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Russian Ship Sinks in Black Sea; Russian Forces Ramp Up Fighting in Eastern Ukraine; Young Woman Recalls Harrowing Experience in Mariupol; Town in Eastern Ukraine Prepares for Russian Hostilities; Top ICC Prosecutor is Interviewed about Investigation into Alleged Russian War Crimes; Lyoya's Family Calls for Termination of Michigan Officer; Elon Musk Offers $54.20 a Share to Buy All of Twitter. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired April 15, 2022 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
[00:00:30]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause, live in Lviv, Ukraine.
On day 51 of Vladimir Putin's war of choice, the guided missile cruiser the Moskva now at the bottom of the Black Sea, sent there by either a Ukrainian missile or incompetence by Russian sailors. Either way, a huge blow to the Russian military.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And I'm Michael Holmes here at CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, where we're following an attempted Twitter takeover by the world's richest man, Elon Musk.
VAUSE: We begin with what looks like a major victory for Ukraine's military and a huge blow to the Russian navy, with the sinking of the Moskva, the flag ship of Russia's Black Sea naval fleet.
Russian news agency Tass reports the guided missile cruiser sank while being towed to port after a major fire on board. Ukrainian fighters say the ship was hit by two Neptune missiles, a credible claim according to sources familiar with U.S. and Western intelligence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: It is certainly plausible and possible that they, in fact, did hit this with a Neptune missile or maybe more.
I mean, the Neptune has a range that would have certainly made -- been able to make it reach the Moskva, which was about 65 South of the coast off Odessa.
So certainly within the realm of possibility there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Meantime, Russia is adding command and control and aviation capabilities to forces in the East as it prepares for a major offensive to take parts of the Donbas region.
A senior U.S. defense official says the first Russian troops which retreated from Northern Ukraine and now appearing in the East. But Ukraine claims it has stopped at least one advance in the Kharkiv region. Special Operations forces say they destroyed a bridge just as a Russian convoy of tanks, trucks and armored vehicles were crossing. There, the local military reports Russian shelling of residential areas as Russian troops tried to move towards the Donbas.
Analysts say the sinking of the Moskva is a major setback for Russian morale and also its naval capability. We get more now from CNN's Fred Pleitgen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): It seems like a massive blow to Russia's war against Ukraine, Ukraine's forces saying they've struck the flag ship of Putin's Black Sea fleet, the guided missile cruiser Moskva.
I spoke exclusively with Ukraine's national security advisor.
(on camera): Can you tell us what happened to the cruiser Moskva?
(voice-over): "It sank," he says jokingly.
Russia admits the ship has, indeed, sunk but has not yet acknowledged it was struck by Kyiv. Instead, it says it was badly damaged by a fire and then sunk while being towed in stormy seas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: Or you will be hit.
PLEITGEN: The Moskva was involved in a new famous incident in a place called Snake Island, when it's crew told Ukrainian soldiers to surrender. This was the answer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: Russian warship, go (EXPLETIVE DELETED) yourself.
PLEITGEN: The event has become so legendary in Ukraine they commemorated it with a special stamp. People at this post office in Kyiv standing in line to get it.
"An important event happened yesterday. Our armed forced destroyed the aggressor's flagman ship. I think this event has to have a place in everyone's memory," this man says.
The Ukrainians say they managed to hit the ship, which has formidable defense systems with Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles.
"The Moskva was still there, near the Snake Island, and was hit yesterday by two powerful Ukrainian-made missiles," he says. And then, a warning to Putin. "This is just the beginning," heh says. "There will be more than one Moskva."
But the leadership in Kyiv understands the next major battles will be different and possibly even more bloody, as Russian tanks and artillery pour into the Donbas region.
"This horde has invaded our country, and they think we will watch them destroy us," he says. "But, of course, we will respond by all means we have. Thanks to our international partners, we have interesting tools."
The U.S. and its allies have already provided Ukraine with billions of dollars' worth of weapons and are now moving to give Kyiv heavier arms to counter Vladimir Putin's tank battalions. The national security adviser says Ukraine needs all the firepower it can get.
