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Train Station in Poland Serves as Rest Stop for Displaced Ukrainians; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Signs 15-Week Abortion Ban into Law; War in Ukraine Fueling Global Food Crisis. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired April 16, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:40]

PAULA REID, CNN ANCHOR: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington, in for Jim Acosta. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

Russia ramping up attacks in eastern Ukraine as a major ground offensive could be just days away. Two civilians are dead and 18 injured after a cruise missile strike that hit residential buildings and shops in the country's northeast. Civilian buildings in eastern Ukrainian are sustaining extensive damage.

Watch this moment when a CNN team witnessed an attack on a village market.

In another village nearby Russian forces struck a fuel depot today. A senior official in that region is urging the 70,000 remaining residents to evacuate now. Some southern cities also under fire from Russia. Ukraine says it's retaliation for this.

One of Russia's main warships is now at the bottom of the Black Sea. U.S. military officials believe two Ukrainian missiles are responsible. Vladimir Putin is angry over Russia's military losses according to U.S. officials and his behavior is increasingly unpredictable. His forces leaving behind evidence of atrocities. More than 900 bodies of civilians have been discovered since Russia withdrew from areas around the capital, according to local police, many of them showing signs of torture, rape and brutal execution.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Ukraine's southern port city of Odessa.

Ed, tell us about the fallout Ukraine may be facing after sinking Russia's prized warship, a guided missile cruiser.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, here in this region of southern Ukraine they're seeing an intensified air attacks on various cities, specifically Mykolaiv which is east of where we are. We've spent several days of this week in that region, and we have heard at times just constant artillery bombardment in the distance just on the other side of Mykolaiv from where we are is a city of Kherson that is under Russian-occupied control, and there has been a daily exchange of artillery in that region. Today we have seen continued airstrikes on the city of Mykolaiv, and

that has stepped up significantly it seems like in the last 48 hours. In fact, we were there yesterday when a cluster bomb explosions occurred in various locations throughout the city. Five people were killed, 15 others injured. And a lot of those attacks continue today. So, you know, a lot of people have feared that in the wake of the sinking of that Russian warship that this is something that would happen.

It also could be part of a bigger strategy in terms of the ground offensive that Russian military is engaging in now, and so exactly what the outcome is going to be in the days ahead isn't clear or exactly what the strategy for Russian military forces at this time. Are they going to continue to try to push toward Mykolaiv and perhaps further south down into Odessa? That has been the question that has been hanging and looming over the residents of this region for some time now.

REID: And Ed, not far from you in another port city, the mayor says Russian troops attacked a kindergarten this morning. Was that part of their overall strategy? What additional details do you have?

LAVANDERA: Well, that's the same city. Mykolaiv, after we were there yesterday and we saw the cluster explosions, those attacks have kept going today. In fact, the mayor of the city is saying that in one of the strikes today it destroyed a kindergarten building. We have seen other images of children's playgrounds destroyed as well. And that has been the difficult part of all of this and why it's created, you know, a great amount of fear in that city, because it's indiscriminate at this point.

Clearly these munitions are being sent in to populated civilian areas, no clear military target for these strikes. And that is what causes a great deal of panic, and many Ukrainian officials believe that is the true intention of just these kind of strikes, is to instill fear.

[15:05:03]

But I can tell you having spent several days in Mykolaiv this week, there's a good number of people who have not evacuated and many people will tell you they refuse to do so even if the Russians come charging into that city.

REID: Ed Lavandera, good to see you and thank you so much for your incredible reporting there on the ground.

Putin is sending a sharp warning to the U.S. of, quote, "unpredictable consequences if weapons shipments to Ukraine continue." Now this comes as an $800 million package is set to arrive in Ukraine today, one that includes advanced weaponry.

CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): With Russia's war against Ukraine about to enter its third month, the battlefield has changed significantly. The region, around the capital, Kyiv, is quieter for now. But U.S. and NATO officials warn that a dramatic escalation by Russia in eastern Ukraine is coming. With that shift and escalation, Ukraine's needs for weapons are changing and growing. This week, the Biden administration announced a weapons package worth $800 million with new and more sophisticated systems.

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Some of them are reinforcing capabilities that we have already been providing Ukraine and some of them are new capabilities that we have not provided to Ukraine.

