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Oleksandr Syenkevych is Interviewed about Mykolaiv; Marie Yovanovitch is Interviewed about Russia; Explosions at Kabul Schools. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired April 19, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:30]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: While Russia pours more of its forces into the Donbas region, it is increasing its attacks on cities in Ukraine's south. The mayor of Mykolaiv posted video of the aftermath of a recent missile attack in that city. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries. But for the people of Mykolaiv, the experience was terrifying.

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ANNA PARKHOMENKO, LIVING IN MYKOLAIV, CITY UNDER HEAVY SHELLING BY RUSSIAN FORCES: The shelling has also increased during the past. The shelling was like for an hour or something. And, actually, the number of these missile strikes is actually higher than I believe for the past -- compared to the past three weeks.

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GOLODRYGA: And joining me now is the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Syenkevych.

Mayor Syenkevych, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

In the break you told me that you had taken attacks just overnight. There had been two people injured. This is just becoming a recurring incident for you and your city. How are the people of Mykolaiv doing?

OLEKSANDR SYENKEVYCH, MAYOR OF MYKOLAIV, UKRAINE: First of all, I want to say that we are under shelling almost starting from first day of the war. They have poses (ph) like two, three days in the row, but then they bombard us again.

Last night what -- I would agree that it was hard night. They bombarded us for about six times in the day and night and was bombarded what (ph) at 4:00 a.m. Thank God only two people were injured by this bombardment. People use the rule of two walls and not too many injured or killed people we have until those bombardments.

GOLODRYGA: Does this appear to be targeted shelling on the part of the Russians? Are they targeting military facilities, or is this just indiscriminate attack at civilians? SYENKEVYCH: They just out -- I can call this a genocide. They shoot

all over the city. They shoot all over the districts. And they shoot in apartment -- residential apartment blocks. They -- yesterday they bombarded the kindergarten, And they just shoot in direction of the city.

And in their, let's say, channels, and telegram channels and different news channels, they're writing for Mykolaiv just give up or you will be -- you will have the same as Mariupol has now. So they ruin the city.

GOLODRYGA: I want to ask you about Mariupol, because it is another port city, just to your east, obviously, enduring unimaginable pain and bombardment now for weeks on end. As you see what's happening there, what worries you most about what Russia has in store for port cities like Odessa, your neighbor, and Mykolaiv itself?

SYENKEVYCH: First of all, I think the main problem of Mariupol was that they were near the border of Russia. So, it's not too much time they need to get the troops, their tanks, the aircraft to that place. And we have about 120 kilometers from the -- to the nearest big city as Zaporizhzhia. So, we can get there because it's too far and they will be able to shell our troops. And they are too close for them, to Mariupol, so they can use any type of weapons to attack.

As for Mykolaiv, we far from Russia. And the nearest occupied city is Kherson. And now the battlefield is near our city is about 30 kilometers from -- out of outskirts of the city. And we are see -- we see that they are regrouping, Russian troops, getting more support from Crimea. They collect more weapons, tanks and people and they plan to attack the nearest town.

GOLODRYGA: Mr. Mayor, before I let you go, I wanted to ask you about a refugee from Mykolaiv who I met when I was recently in Moldova. She was 21 years old. A law student. She had gone there with her mother, left her father and boyfriend behind, and told me she feels guilt every day and every night because she wants to come back and help her fellow citizens and residents there in Mykolaiv.

[09:35:00]

What is your message to her? Should people start returning now?

SYENKEVYCH: My message to her and to all the people who are civilians and they are still in the city to leave the city and to stay away from the city because now the city is an aim number one of in the (INAUDIBLE) from -- of Russian troops. They will bombard us. They will shell us and they will try to go on with on ground operation.

We do fortifications in the city, inside the city, so it will be easier for us to fight with them inside the city if we have no people here. So, to all those people, I would say, stay safe. We'll win and you (ph) will come back.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, she was desperate to come back, as are so many Ukrainians. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for joining us and everything you're

doing to keep your city safe.

