers because that obviously was the pinnacle of human rights law and the example so many criminal court situations have followed since then.

But the big difference between what happened at Nuremberg and what potentially could happen if any of these war crime cases become prosecutions and become attempts to bring people to justice the Germans lost World War II. They were not able to avoid prosecution, they lost, they surrendered. It is very difficult to imagine any way this conflict resolves where Putin is still not in charge of Russia. So, I asked him about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARIM KHAN, CHIEF PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: Yeah, I think it's an important question, we can't be naive about things. We need to be realistic. But first and first, collect the evidence, preserve it, analyze it and, you know, make determinations based on what it shows. And those determinations can be checked by judges.

Now, so the indications are there will be support not just for Ukraine but across the situation, this great realization that a common front needs to be built based upon legality because it affects Ukraine, but it affects all parts of the world because of the rules-based system and the principles of public international law that have to be rendered much more meaningful not to judges in gowns or advocates in the courtroom but to the men and women and children you see on the streets and in refugee camps that are innocent and suffered crimes time and time again.

And we tend to have not only short memories but also an absence of shame that we then wait for hostility and look at lessons learned, for crimes this different parts of the world and say never again and we see time and time again. So, we have to decide when will we act based upon our shared humanity.

[15:10:02]

And I think this is a moment that should wake everybody up. Many other instances should have but this is a moment we should consolidate and wait for something that is important which is legality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So what Karim Khan was saying, he was granting my point, yes, you are probably right this does not end with the Putin government surrendering and Putin going before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. That probably is not going to happen but that does not mean he and the international criminal court and the prosecutor general here in Ukraine and others are not going to do everything they can to document these atrocities whether they are war crimes, or crimes against humanity or genocide and prepare a prosecution because that is the only way to get to justice even if we never see that moment we would all like to see of the people responsible for these atrocities actually going to jail.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, important insight there because the world is asking then where does this go? You got the answer for us. Jake, thank you so much.

And stay with CNN, Jake will be back at the top of the hour with the latest out of Ukraine on "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER."

Let's bring them up, CNN military analyst, Major General Paul Eaton, is with us now.

General, thanks for being with us.

I want to start with you on something we heard from Jake there on the explosion on the "Moskva," this Russian ship, and the likelihood the Pentagon knows more than it's saying and the politics of claims of responsibility. Is that your expectation the Pentagon knows this was either a missile strike or explosion and is not saying it to benefit Ukraine?

MAJ. GEN. PAUL EATON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Victor, thank you very much. Alisyn, thank you for having me.

It certainly is a strange coincidence suddenly the ship is on fire and the entire complement of some 450 or 500 sailors need to be removed. That ship is in the war zone. That ship may have launched missiles from its platforms. That ship is fair game and the Ukrainians are armed with their own Neptune missile.

So, you put all together, if I were an analyst without close and detailed pictures, I would say there's a high probability that ship was hit by a Ukrainian missile and that the Russians have just lost a capital ship or are about to lose it. I think that's a great thing for Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: General, let's look at the new cache of weapons the U.S. is sending to Ukraine. President Biden just announced $800 million more in weapons. There are helicopters. There are armored personnel carriers. There are new drones being sent.

Couple this with what the E.U. is sending and this week, they have pledged $1.3 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine.

Is this enough for Ukraine to win in whatever is about to happen in the east?

EATON: It's a good start, Alisyn. When we were operating in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we were spending quite a bit more than that on our own armed forces there. This is a good start. We need to keep up the pipeline.

Some of the systems you see there are going to have a terrific he can on the battlefield, radars and howitzers provide you with counter battery platforms. I would like to see our MLRS, I'd like longer range systems deployed. I would like to see more helicopters. Helicopters gives you battlefield agility. You can achieve concentration. You can achieve mass far more quickly when you have helicopters.

Helicopters plus infantry, plus javelin creates a mobile platform to develop a hard point that would make a Russian ground attack along what we prepared for during the cold war that I participated in in the '70s and '80s, all that agility will give you an opportunity to blunt an armored push from the Russian army.

BLACKWELL: And the Pentagon says it is sensitive to the Ukrainian needs to get this quickly. Our Pentagon team is reporting the last tranche of $800 million of military hardware took four weeks to get there. Is that an outrageous amount of time for that amount of military support?

EATON: Well, to be fair, I think that our system needed to become a system, and I believe it so now. I believe that flash to bang is down to four to six days, four days to six days.

[15:15:00]

That is a far more compressed opportunity. So, I think that we may have had a little bit of a lag in doing this. But nobody can perform logistics the way the United States and that the United States Army can deliver to the troops on the ground. So I have great -- I have great expectations for how this is going to work out from a logistics perspective.