MARQUARDT: Among the bigger items are MI-17 helicopters, 11 of them, which the U.S. redirected from Afghanistan to Ukraine. Small drones called Switchblades, 300 of them, also called Kamikaze killer drones that can target Russian soldiers and armored vehicles. And, for the first time, Howitzers, which fire artillery shells at long range targets. Ukraine is being sent 18 with 40,000 rounds of ammunition.

The list goes on and includes coastal sea drones to defend against Russia's ships in the Black Sea, 200 armored personnel carriers, counter-artillery radars, equipment for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks, and thousands more Javelin and Stinger missiles to use against Russian tanks and aircraft.

Countless Russian armored vehicles have been destroyed by weapons provided by NATO countries. Ukrainian forces have been able to repel Russian advances, thanks to them.

DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: I think the deal that Ukraine is offering is fair. You give us weapons. We sacrifice our lives. And the war is contained in Ukraine.

MARQUARDT: But Ukraine says it needs more.

OLEKSIY DANILOV, UKRAINE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER (through translator): We are grateful for what we have already been given. We need helicopters, planes, powerful weapons, Howitzers. We need a lot.

MARQUARDT: A point of contention with U.S. is over fighter jets. Ukraine wants them while the Biden administration is worried Russia will take that as too much of a provocation.

Moscow has warned it would target weapons heading into Ukraine and this week sent a protest letter, to Washington over the growing weaponry being sent. But the State Department said Friday that nothing will dissuade the U.S. from continuing its support.

Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: And with me now is retired Brigadier General Kevin Ryan.

All right, General, so for weeks the Biden administration held off on giving Ukraine these high-powered weapons, fearing that it would be seen as an escalation in this incredibly sensitive situation, but this upcoming Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine appears to have changed the equation. So can you layout for us, how could this shipment change how this fight plays out?

BRIG. GENERAL KEVIN RYAN (RET), U.S. ARMY: Well, the Ukrainians have done a great job so far facing off with the Russian military as they made advances through cities and in the north. Not so much in the south where they've lost a lot of territory. In the east they've done a great job because they had the advantage of being dug in and fighting along a line of contact that's basically been there since 2015. But now the Russians are going to mount an all-out offensive.

They're going to be taking units from the north and moving them to the east and then driving down behind -- they want to be behind the Ukrainian forces to cut them off and to seize the rest of this so- called Donbas area, the Donetsk and Luhansk area. To fight this fight the Ukrainians need to take out Russian artillery which has been so devastating to the cities that we've seen, Mariupol and others. They need to be able to stop Russian tanks and armored columns in the open field, and so the things that we've seen on the list that's going there, these are the things that can help them do that.

REID: And this package, it includes 40,000 artillery rounds, but U.S. official says that Ukraine could use that up in just a few days. So is part of the Russian strategy here perhaps just drag this out, force Ukraine to use up these precious resources in the hope that eventually the West will turn off the spigot?

[15:10:12]

RYAN: You know, that might be in somebody's mind in Moscow, but it is not going to work. The clock is really working against Russia more than it is against Ukraine. Ukraine can continue as long as they save their military and keep their force alive, they can continue this fight because we are sending in supplies from the backside of the country. So they do not have a clock on their operation.

The Russians, on the other hand, are running out of units, they're running out of contract soldiers. When units get chewed up or destroyed they can't replace them because everybody, almost 90 percent of their ground and airborne forces, are in the fight already. So the clock really is working against Russia and not Ukraine.

REID: And to that point, you know, weeks ago Russia called military shipments entering Ukraine legitimate targets. So why do you think Russia hasn't been able to take out one of the shipments yet? Is that they can't do it they're just holding off?

RYAN: Well, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows for sure unless they're on the Russian general staff. I believe that they're having difficulty doing what we call dynamic targeting, that is finding a moving target, getting the information relayed in to the aircraft or the bombers or the missile units, and then knowing exactly where the target has moved to in the meantime in order to shoot at it. This is difficult for any army, and I think it's proven near impossible for the Russian military. REID: Now, Kyiv officials say 900 civilian bodies have been found

since the Russians withdrew from that area. Many of them show signs of torture and executions. Russians have attacked hospitals, schools, even evacuation convoys. Just today CNN witnessed a market getting hit in the east. So with an offensive led by this new ruthless general on the way, just how ugly is this about to get? Because what we've seen here is horrific. Should we expect it to get even worse?

RYAN: Yes, I think the violence will get much worse over the next month or so. This fight that's going to happen in eastern Ukraine, both sides recognize that this is the determining fight of this -- I won't call it the whole war, but this active phase of fighting. Whatever happens in the east over the next month or so, at the end of it the Russian military is going to be spent and the Ukrainian military is going to be tired also.