SYENKEVYCH: Thank you. Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: And just ahead, we'll be joined by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Does she believe Ukrainian forces can hold back Putin's troops without NATO stepping in? We'll discuss that and much more, up next.

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[09:40:49]

GOLODRYGA: Well, minutes from now, President Biden will head to the Situation Room for a video call with U.S. allies on how the west can support Ukraine while holding Russia accountable.

Here's what White House Special Adviser Matt Miller told CNN about what we can expect from Biden on that call.

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MATT MILLER, SPECIAL ADVISER, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: What the president will continue to do in this call with some of our allies and partners today is to continue to rally the world to stand up to Russian's aggression. That means two things. As we've said for some time, number one, increasing the amount of weapons and ammunition and other security assistance that we get into Ukraine, so the Ukrainian military can defend itself. And, number two, continue to impose costs on Russia to limit its ability to finance this war and to limit its ability to project power over the long-term.

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GOLODRYGA: Miller would not say whether we can expect more sanctions against Russia in the coming days.

I want to bring Jim back into the conversation.

Jim, of course we know what Ukrainian President Zelenskyy wants. He wants sanctions, a full embargo, right, on Russian oil and gas.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And that will be the big challenge going forward, particularly for Europe.

To discuss that and other things I'm joined now by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. She has a new book out. It's called "Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir."

Ambassador, thanks so much for taking time this morning.

MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: We are seeing what U.S. officials are calling a new phase of this war. Perhaps an even broader one, a bloodier one, in the east. I wonder, you've known this country, you've known Russia for years, do you believe that Putin is deterrable in any way, with all these sanctions we talk about, or is the only outcome -- the most likely outcome, either a loss or some sort of capitulation by Russia on the battlefield?

YOVANOVITCH: Well, I think what we're seeing now is a different kind of battle coming up as you've been reporting. It's going to be a tank battle on open fields. And I think that Russia and Ukraine, I mean, the outcome of that battle will determine what the future holds. And for Ukraine, this is an existential struggle. This is about their, you know, their country, their family, their freedom. And so they are tremendously motivated to fight. And I think the Russians, you know, never count them out. They have spent the last couple of weeks regrouping, rearming, and moving down to the east to Donbas, as you've been reporting. And we'll see what happens there. But I think that the facts on the ground is what is going to determine the future.

SCIUTTO: You write in your new book often about your own family history. The child of parents who survived, not just Soviet terror, but Nazi terror. And there's so many images here, not just images, but experiences here that echo the middle of the 20th century, crimes against humanity.

As you watch that unfold, are you personally amazed to see that history being repeated in the 21st century?

YOVANOVITCH: Well, you know, maybe it's a failure of imagination, but, yes, I am. I thought that after World War II, and the establishment of the international rules-based order, which the Soviet Union also participated in, because everybody believed that there should never be this much death and destruction. And so, you know, international institutions, the principles of sovereignty and viability of borders, the list goes on. And that system kept us, you know, more secure, more free, more prosperous over the last 70 plus years.

And, so, I guess perhaps naively I hoped that that would continue, not without reforms of the international system, but that that would continue and continue to keep us at least secure. And what we're seeing is Russia not only invading Ukraine, and trying to deny Ukraine its sovereignty, but directly attacking the international system.

[09:45:02]

SCIUTTO: Yes. I wonder, there was a failure of imagination by all of us, by successive administrations about how far Putin would be willing to go. But now we're seeing atrocities every day. We're waiting for what happens to a thousand people hiding in the basement of a steel plant in Mariupol. And if we wonder what Russia's willing to do, we've already seen it in this war when they bombed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering and many hundreds of them died there.

Is the west still failing to stop this from happening again? We say never again, and yet every day we're seeing World War II-like atrocities. YOVANOVITCH: Yes. Yes. I think -- well, I don't like to use the word

failure because I never count out the Ukrainians and I don't count out the west. Where we're seeing unity of purpose, we're seeing, you know, a phone call coming up now with Biden and the allies on what more can be done, both on the security side, and on the sanctions side. So, I think we need to keep on trying to figure out what more can we do to prevail in this fight. This is about the future of Ukraine. But it's also more broadly about the future of the free world.