CAMEROTA: Major General Paul Eaton, thank you very much for your expertise. Really helpful.

So, U.S. officials are warning that hackers have developed a powerful new tool designed specifically to target energy facilities. In a new urgent security alert, multiple U.S. agencies are calling on critical infrastructure operators to take precautions immediately.

BLACKWELL: Cyber experts told CNN it is exceptionally rare and dangerous cyber attack capability.

For more, let's bring in now, CNN cybersecurity reporter Sean Lyngaas.

Sean, what do we know about the hackers behind this new tool?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: That's a great question, Victor. We don't know a ton. It's a mystery. Federal officials when they made their announcement did not disclose who might be behind this. However, we can look to history to -- for clues as to who might be behind this.

And I don't want to point the finger at anyone in particular but a cybersecurity firm named Mandiant that has investigated the hacking tools said yesterday that there are -- there are circumstantial evidence it might point to Russia. We can't say that with certainty yet by any means but this is one of only a few being handful, five to seven types of hacking tools that have been found over the last maybe 12 years that are designed to go after the industrial computers that underpin critical infrastructure facilities, oil refineries, power plants, manufacturing facilities.

So, this is a very serious issue and safety is implicated. That's why the federal government went public with this advisory yesterday to get defenders on their toes about this -- Victor.

CAMEROTA: Getting our attention.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. Sean Lyngaas from Washington, thank you, Sean.

CAMEROTA: So, President Biden says he's deciding whether to send a senior administration official to the capital of Ukraine in a show of force against Russia.

BLACKWELL: And the Ukrainian father who left the capital started a Facebook group to help connect families who are looking for missing relatives of Ukraine. We'll have more of his story.

Stay with us.

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[15:21:58]

CAMEROTA: Just when you think you've seen the most gutting images out of Ukraine imaginable, there are new ones. This one we're about to show you is a mother's abject grief when she recognizes her son's body from the shoes on his feet. We warn you this video is horrible, it's graphic, it's devastating to watch.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CAMEROTA: That mother rush past the cordoned off area after they pulled her son's body from a well where it had been dumped. This is in Buzova. It was a liberated village near Kyiv after the Russian soldiers left.

Alex Dayrabekov is a father of three, including months old baby, and he has refused to leave Ukraine. He's documenting what he's seeing.

Alex, thank you for being here. We're always happy to see you. You've spoken at length about the atrocities you are seeing all around you.

And so, tell us what you've been documenting lately and where you think the country is today.

ALEX DAYRABEKOV, UKRAINIAN FATHER: Thank you, Alisyn. It's been really hard to talk to the people I know, to my neighbors who lost their close ones like fathers, brothers, children. I started hearing such stories probably a month ago in Irpin and Bucha where I'm from and I would hear such stories almost every day, more and more and more and I just started helping people with my compassion. What else could I do?

And then I start documenting and helping them talk to international lawyers so they can document those for the international courts.

CAMEROTA: And you've also started this Facebook group. How is that helping?

DAYRABEKOV: Well, the people who lost their relatives in Kramatorsk strike had hard times finding any information. So I actually tried to contact anyone to find someone, an eyewitness, and finally I actually got in touch with relatives of those who were killed, and I understood they have no information and I try to help them to connect to the morgue officials and the recognition or identification of the bodies. And it soon collected more than 500 members of this group.

CAMEROTA: You tweeted today that the first phase of the war is over. And that Ukraine has won. Now you're anticipating the second phase.

[15:25:01]

And what do you think that will look like?

DAYRABEKOV: Well, we've seen all the atrocities of the first phase. We have to be prepared emotionally, morally, physically for experience even harder stuff. We know that Dvornikov is appointed as a chief of the Russian operation. So, that's going to be really, really hard for us.

But we are concerned. We are firm on our decision to fight. We will not surrender. We will continue fighting.

CAMEROTA: And, Alex, why are you firm on your decision to stay, I mean, given you have this infant.

DAYRABEKOV: This is my land. Ukrainians love our love, our country. We don't want to leave our place. Lots of Ukrainians are actually coming back, more than 800,000 people came back within the past couple of weeks. I just don't want to leave whatsoever, and my wife has decided not to leave and stay with me.

CAMEROTA: You guys are very brave. Alex Dayrabekov, we always appreciate talking to you. Stay safe and we'll check back with you soon.

DAYRABEKOV: Thank you, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: President Biden is speaking now in North Carolina. He's again blaming Vladimir Putin for the soaring costs of living in the United States including gas prices. More on his plans to take on that problem, next.

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