And I believe that the Russian side, whatever they gain, will call that a victory and ask for a cease-fire or demand a cease-fire. And I don't think the Ukrainians can refuse it, even if they think they might be able to get some land back from Russia. I think in order to save the people and to -- for the humanitarian crisis that will have evolved, I think they will agree to a cease-fire also.

REID: So given that assessment, what is your analysis in terms of the chances of a Russian chemical attack? Some people are saying those odds have increased. Is that how you read this?

RYAN: You know, I think -- of course, Putin has the capability to use chemical weapons or nuclear weapons. What we don't know is about the intent, and it takes both intent and capability to create a threat. What I would say about this is that Putin does not need to use chemical weapons or nuclear weapons to get his so-called victory. All he needs is more land in the east, and then he can say, to his domestic audience, which he has been saying all along. I watch his speeches and read his statements and those of the Ministry of Defense, et cetera.

He can say to them then, see, I have liberated the people of eastern Ukraine and created a land bridge to connect Crimea. When he says that, he can declare a victory of sorts and he can begin to refit and consolidate his gains, which he needs to do.

REID: Brigadier General Kevin Ryan, thank you so much for your insight and analysis.

RYAN: Thank you.

REID: Our colleague Jake Tapper has an exclusive interview with Ukrainian president on the "STATE OF THE UNION" -- on his show "STATE OF THE UNION" on the state of Ukraine's war and their fight to win. Make sure to tune in tomorrow live starting at 9:00 a.m.

[15:15:01]

And coming up, attacks are intensifying in eastern Ukraine amid fears of a major Russian ground offensive. We'll talk to a member of the Ukrainian parliament about that and what is being done to prepare.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID: Officials in Moscow are still not saying how many Russian military casualties, dead or wounded, there have been since Russia invaded Ukraine. The closest hint that things are going very badly for Russian forces, a top Kremlin spokesman admitted that they have lost, quote, "significant numbers of troops," calling it a, quote, "huge tragedy."

Now I want to bring in Stanislav Kucher, he is a journalist from Russia and a former TV presenter there.

Now senior Western military officials believe that Russia may have lost as many troops in these past weeks as they did in 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, and the young Russian soldiers today, interestingly, they've really only known one leader their entire lives, Vladimir Putin.

[15:20:05]

And you say, you've reported, that Putin has really shaped this generation of soldiers who are now dying for him. Lay that out for us.

STANISLAV KUCHER, RUSSIAN JOURNALIST: Well, you see, it's great you mentioned Afghanistan because when the war in Afghanistan was going on I was a young kid living in Oryol, which is a Russian provincial town 200 miles southeast of Moscow. And we in Oryol would, you know, have coffins arriving from Afghanistan literally every week. And in those coffins were sometimes people I knew, guys who were, you know, three, four, five years older than me. That was mid '80s, the mid '80s.

And everybody realized that the war was going on in Afghanistan, yet Russian, the Soviet television, and newspaper said that the Soviet soldiers were fulfilling what they called international duty in Afghanistan. And all they were doing there was planting flowers, you know, helping with renovation of cities, et cetera, et cetera. So everybody, literally everybody in the USSR knew that the actual war was going on and people were dying there, and, of course, their mothers were not happy about that fact.

But yet at the same time how many people took to the streets? Zero. Was I when I was a teenager at 13, 14, 15 years old, planning to say no when -- and if I was, you know, to be sent to Afghanistan? No. I did not want to go to Afghanistan, but I knew that if I did not make it to college then I would probably be drafted to the army. And I was, you know, preparing myself. I was a good athlete, et cetera, et cetera.

And that reflects the attitude of the majority of the Soviet people to that war and the attitude of the majority of Russians to this current war. They don't believe they can make a change, that's the problem. Even if they are against the war, they believe that, well, it is the government, it is the party, it is our state that is having this war, and we being the citizens of this state, we just don't have any other choice. So we'll have to serve and we'll have to approve of it no matter what the state is doing.

That's the nature of the Russian paternalistic consciousness, the Russian paternalistic mindset. And that's reason number one that needs to be understood by everyone who wants to understand why it is so that it is the 21st century and still a lot of Russians, if not the majority, support whatever Putin and his coterie is doing.