[00:05:03]
"I would never say that the Russian army is weak," he says. "Given the amount of weapons thrown there, the number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, planes and helicopters, I would not say this is a weak army. I would say these are strong Ukrainian soldiers who fight back such a powerful army."
And these territorial defense soldiers in Kyiv are vowing to keep up the fight. They're elite troops gearing up to head East.
"We are absolutely prepared for this. We have both fighting spirit and fighting mood. We are patriots of our country, and of course, we will fight back the enemy," the soldier who goes by the name Vlad the Rifle, tells me.
And they vow, just like in Kyiv, they will confront the Russian army once again.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Kyiv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian army, former commander of the Australian Defense College, and author of "War Transformed: The Future of 21st Century Great Power Competition and Conflict."
General Ryan, thanks again. It's good to see you. Good to see you again.
Back in 2015, CNN's Matthew Chance actually reported from on board the Moskva. It was being used back then as part of Russia's offensive in Syria. I want you to listen to part of his report. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are standing now on the missile cruiser, the Moskva, which means "Moscow" in Russian. And it's a key vessel in Russia's military operation, because it provides its air defenses for the very frequent air strikes that have been carried out right now by the Russian air force against various targets inside Syria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: This guided missile cruiser was about as high-tech as it gets for the Russian navy: $750 million apparently, one of three. So one of the Russians now lost in terms of capability with the Moskva at the bottom of the Black Sea.
MICK RYAN, RETIRED MAJOR GENERAL IN AUSTRALIAN ARMY: Hi, John.
It's good to be with you again. What they've lost is a command and control platform for the Black Sea fleet. They had lost a set (ph) of senses which provide air defense in that region, but most importantly, at the strategic level, they've lost a major propaganda war with the Ukrainians who have turned this into a strategic issue.
VAUSE: And the fact that they've now sort of moved the rest of their fleet away from the coastline has indicated that they are concerned about further strikes.
RYAN: I think that's absolutely true. It's difficult to believe that the Ukrainians would fire some missiles, and at the same time, there would be some accident on the ship.
I think the proof adds up that this is probably a Ukrainian strike on the ship. The Russians have lost it, and it's a major propaganda coup for the Ukrainians.
VAUSE: You know, Putin's military has left behind widespread destruction in towns and cities. His soldiers, by all accounts, are guilty of both torture and mass murder of civilians. Are they maybe guilty of raping women and children.
Russian forces have been exposed as both poorly trained, vulnerable, essentially a paper tiger. From the Kremlin's point of view, is there anything else to show for the past 51 days of war?
RYAN: An expanded NATO, essentially. Russia has had nothing to show for this unnecessary and unwarranted invasion of the Ukraine. They've left rubble in their wake. They've left dead civilians and broken families.
Putin is reaching for some kind of success in the East. But given what we've seen from the Ukrainians so far, and the support from the West, even that will be very difficult for the Russian military.
VAUSE: I guess the question now becomes, what does Putin do next to try and change the direction of the war? I want you to listen to the CIA director, William Burns, about his concerns.
(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 -- to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So the working assumption is that Putin is more likely to escalate than walk away, at least in the short term, but what are the chances that he will resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, or chemical or biological weapons? He gets that desperately, he puts those sort of WMDs into play.
RYAN: Well, it's certainly not something the Russians have taken off the table at all. They threaten the use of nuclear weapons. They have indicated they might undertake false flag operations with chemical weapons. And to be quite Frank, the performance of the U.S. intelligence before and during this invasion has been quite impressive.
So if the director of CIA is talking about this publicly, it is certainly an option that shouldn't be discounted from the Russian leader who he's getting desperate for some kind of victory.
[00:10:06]
VAUSE: So with that in mind, how important is the diplomacy here to give him some kind of credible off-ramp so he doesn't get to that point?
RYAN: Well, that's the real trick for the Ukrainian strategy and for the rest of NATO. Ukraine needs and will most likely win this war, but they need to do so in a way that doesn't result in the Russians using weapons of mass destruction.
