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Strikes on Mykolaiv; Michael Repass is Interviewed about the War in Ukraine; Three Russians Charged with Targeting U.S. Lawmakers; Clint Williamson is Interviewed about War Crimes. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 15, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:27]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Russia retaliating. Russian forces say they have shelled a military facility on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv. This after the biggest war ship, their biggest warship sinks to the bottom of the Black Sea. A major military victory for Ukrainian forces as the U.S. deems their claims that a missile took this ship down as credible.

Good morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

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

Also this morning, air raid sirens are sounding across Ukraine. CNN teams report heavy shelling in the Donetsk region in the east, as Ukrainian officials say nearly all areas there are now under attack. Russian forces are claiming significant advances in the besieged port city of Mariupol as the last two Ukrainian military units in the city try to fend them off.

And a senior U.S. defense official telling CNN the city is in, quote, a dire position right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that despite putting up stronger than expected resistance in recent weeks.

Also new this morning, "The Washington Post" says that Russia has now sent a formal diplomatic note, known as a Demarsh (ph), warning the U.S. to stop supplying arms to Ukraine, saying that some weapons shipments are adding fuel to the conflict.

All of this as Russia faces renewed scrutiny. A top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has declared Ukraine a, quote, crime scene, after visiting the devastated towns of Bucha and Borodyanka. Let's begin this morning with CNN's senior correspondent Ed Lavandera.

He is in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, there in the southern part of the country.

Ed, we are hearing this morning at least two people killed, multiple attacks where you are. This is, of course, what we're seeing across the country, including deliberate attacks on civilian targets.

Tell us what you're seeing this morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Jim.

It's been a long night. We heard bombardment throughout the night and then this morning, around midmorning here in Mykolaiv, we heard reports of explosions happening in residential areas in the city. We came to this park. What we have found is in various areas around us here cluster munitions that have exploded. You can see one of the impact spots here on the ground. And in this park is where we believe the two victims that were killed in this morning's attack happened.

It also ended up targeting this orthodox church. And I'm going to walk you over here to the scene, just this morning, and it's amazing how quickly the volunteers here at the church and in the city have cleaned up this location.

But this was a church location and you can see the impact and the crater, the small crater that was left by this munition here on the ground. This is, again, another area and the volunteers here have cleaned up already what was a very gruesome scene, blood on the ground here, windows shattered because of these explosions.

And as you walk around various blocks to kind of give you an idea of why these cluster munitions are so terrifying, on the other side of the building that we're looking at over there, various explosions happened. I spoke with one woman who was inside her home, and one of the munitions exploded just outside of her window. She told me that she thought it was the end of the world when it happened. She was uninjured. Nothing happened to her. But this -- these kind of cluster munitions essentially designed to create this -- instill this kind of fear.

I was told by several people there were people in this park walking their dogs this morning when all of this started raining down on this neighborhood. And all of this unfolds at a time where we are seeing escalated attacks in Kyiv, just outside of -- the Russian forces are saying that they targeted a military location there. We're seeing the attacks rising up again in the east as well. All of this coming after the sinking of the Russian warship in the Black Sea.

And, Jim and Bianna, I can tell you, as we've talked to residents in this area, there is a great deal of apprehension and concern that this is the kind of attacks that're going to be seeing or worried about. They see it as possible retaliation for the sinking of that warship in the Black Sea.

Jim and Bianna.

SCIUTTO: Ed, I have to ask you there, as you showed us that impact point, that's right by a church there, is that right?

LAVANDERA: It is. You can see -- just look over here, on the side, I can't tell you the church was specifically targeted. Everything around in this morning's explosions is -- looks to be completely random. And so I don't want to give the impression that the church was targeted, but the impact location is just about ten feet to the side of that church.

[09:05:00]

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Ed Lavandera reporting in Mykolaiv, where incidentally that sunken warship, the Moskva, was first commissioned in 1982.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Then Ukraine, obviously, part of the Soviet Union.

Ed, thank you. Stay safe.

Well, this morning, Ukrainian officials are reporting heavy shelling along much of the front line in the Donetsk region.

CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

Ben, what is it like there right now?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now we can hear -- it's in the distance, but we can hear the air raid siren going off. Just a few hours ago we heard a very large explosion. And local media was putting out a picture of a large plume of smoke coming from what we believe is an industrial area that was actually hit yesterday as well.

And, of course, we are in the Donetsk region. And the head of the regional military administration said today that all settlements near the front line are under attack. And, in fact, we were in the city of Severo (ph) Donetsk yesterday, which is the eastern most city under Ukrainian government control. And I can tell you, it is under attack, constant attack, and by the same sort of weapons that Ed was describing in Mykolaiv. These are cluster munitions that don't necessarily cause a lot of physical damage, they are designed to kill people.

And certainly that is what we saw. We went to a morgue that was full of the dead. We went to a cemetery. Freshly dug, a hastily dug cemetery on the outskirts of the city where there were hundreds of crosses of people. And looking at the dates, they have all been killed since the 24th of February, when this war began.

Jim. Bianna.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Ben Wedeman --

SCIUTTO: Ben Wedeman, thanks so much. Good to have you there.

And, of course, listen, this is the normal there, as he was speaking, you likely heard, as we did, the sound of air sirens -- air raid sirens behind him.

Joining us now, retired Army Major General Michael Repass. He's the former commander for U.S. special operations in Europe.

Michael, this morning, a senior U.S. official tells me that Mariupol is in a dire position. Russian forces advancing there. Frankly, Mariupol holding up longer than many in the U.S. military expected given the strength of the Russian assault.

What's the significance if Mariupol falls to Russian forces?

MAJ. GEN. MICHAEL REPASS (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES IN EUROPE: The short-term implication of that is that the forces that Russia are playing against Mariupol for that siege -- warfare there could be redirected out east toward -- or, correction, towards the west in the large offense that it's building there now. That will free up those forces to, you know, join the fight there possibly or they may sweep southward to expand the area that they put together that gives them the passage from Russia, all the way down to Crimea. That eastern sector that they've been looking for.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: You know, the more setbacks we see to the Russian military, the latest just that, that sunken battleship there in -- outside of Odessa, one has to wonder what the response will be from Moscow. And there's increased concern that it may be by the use of chemical or tactical nuclear weapons.

Just yesterday former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russia may deploy nuclear weapons if, in fact, Finland and Poland -- Finland and Sweden join NATO. And the U.S. CIA director also is questioning whether this, in fact, may be true.

Listen to what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL 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 this can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons, or low yield nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: What is your take on that threat level?

REPASS: So, on the first point of Sweden and Finland and the threat to deploy nuclear weapons there, they've already deployed nuclear weapons in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. So they've been there for a number of years, for at least ten years that I know of. So that's -- that's just a reinforcement of the actual threat that exists today.

So this is no change. It's just a -- I would say an emphasis of the point that they have the ability to influence the area with tactical and nuclear weapons if they want to do so. The probability of them using them over there is pretty low, particularly since I think NATO would have a very strong response to that because a lot of that nuclear devastation would essentially cause problems for NATO up in the Baltic states in particular. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

In regards to Mr. Burns' comments, we've lived in this shadow for a while of Russian deterrence or escalation, saying that, you know, we have the potential to use nuclear weapons if we want to.

[09:10:01]

That's always been there. It's always been running in the background. We have to recognize that. And we have -- that's part of the escalation discussion that goes on in Washington, D.C., as we talk about the escalation ladder, they do this, we do that. So, we know where we're going on that.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REPASS: But he's putting it out there as a cautionary note on our side.

SCIUTTO: General Repass, I'm told that the U.S. considers Ukraine's claim to have taken out the Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, with a missile as credible. How significant a loss is this for Russia and how significant would it be to show that the jewel of their navy, or at least one of the jewels of their navy, was vulnerable to a Ukrainian missile here? It's yet another strike that shows the military's not what it was cracked up to be.

REPASS: Yes, I -- you're spot on. I agree with your point there.

So, there are some practical and some psychological effects of this loss. Let me talk about the psychological first.