Then there is another reason. You see, when the Soviet Union collapsed back in 1991, the Soviets or the Russians did not have anything resembling denazification of Germany after World War II. There was no de-Sovietization of the Soviet Union. The Bolshoi-nization (PH) or whatever you call it. De-totalinarianization (PH), you know what I mean. Lenin, the founder of the Soviet empire, was never called a criminal, was never -- I mean even if Stalin at a certain point was called a criminal by the new democratically minded leaders of Russia.

Lenin was never called criminal officially by the state. Nobody ever said that the Soviet Union was, you know, a criminal state by the very fact of how it was formed after a civil war where millions of people died, et cetera, et cetera. And if you ask who are the heroes for many Russians, you can take a number of social -- of public opinion polls and you will find out that the heroes for Russians are still military leaders, and those leaders, those czars of Russia associated with what they call strong hand, strong will, strong power, those who contributed to the greatness of Russia, and it's Peter I, Stalin, Lenin.

You will not find there reformers, liberals, painters, novelists, et cetera, et cetera. Those will be mostly those public leaders.

[15:25:04]

So those are the two reasons essential to understand what happened to the Russian people and why their mindset is so.

REID: That's really interesting. I mean you talk about these opinion polls coming out of Russia. For example, some show that the Russian people overwhelmingly support Putin and his justification for what he is doing in Ukraine, but can we trust opinion polls coming out of Russia? Do people feel free to speak their minds and offer their true opinions in these kinds of polls?

KUCHER: Well, the answer is no, you cannot trust opinion polls because people do not -- of course, people do not feel free. It's pretty easy. I mean imagine you are somebody with no chance of leaving the country because you don't even have a foreign passport and you don't have the means to travel, and so no matter what you feel you know for sure that you are here for life. You will live in this country until you die no matter what you will want.

And you got a telephone call from somebody who says, I'm from, you know, a public research center and what do you think of Mr. Putin? Obviously in a situation where you can go to jail for just carrying an anti-war sign or even quoting Leo Tolstoy, his "War and Peace," you can be detained and go to jail. And of course, you will think twice before answering, no, I disapprove of Mr. Putin or his special military operation or whatever else. So, no, you cannot trust. People are not free.

On the other hand, well, again judging by my conversations with my -- you know, my childhood friends, my acquaintances and even by what people write on the internet and what is left of the Russian Facebook or Telegram, or other public internet platforms where people can express their opinions, so reading comments made by Russians there, you can say that, yes, a lot of Russians, a lot of Russians do approve of whatever Putin is doing. So don't trust the public polls, but, yes, unfortunately, a lot of Russians support Putin.

You know, to me one of my honestly greatest disappointments of this week has been the news that a number of Russian rock stars, rock stars of the '90s who once formed the -- at least helped form new mindset of many Russians of my generation, for example, they are now performing in a series of concerts dedicated to supporting the special military operation or the war in Ukraine.

And when I read the names, when I saw the posters with certain names on them, I was really disappointed because I would have never thought that those people, again, those icons and symbols of freedom, because rock and roll music is, you know, a symbol of freedom, that some of those people can ever support anything like this.

But on the other hand, the greatest stars like Boris Grebenshchikov which I know him and I know some people in America, or Andrei Makarevich or other, you know, really huge stars the size of Bob Dylan for Russia, they did not support the war. And they took a public open stand against the war.

REID: Stanislav Kucher, thank you so much for that really interesting insight. We truly appreciate it.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:33:45]

REID: Well, the U.N. says more than 4.8 million Ukrainians have left their country amid Russia's invasion. Most of these war refugees are fleeing to Poland. But many have no idea where to go next.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz reports from inside a Polish train station, which has become a temporary rest stop for thousands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: This is going to be an unimaginably difficult holiday weekend for Ukrainian refugees. And 2.7 million of them are here in Poland.

And I'm at a train station that's essentially a greeting point, a halfway point for many of these refugees. Because what they do is they get here and then, take a look, they sit and they wait it out.

They try to figure out where they're going to go next, where they're going to spend the night. Because many people don't have a plan. They don't know what they're going to do.

They just know that they're fleeing for safety. And they have with them only what they can carry. And of course, their little ones with them. You can see this one is waiting it out with her mom here until they see where they can go.

So this refugee -- this train station is, in a way, a refugee shelter.

This young man has his dog with him. You can see that there. So that's a lot of what you see here, is refugee pets, too.

[15:35:00]

And again, when these refugees arrive here, they need help, they need support, they need assistance.

I will show you another thing here. This is medical station. So if somebody needs to get some help, they can do that.