That will take an incredibly nuanced calibration by President Zelenskyy and his government in close work with western governments to make sure it doesn't happen.
VAUSE: General Ryan, as always, thank you so much, sir. We appreciate your time.
RYAN: Thank you.
VAUSE: Well, in parts of the Donbas region, the constant sound of artillery fire is a terrifying reminder for many who are now living on the front lines of this war. And as those attacks escalate, so, too, the destruction. And for those
who refuse or are unable to leave, they're left with little choice but to watch as communities are being destroyed.
CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward has this report now from near Donetsk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The town of Avdiivka is no stranger to war. In eight years, this has been the front line of Ukraine's battle with Russian-backed separatists.
The people here are used to shelling, but they've never experienced anything like this. A missile can be heard overhead. An emotional man approaches us.
"They smashed the old part of town," he says.
As we talk, the artillery intensifies.
(on camera): I told him it's better to go home now, because there's a lot of shelling. He said there's more shelling where he lives.
(voice-over): As Russia prepares a major offensive in the East, frontline towns like Avdiivka are getting pummeled.
(on camera): So you can hear constant bombardment. This is the bomb shelter down here, but you can see this building has already been hit.
(voice-over): More than 40 people are now living in what used to be a clothing store. Leda (ph) and her two sons have been here for three weeks. She wants to leave but says her boys are too scared to go outside.
"We are afraid to stay and afraid to go," she tells us. "But it's fate, whether you run or don't run."
On an apartment block, an icon of the Virgin Mary has been painted. A plea for protection, but there is no respite in the bombardment.
(on camera): If we look over here, you can see the remnants of some fresh strikes.
(voice-over): Thirty-seven-year-old government worker Ratislav (Ph) looks at what remains of his family home. He takes us inside to see the full scale of the destruction.
(on camera): It's completely destroyed.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(voice-over): Mercifully, no one was at home at the time of the strike. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was photo albums. My children's photograph.
WARD: His family has already left. He says he plans to stay.
"I'm afraid like anybody else. Only the dead are not afraid," he tells us. "But a lot of people are still here in Avdiivka, living in bomb shelters, and we need to support them."
Authorities say roughly 2,000 people remain in this town. There is no water, no heat, the electricity is spotty. The local school has become a hub to gather aid and distribute it to the community.
Volunteer Igor Galovtov (ph) spends his days visiting the elderly and disabled. Today, he is checking in on 86-year-old Lidia (ph). Petrified and alone, he has yet to find an organization willing to come and evacuate her.
"When there's no electricity, and it's so dark and there's shelling," she says, you can't imagine how scary it is. She tells us she recites prayers to get through the night.
[00:15:05]
"I never imagined that my end would be like this," she says. "You can't even die here, because there's no one to provide a burial service.
For Igor, it is agony not to be able to do more.
"I promise you," he says, "I will help you to be evacuated."
As we leave, Lidia (ph) is reluctant to say goodbye. It is terrifying to live through this time. To do it alone is torture.
"It's so nice to see real people," she says. "Probably, it's going to get worse."
A prediction all but certain to come true, as a second Russian offensive draws near.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Clarissa also reports in that the town's mayor has been begging residents to evacuate. They say they just don't have the resources. They just don't have any way to get out.
We'll take a short break. When we come back here on CNN NEWSROOM, a story of courage under the pressure of war. We'll hear from a Ukrainian woman trying to help others while escaping Russian aggression.
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[00:20:30]
HOLMES: Welcome back. Vladimir Putin says he has a Plan B if Europe wins itself from Russian energy imports. The E.U. has already pledged to phase out Russian coal and cut gas purchases by two-thirds before the end of the year. But the Russian president says Europe still has no real alternative in the short term, and according to him, Russia does.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We need to diversify the exports. We will assume that energy supplies to the West will decrease in the foreseeable future. Therefore, it is important to solidify the trend of recent years, to redirect step-by-step our exports towards fast-growing markets in the South and East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: The E.U. still receives about 40 percent of its gas and more than a quarter of its oil through pipelines leading from Russia. And when it comes, Russia's goals for Asia, Mr. Putin says more infrastructure needs to be built to boost exports to the region.