You had a guest on earlier that talked about the psychological effect from a Russian perspective, which is very insightful. But there is a little bit more to it that he didn't cover.

First off, the Russian prestige, you know, the navy prestige has been badly damaged by this. This is the largest tonnage loss since World War II for the Russian navy. The Russians are completely shocked by that, quite frankly. And I'll get to that point in a moment.

And then, finally, on the psychological side, you have to go back to August of 2000 when they lost the submarine, the nuclear submarine, Kursk. in the Barron Sea. To have a similar event in the Russian navy. It caused a lot of devastation. It caused a lot of, I would say, rippling in the ranks of the Russian navy. Now, on the practical side, there's a couple things. First, command

and control has to be transferred to a lesser capable ship. As lesser communication, lesser sensors. And so the Black Sea fleet operations that are blockading Ukraine from the south and the Black Sea, their maritime economy, that's all shut off. Now the ability to do that is somewhat degraded.

A good indication that it was a short-based missile that hit the ship, or two missiles, is the Black Sea fleet has moved out farther away from Ukraine.

Having said that, it also demonstrates a couple of things, that they have to be considering now. Any thought of an amphibious landing in Odessa has gone out the window, because they knew that they were going to be shellacked by Ukrainians.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REPASS: Finally, and the most interesting point, according to Ukrainian intelligence that reported three special flights from Moscow up to Mermansk (ph), in far north of Russia, I think that those were people going up to assess the ability to recover that ship or weapons on that ship in the Black Sea because that's where the navy hub is really at up there for technical recovery and salvage up there.

So, I think that they're very concerned about the sinking of the ship and the possibility that something's on that ship that they don't want other people to know about.

GOLODRYGA: Listen, this is why the Ukrainians were desperately asking for anti-ship missiles, right? Specifically for this type of attack.

REPASS: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Major General Michael Repass, thank you.

REPASS: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: Well, next, we'll speak to a former U.N. ambassador for war crimes about whether Putin can ever be brought to justice.

Plus, CNN's Clarissa Ward takes us to the front line village in Donetsk where she met an elderly woman in a wheelchair desperately trying to escape the shelling.

And later, dramatic video from Jerusalem as Palestinian and Israelis clash at the al Aqsa mosque. One of the holiest sites in the Islamic faith. We'll take you there live as there are reports of more than 150 people injured.

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[09:18:05]

GOLODRYGA: Federal prosecutors in New York have charged three Russians accused of targeting U.S. lawmakers and trying to get them to act as unregistered agents for the Kremlin. The Russian politician and two of his aides are based in Russia and have not been arrested.

CNN's Kara Scannell joins me now with more on this new reporting.

So, Kara, what exactly are federal prosecutors accusing these men of doing?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Yes, so this is a real interesting scheme that we just learned about yesterday when this indictment was unsealed. And they're charging the current deputy chair of the Russia state duma. As you know that is their parliament. So, a pretty senior person, someone in the pro-Putin party.

So he and two of his staff members are accused of trying to influence U.S. lawmakers, foreign policy views toward Putin and Russia's move into Crimea back in 2014. So, a lot of this allegedly takes place between 2012 and 2017 before the current actions.

But what one of these accusations here is that these men are charged with doing in 2017 is that they were trying to get at least one U.S. congressman and one American businessman to -- they offered them an all-expenses paid trip to go to Yalta, which is in Crimea. And the purpose of that was that this conference that they wanted them to attend would benefit a Russian who was already under sanctions because of Putin's move into Crimea. So that's where they were charged with a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions.

Now, they were also charged with this unregistered agent action by trying to get an American to do their bidding for them and set up meetings with U.S. lawmakers. They made outreach to a number of lawmakers. Now, none of those meetings came to fruition. Their visas weren't approved and they were also charged with conspiring to commit visa fraud. And no U.S. lawmakers or business men took that trip to Yalta.

But this is all part of this, you know, look at how the Russians then and, you know, even in our elections, are doing this foreign policy, doing this foreign influence campaign. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this as part of the Justice Department's KleptoCapture unit has really gotten going.