That's what is offered at this train station: warm food, medical assistance, a friendly face if that's what you need.

So you have these 2.7 -- over 2.7 million refugees now here in Poland but they are not static. They are constantly moving, shifting, trying to find out where they go and what they do.

That's why there's a question, how do you continue to support them, how do you give them a more permanent sense of home?

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, on the Poland/Ukraine border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: Coming up, four states move to restrict abortion access just this week in mostly Republican-led states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): We've got to take this current assault on women's rights seriously and use every tool we have to fight back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: We'll have a live report next.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:39]

REID: And this just into CNN. Police in Columbia, South Carolina, say some people have been injured after a reported shooting at a mall there. The injured are receiving medical attention. But the police say the types of injuries and the exact number of people hurt is not known.

Now, officers are evacuating the mall, which is about 10 miles from downtown. We will continue to monitor the situation and bring you the latest information as we get it.

And Florida is the latest in a wave of states passing new extreme anti-abortion laws. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee also enacted harsher abortion bans this week.

CNN's Nadia Romero is following this for us.

Nadia, Florida's ban doesn't even allow for exceptions for incest, rape or human trafficking. What have you learned?

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula, that's something we are seeing in states across the country that have these Republican- led legislatures, that they're taking away some of the things that people agreed would be OK to have an abortion for, if it was rape, incest, human trafficking.

They're also taking out provisions for expectant mothers if they know their baby may have a certain disability. We are seeing that happening in different states across the country as well.

Listen, this all could be going back to really two states that passed laws that started a domino effect, to really open the flood gates for anti-abortion legislation, Texas and Mississippi.

Let's go back to 2018. In Mississippi, they passed their 15-week abortion ban. And that case is now before the Supreme Court of the United States.

In Texas, the legislature there passed a six-week abortion ban, also commonly known as the Heartbeat Bill. And that went into effect in September.

Now we have two more states, Oklahoma and Florida, passing these restrictive bills. You can add them to the list that happened just this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHANTING)

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Using their voices and risking their freedoms --

(CHANTING)

ROMERO: -- Kaitlyn and Sarah Parker lead Women's Voices of southwest Florida, a nonprofit organized to defend reproductive freedoms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to speak up.

ROMERO: The group helped raise awareness when the Manatee County Board of Commissioners discussed the possibility of introducing an abortion ban.

SARAH PARKER, PRESIDENT, WOMEN'S VOICES OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: I had to sit down and I cried. We had put so many hours and so much time in it and we won something.

ROMERO: But their message was not loud enough to drown out the will of Florida's legislature and the governor.

PARKER: It makes me angry and it makes me sad and it makes me worried. It feels like we are going backwards.

ROMERO: This week, Governor Ron DeSantis signing a 15-week abortion ban into law.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (D-FL): There we go.

(APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING)

ROMERO: Without exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.

DESANTIS: This will represent the most significant protections for life that have been enacted in this state in a generation.

(APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING)

ROMERO: Two days before DeSantis --

(APPLAUSE)

ROMERO: -- Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that makes performing an abortion a felony, except in the case of a medical emergency.

GOV. KEVIN STITT (R-OK): We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.

ROMERO: And also this week, Kentucky's GOP-led legislature overrode the governor's veto of a bill that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

So far, 18 states have introduced legislation banning or eliminating access to abortions. Fourteen 14 states have passed the restrictive legislation.

Three states so far this year, Kentucky, Florida and Arizona, following a 2018 Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

HOUSE DEL. ADRIENNE JONES (D-MD): Now let's go and sign these bills.

ROMERO: Now some Democratic-controlled legislatures plan to protect the rights of Roe v. Wade with new bills of their own.

Maryland lawmakers expanding access to abortion.

JONES: We are preparing for some of the most restrictive abortion actions that we have seen in a generation.

ROMERO: In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer filing a lawsuit to challenging the state's almost 1200-year-old abortion ban, even though it's no enforceable due to Roe v. Wade.

WHITMER: We have to take this assault on women's rights seriously and use every tool we have to fight back. This is not just a theoretical risk. This is a real and present danger.

[15:45:02]

ROMERO: With many states rewriting their abortion laws, all eyes point to the Supreme Court. The court heard arguments on the Mississippi law back in December.

Legal experts argue a decision could be handed down in June, right before summer break.

With pro-abortion activists continuing their fight to the highest court in the land.