Now even as harrowing accounts of destruction emerge from Ukraine, so too do tales of courage and survival.
CNN's Ed Lavandera speaks to one resident of Mariupol who tried her best to deliver aid and offer support to citizens in hiding while she was running for her life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the first bomb struck Mariupol, Katya Erskaya thought her most effective weapon would be a gentle smile, and the ability to calm terrified families. She lived in an underground shelter, coordinating relief supplies for the trapped civilians of this besieged city.
(on camera): So you're watching your city get bombed and destroyed, people are being killed. You decide not to leave but to help.
KATYA ERSKAYA, MARIUPOL RESIDENT: It's horrible that the enemies didn't allow even children to go out from the city.
LAVANDERA: Day by day, the video Katya captured showed life in Mariupol unraveling. She lost touch with the outside world. None of her family and friends outside the city knew if she was alive or dead. Life here was falling into an abyss.
ERSKAYA: It was like Middle Age.
LAVANDERA (on camera): It was like the Middle Ages.
ERSKAYA: Yes.
LAVANDERA: It's almost like you can feel yourself running out of time. There was only so much longer you could stay in Mariupol.
ERSKAYA: I thought I will never go from Mariupol until the end. LAVANDERA (voice-over): On March 16, Katya evacuated. She recorded two
short videos on her way out, just before seeing a family walking on the side of the road, a mother, grandmother, and two young girls.
ERSKAYA: We had two, three places in our car, and we saw this family, and we decided to help them.
LAVANDERA: At one of the Russian military checkpoints, they stopped in front of a soldier.
ERSKAYA: And he showed us we are going to turn on our car. And after that, he began to shoot.
LAVANDERA (on camera): One of the bullets pierced the car over her head, but in the backseat was 11-year-old Melena Yulova (ph), shot in the face. The Russians, realizing their mistake, sent the girl to a hospital.
Katya, now separated, traveled on without knowing if the young girl survived, until --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): CNN found Melena (ph) in the basement of a children's hospital in Eastern Ukraine, after surviving lifesaving surgery. For Katya, the relief is overwhelmed by the horrors of what she witnessed.
ERSKAYA: I saw a lot of dead people, a lot of common graves on the street, for example, in my lot (ph). And I started to believe that they are crazy. Because they were like maniacs.
LAVANDERA (on camera): They were maniacs to you?
ERSKAYA: Yes, they are really crazy. Like Nazis in the Second World War.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): After escaping, Katya remembered the videos she recorded before the Russians ravaged Mariupol. Ukrainians protesting outside the now famous theater, that in a matter of weeks, would be the site of one of the most grotesque bombings in this war.
[00:25:04]
The theater, still intact, the city's buildings unscathed. She sees the peaceful faces of families and children. The video is hard to watch. Are these people alive or left in makeshift graves around the city?
Katya Erskaya doesn't know, and for her, there's only one way to deal with this haunting reality.
ERSKAYA: I decided that I will cry only when the Ukrainians get victory.
LAVANDERA: Ed Lavandera, CNN, Odessa, Ukraine. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: A renewed Russian offensive in Ukraine could be just days away. Coming up, we'll take you to a town at the very edge of the government's control in Eastern Ukraine.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. We'll be right back.
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[00:30:10]
VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. I'm John Vause live in Lviv, Ukraine. Just coming up to 30 minutes past the hour.
Defense officials say Russian troops who retreated from Northern Ukraine two weeks ago are now showing up in the Donbas region. But the Russians are running up against fierce resistance.
Ukrainian Special Forces claim they blew up this bridge as an armored Russian column was crossing near Kharkiv. Moscow widely expected to launch a three-pronged attack to try and capture a section of Eastern Ukraine.