[09:20:05]

GOLODRYGA: Yes, because it wasn't just President Trump at the time that took sort of a softer stance, more pro-Russia stance towards Vladimir Putin, but clearly there were a number of politicians here doing the same thing. Interesting here.

Kara, thank you. We appreciate it.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Joining me now to discuss, former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, Clint Williamson. He's now senior fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership.

Ambassador, it's good to have you on this morning. CLINT WILLIAMSON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR WAR CRIMES

ISSUES: My pleasure. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: First I'd like to ask you about the whole picture here. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, described Ukraine as a crime scene. Based on what you've seen so far, and I know there's a lot of evidence that needs to be gathered, eyewitness testimony. But based on what you've seen so far, do you see hard evidence of war crimes? And, if so, how broadly in Ukraine?

WILLIAMSON: Yes, absolutely. I think from the -- almost the earliest days of the current invasion, we were seeing pretty clear indications of war crimes. And these are specific violations of the Geneva Convention, designed to protect noncombatants, either civilians or soldiers no longer able to defend them.

Since then, in places like Bucha, Irpin, and Mariupol, I think there's pretty compelling evidence of crimes against humanity. And I would agree with Karim Khan's statement. I mean certainly these areas on the outskirts of Kyiv constitute one continuous large crime scene.

SCIUTTO: I mean we've been showing pictures there as you've been speaking of yet one more civilian family mourning over the body of yet one more civilian victim here. And they appear to be the deliberate targets. In fact, there's a lot of evidence of that over Russian attacks.

Are the more likely legal targets here, the ones that will end up in the dock at some point, is it more likely for them to be field commanders? I mean, for instance, there are many Russian commanders already in Ukrainian custody, prisoners of war, rather than someone higher up the chain, Vladimir Putin himself?

WILLIAMSON: Well, I think the International Criminal Court certainly seems intent on conducting an investigation here. And I applaud that. And I -- they're taking steps in that direction.

But people need to keep in mind that they have limited capabilities here in terms of how many cases they can take. They have a global jurisdiction. They're dealing with a number of situations around the world right now. And, in any case, they've never done more than five or six indictments. So, they may well target senior political and military leaders in Moscow.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WILLIAMSON: And this could potentially go up to President Putin himself. But anyone that falls below the threshold level of ICC prosecutions will probably have to be dealt with in other ways. And right now that looks like that would take place through Ukrainian national authorities, investigating and eventually prosecuting those crimes.

SCIUTTO: You know, if you look back to the Yugoslav war, in the beginning it might have seemed a long shot for someone like Slobodan Milosevic to face legal reckoning. But, in the end, he did. So perhaps could happen here as well.

I do want to ask you before we go, there are a number of forums that this prosecution could take, largely outside the country, ICC, something along those lines, largely inside the country, but it's your view that this should be done hand and hand. Ukrainian authorities with the help of -- or under the auspices of say the International Criminal Court?

WILLIAMSON: Well, the International Criminal Court operates on a concept of what's called complementary. So it is really seen as a court of last resort. But certainly in a conflict of this scale, on crimes on this scale, this is really -- should be the bailiwick of the court. And I think they may be in a position to do these high level prosecutions.

But, as I said, there are just limits to how many cases they can actually undertake. And so this is the way the court was designed, to work hand and hand with national authorities. And here we have a situation, unlike Syria, or Myanmar, for example, where national authorities were actually hostile to accountability efforts because they were complicit in crimes. Here we have a democratically elected government, that has legal authorities to investigate and prosecute these cases. An so I think all of us in the international community are very (INAUDIBLE) in supporting them in doing that.

SCIUTTO: It's a good point, functioning government there, let them take the lead.

Ambassador Clint Williamson, thanks so much for the work you're doing.

WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Breaking overnight, more than 150 people injured in clashes at one of Jerusalem's holiest sites.

[09:25:06]

What sparked this chaos on a sacred day for Judaism, Islam and Christianity. We'll have a live report up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Wyoming is now the latest state to join a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's current plan to end Title 42.

[09:30:03]

This is a border control policy, it began during the Trump administration, that stopped many migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. based on