PARKER: Maybe they will come back and stand behind Roe v. Wade. I hope that they do. And I want to believe so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMERO: Now, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed another bill into law this past week. It provides aid for educational and mentorship programs for fathers in Florida.

It also comes with a $70 million price tag of funding for those programs for youth and family support services throughout the state -- Paula?

REID: Nadia, bills like this almost inevitably face legal challenges. So what are you learning in your reporting about the next round of litigation over these new bills?

ROMERO: Paula, we talked about the Supreme Court looking at the Mississippi ban for 15 weeks, right. So that's the big one that most people are eyeing and are preparing for, what could happen in the next few months.

But we also see different states, like Kentucky, they're facing a legal challenge from the ACLU, who says that their ban on abortion, their new restrictive legislation, is unconstitutional. And that's what we continue to see, these legal challenges to all of these bills across the nation -- Paula?

REID: Nadia Romero, thank you so much for your reporting.

And coming up, the war in Ukraine is stoking a food crisis that is being felt around the world.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:51:00]

REID: Russia's war on Ukraine could have a devastating impact on global food security. Developing countries are already dealing with rising food prices and the war threatens to turn the situation from a crisis to a catastrophe.

CNN's David McKenzie has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The early starts and the intense work at the Phillips-Akekela (ph) Bakery in Lagos used to be worth it, used to be profitable.

ABIGAIL OLUFUNMILAYO PHILLIPS, BAKERY OWNER: Entirely this year, precisely around the time of the bombing of Ukraine, it has affected the supply of wheat, which has affected our primary item of our production, which is the white wheat loaf.

Our flour has been very expensive. The prices are changing constantly.

MCKENZIE: Now they can only afford to produce half of what they did. And each tin gets less dough.

This war is horrifying for Ukraine's people. It could be devastating for global food security.

Russia and Ukraine are agricultural export powerhouses. On the field of battle, farmers will struggle to plant crops.

With export ports blockaded by Russian warships, it has pushed the prices even higher.

So the 10 hours Maria Maridoka (ph) spends selling bread won't be enough to feed her two children.

She says customers don't have the cash anymore and they often refuse to pay the going rate.

MCKENZIE: And even on the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya, they are hurting.

Caroline Kimarua had to slash her workforce. The cost of fertilizer for her tea and coffee plantations has doubled in recent months.

CAROLINE KIMARUA, FARMER: You have no money to buy the fertilizer at that high cost.

MCKENZIE: And Russia is one of the world's biggest fertilizer producers. Sanctions and trade disruptions are likely to push prices even higher.

(on camera): Could this be any worse time?

WANDILE SIHLOBO, CHIEF ECONOMIST, AGRICULTURE BUSINESS CHAMBER OF SOUTH AFRICA: The war is starting at one of the worst times. Because we were already thinking we are in a recovery mode.

On top of that, there are already inflation pressures that were across the world.

Africans are spending a lot on fuel and spending a lot on food they need. In this current moment, this is a tough time for the continent.

MCKENZIE: The impact of this conflict is coming on top of already soaring global grain prices.

And if you look at this map over here, of course, countries across the world could feel the pain.

But economists point to specific African countries, like Senegal, which imports more than 50 percent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and Somalia, which imports more than 90 percent.

(voice-over): And in Somalia, already suffering from generational drought, hundreds of thousands of children, like 7-month-old Arden (ph), are hollowed out by hunger and sickness.

If the rains fail again, the war in Europe could push this crisis into a catastrophe, even into famine. Aid agencies depend heavily on grain from Ukraine.

David McKenzie, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: More than a quarter of Ukraine's population has been forced to flee their homes since the Russian invasion began in February. But this week, "CNN Hero," Teresa Gray, who is a paramedic and nurse from Alaska, is doing all she can to help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERESA GRAY, CNN HERO: What we were expecting to see was large groups of people housed in tent cities. And actually they are housing these refugees in individual dorm rooms.

They've got food, shelter, but the trauma is the same.

They've lost almost everything. (SHOUTING)

GRAY: This is filled with women, children and elderly.

There's a flu outbreak currently that obviously affects the children. We also have pre-existing conditions.

It isn't just about fixing a broken arm or giving you medicine. It's making that human connection. Sometimes you need to hold their hand and walk them down the hallway and listen to them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

[15:55:05]

GRAY: We try to meet the needs of whatever presents to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smile, everybody.

GRAY: Human suffering has no borders. People are people and love is love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: To learn more about this story go to CNNheroes.com.

We'll be right back.

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