CNN's Ben Wedeman went to one town that would likely be in the direct path of that offensive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Denis (ph) loads food in his car for a delivery run. The supplies sorted by volunteers in this old warehouse were donated from around Ukraine and abroad. Denis (ph) was a musician before the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Destroyed.
LAVANDERA: Severodonetsk is the city furthest East under Ukrainian government control and under constant bombardment from Russian forces nearby.
The supplies Denis (ph) and other volunteers deliver are what keep this city alive.
Two missiles landed outside Nadia's (ph) decrepit Soviet-era apartment building. The strain of living under the shelling, more than she can take.
"It's hard," she says. "I can't stay in this room. I'm so afraid. I want it to be quiet and calm again."
With Russian forces massing in the East, there will be no quiet. There will be no calm.
Sitting on a hospital bed, Briana (ph) recounts the night her house was hit.
"I was in the kitchen, and it started," she says. Her home is now in ruins.
More than 20 corpses lie scattered in the hospital's morgue, wrapped in sheets and blankets, awaiting burial.
On the outskirts of the city, more evidence of the toll war has taken.
(on camera): This is a hastily-dug graveyard that was started since the war began. Just look at the dates: 7th of April, 9th of April, 3rd of April, 4th of April. It goes on and on and on.
(voice-over): And more graves will soon be filled.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Severodonetsk, Eastern Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The European official who will most likely prosecute war crimes here describes the entire country as a crime scene. Karim Khan is the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court of the Hague. He visited two towns near Kyiv where mass graves and other atrocities were discovered after Russian troops pulled out.
Afterwards, Khan spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper about what he and his team have accomplished on this trip. A warning: some of the images you're about to see are graphic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARIM KHAN, CHIEF PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: I think we have all been seeing the pictures and reading the reports regarding the devastation, the human cost, lost property, but really, most importantly, to -- to civilians, men, women and children. And so it was an opportunity to see firsthand, to verify, to try to start a process of collection.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Putin is out there saying it's all fake; it's all a hoax. You're seeing it with your own eyes.
KHAN: What we have to do, I think the job is to separate truth from falsehood. And the truth always is essentially the first casualty of war. There's competing narratives, and there's allegations and counter allegations.
And I think this is why there's a role, an important role for an independent prosecutor's office. We don't have a political agenda. We're not in favor of Ukraine and against Russia or in favor of Russian, against Ukraine. We're in favor of humanity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, the crime of genocide is one of the most serious charges that might be leveled at the Kremlin. And it's very tough to prove in court.
But Ukrainian lawmakers say there's no doubt that's exactly what is happening. Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution declaring Russia's actions in Ukraine genocide.
According to the legislature's Twitter account, Moscow's military offensive from the very beginning has been aimed at wiping out Ukrainian culture, as well as national identity.
A lot more from Lviv at the top of the hour. But for now, let's go back to Michael Holmes at the CNN world headquarters there in Atlanta -- Michael.
HOLMES: All right, John, thanks so much. We'll check in with you a bit later.
Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to the first COVID-19 breath test. The FDA says the Inspector breathalyzer, as it's called, is about the size of a carry- on luggage, as you can see there, and can get results in less than three minutes.
[00:35:11]
A study shows the tests accurately identified more than 91 percent of positive samples and all of the negative ones.
Now, it does this by identifying chemical compounds associated with the infection.
The FDA still recommends results be confirmed with a PCR test.
The family of a man shot and killed by police in Michigan is speaking out. What we know about what happened and what the family saying. We'll have all of that when we come back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back. New York's subway shooting suspect Frank James will stay behind bars, at least for the time being. He was denied bail during his initial court appearance in New York on Thursday.
James did not enter a plea to a charge related to terrorism and an attack on mass transit. Outside the courtroom, his lawyer cautioned against the rush to judgment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[00:40:05]
MIA EISNER-GRYNBERG, SUSPECT'S ATTORNEY: Mr. James saw his photograph on the news. He called Crime Stoppers to help. He told them where he was. Initial press and police reports and cases like this one are often inaccurate. Mr. James is entitled to a fair trial, and we will ensure that he receives one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Prosecutors say James set off two smoke grenades and opened fire with a gun during morning rush hour on Tuesday. Twenty-nine people were injured, including ten with gunshot wounds.
Four victims still in the hospital. Investigators did not say yet what his motive might have been.
Meanwhile, the family of a man shot and killed by police is calling for the termination and prosecution of the officer who shot him. It comes a day after police in Michigan released several videos of the incident.
CNN's Omar Jimenez with the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I am really deeply broken and wounded.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The parents of 26-year- old Patrick Lyoya, speaking publicly through their pastor for the first time since police released video of their son being killed.
(on camera): You still think about it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I think about him every time. And I still cannot believe that my son died.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): The family came to the United States to flee war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it was in the United States that a bullet killed her son. The father still remembers asking police how his son was killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Very astonishing. Amazing, they told me that he was killed by an officer. I didn't believe it. I said the police that were supposed to be watching you is the one who killing.
JIMENEZ: Back on April 4, shortly after being pulled over for what police say was improper car registration, Lyoya starts running. The officer chases, and they go to the ground, beginning what would become minutes of wrestling and struggling.
The officer used his Taser twice but failed to make contact as Lyoya puts his hands on the Taser and the two go to the ground for what would be the final time, struggling for a few brief moments before the officer's final words.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the Taser!
(GUNSHOT)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 1915. I was just involved in a shooting. Nelson. Griggs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sending medical.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 1915. I'm Nelson. North of Gross. That's 10-4. Suspect down. JIMENEZ: The officer got up. Lyoya did not.
The shooting sparked a mass protest in downtown Grand Rapids, centered on justice for a new face and what many see as a familiar story.
The officer who fired the shot still hasn't been named but has been stripped of his police powers. The Lyoya family's power is now focused on one thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If really Patrick is dead, I just ask for justice.
Omar Jimenez, CNN, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: The last member of the ISIS cell known as The Beatles has been convicted. The man, Shafee Elsheikh, was convicted of kidnapping a number of westerners and killing four Americans.
During the trial in Virginia, former hostages who survived the ordeal's testified about the brutal beatings and torture they endured from the three British fighters, who became known as the Beatles.
One of them was killed in a drone strike. The third pleaded guilty in September.
What do you do if you are the world's richest man and the Twitterverse is annoying you? Well, if you're Elon Musk, you gather up a few billion dollars and try to buy the whole thing. We'll have the details after the break.
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[00:48:37]
HOLMES: A controversy brewing in Britain. Some of those seeking asylum in the U.K. might be sent to Rwanda until their cases are decided. That's part of a new plan the country has announced on Thursday. It would see tens of thousands of asylum seekers transferred from the U.K. to Rwanda in the coming years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted the plan as an innovative approach to Britain's immigration challenges, while the U.K. home secretary says asylum seekers will still be taken care of in Rwanda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRITI PATEL, BRITISH HOME SECRETARY: We have agreed that people who entered the U.K. illegally will be considered for relocation to Rwanda to have their asylum systems -- asylum claims decided. And those who are resettled will be given the support, including up to five years of training with the help of integration, accommodation, health care, so they can resettle and thrive.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: But human rights groups slammed the idea, saying Rwanda has an appalling human rights record, so much so that Britain has been granting asylum to Rwandan refugees in recent years.
Now, Elon Musk is Twitter's biggest investor, and it's fair to say, its biggest critic, as well. And now he wants to buy all of it. The billionaire says that Twitter isn't living up to free speech principles, so he wants to take it private.
He's offered a little more than $54 per share, which values the company at more than $44 billion. Musk says he's thinking about more than the cost.
[00:50:12]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, BILLIONAIRE: My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and -- and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don't care about the economics at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, Josh Constine invests in start-ups with a focus on social media. He's the head of content and the principal investor at the venture capital fund SignalFire.
Good to see you. So first of all, how attractive will his offer be to shareholders? How likely is he to be successful?
JOSH CONSTINE, PRINCIPAL INVESTOR, SIGNALFIRE: I mean, this is a 38 percent bump above Twitter's current share price, so the board will have to do a good job defending a reason why they should turned on this deal, because it would be you lucrative for shareholders, to say the least.
HOLMES: So, given what we know of Elon Musk and how he thinks, what changes would you expect him to make if he were to be successful?
CONSTINE: Elon is a big free speech advocate, though free speech means a lot of different things to different people. Allowing the kind of bullying and hate speech that he's often said is really OK with him, actually silences other users on a website like Twitter.
It could be problematic, and while he says it's free speech, he'll actually make speech harder for vulnerable individuals.
He also says that he wants to open source the algorithm, which chooses which tweets you see, but there's a big problem there in that spammers or people who are trying to game the system would then basically have the rule book for how to exploit Twitter.
And he's also said he wants to add an edit button, and luckily, he says there'd need to be protections to make sure you couldn't be seen trying to say something and then make other people look like they're retweeting something and then change what they say.
So I think some of his suggestions are pretty outlandish, and the most worrisome ones will be focused around free speech and whether he can make Twitter an even more hateful place, after years of criticism that it already is full of hate speech.
HOLMES: Yes. Let's talk a little more about that. And first, let's play some sound from an interview Elon Musk did on Thursday. Let's have a listen to that first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: A good sign as to whether there is free speech is -- is -- is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like. And if that is the case, then we have free speech. And it's -- it's darn annoying when someone you don't like says something you don't like. That is a sign of a healthy, functioning free speech situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Yes, but as we all know, there is that fine line -- and you alluded to this -- between all-out free speech and enabling the spread of misinformation and propaganda.
And Elon Musk has been criticized for trying to silence his own critics, including among his own workforce. And having those, quote, "free speech" decisions essentially in the hands of one man can be potentially problematic, can't it? Because he's deciding.
CONSTINE: I mean, he is the richest man in the world, and just incredibly privileged in every way. So something that he says he doesn't like could truly be dangerous or threatening to somebody with a lot less privilege than him.
And so I think that's why there's a big rub here, is that, for some people, yes, if you're just getting criticized but you have all the money in the world you don't really care, but if you're someone in a vulnerable, mental state and you have people on Twitter being free to say whatever they want, including making death threats, or saying horrible things about them, and then not even been worried about getting banned, because Elon says he thinks that people should have timeouts inside of bans, could make it a really offensive and sort of mentally damaging place for a lot of people in the world to spend time.
So I think that's going to be the big reason Twitter's board tries to resist this. They're going to say that this will just be bad for safety.
HOLMES: And also, does taking a company private like Twitter reduce oversight from, you know, regulators like the SEC?
CONSTINE: Absolutely, so they wouldn't -- Twitter would not have to make the same kind of quarterly statements about its progress. It would be less at the whims of public investor sentiment, and instead it would be able to kind of do what it wants as long as private investors still have faith in it, and it has enough money to operate.
And with Elon behind it, they effectively have infinite resources. So the problem is really whether this would be good for people, and whether the Twitter board, who might also be summarily kicked out. You know, the new CEO, Parag Agrawal, only came in in November.
He could see himself thrown out. Other executives may even protest if Elon takes control of Twitter. So they could also have a staffing issue on their hands.
And honestly, that's one of the biggest ways that tech employees have been able to influence policy. It's not because the users protest. It's because the employees do. Because if they walk out, everything grinds to a halt.
[00:55:08]
HOLMES: Yes. Great point there. Josh Constine, thanks so much there from SignalFire. Appreciate it.
Queen Elizabeth had some visitors this week. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan stopped by to see the British monarch on their way to the Invictus Games, which began on Saturday.
Harry recently said that he hoped to visit his 95-year-old grandmother soon. There again, it looks like he did.
The queen has dealt with a number of health issues, of course, in recent months, including feeling, quote, "tired and exhausted" since getting COVID in February.
I'm Michael Holmes at the CNN Center. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. We'll go back to John Vause, live in Ukraine in just a moment.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