SCIUTTO: I don't want to downplay the amount of weapons that the U.S. has been sending. And, by the way, that weapons flow is increasing. But you are the last full ambassador to represent the U.S. in this country. The U.S. still does not have a diplomatic presence on the ground here. The U.S. still has not sent a senior official to Ukraine as its allies have. The U.K. prime minister has come. The leaders of several European allies have come, as have diplomats returned.

Is the U.S. failing to lead in that sense?

YOVANOVITCH: Well, I think -- I think the U.S. is actually leading the response of our allies and, of course, our own response as well. And I think that, you know, one of the many miscalculations that Putin made was he didn't think that we could do it, and he didn't think that the west would be united. But we are.

And so the sustenance of the response I think is actually pretty strong. And as we discussed before, it needs to keep on getting stronger because a lot is at stake here.

I think symbolism is also important in politics. And so like my understanding is that the State Department is reviewing sending back, you know, probably a minimal presence to Kyiv, to the embassy there. And, you know, as you indicated, there may be a high level visit coming up.

High level visits on the U.S. side are always -- require a lot of logistical and security support. And that's not just on our side. It's also on the Ukrainian side. And so we need to be mindful that we're not taking people off, you know, their really important job of providing security to Ukrainians and pushing back the Russians.

SCIUTTO: You, of course, played a central role in the investigation, the Ukrainian investigation that led to the first impeachment of former President Trump. Did President Trump's delay of crucial military aid to Ukraine in 2019, did his echoing of Russian positions and his attacks on diplomats, including yourself, did that help lay the ground work for the invasion of Ukraine by Russia?

YOVANOVITCH: Well, I think, you know, we were talking about symbolism, and I think it sent a signal to Putin to other dictators around the world that Trump did not value Ukraine, it was merely a pawn in his -- in his -- from his own point of view, that he could use to get personal favors as he, you know, indicated in the perfect phone call. So, I think that it was a real -- that phone call was a real problem, as well as the way he personally conducted himself towards Ukraine and Russia. And let's not forget that when Russia broadened the war in 2018 to the

naval domain, seizing three ships and over 20 sailors, President Trump wouldn't even release a statement condemning that. And so I think there was a lot that went on during that time that sent a signal to Putin that he could do what he wanted with Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And a lot of short memories in our country about that.

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, author of the new book "Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir," thanks so much for joining us.

YOVANOVITCH: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

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[09:54:10]

GOLODRYGA: Breaking overnight, deadly attacks targeting schools in Afghanistan. Police in Kabul say at least six people were killed and dozens more injured after multiple explosions went off at two schools in the western part of the city. It's not known how many of those killed are children.

CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is following the latest.

Arwa, what more can you tell us?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely devastating. You can just imagine what it's like for those parents who said good-bye to their children thinking they were sending them off to school, in theory a place where they should be safe, and then to be confronted by this.

The neighborhood in Kabul, where this happened, in western Kabul is predominantly Shia Hizara (ph). This is Afghanistan's minority and has long been targeted by a number of different extremist groups.

[09:55:00]

And here's how one eyewitness described the aftermath.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When we went outside, we saw the suicide attack happen there. When we wanted to see what had happened, the area was full of smoke, dust, and blood. People were running away and crying. Their condition was not good.

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DAMON: And so, Bianna, it's been quite difficult to actually get a lot of information from the ground. Visuals of the aftermath of the attack largely because, according to a number of people CNN spoke to on the ground, the Taliban has been preventing journalists from accessing the site. The few images that we have been able to see are absolutely gutting and devastating. And it's not the first time that this particular neighborhood was attacked. May 20, 2021, 85 people were killed. And in that case it was schoolgirls that were the target of that attack a year ago.

GOLODRYGA: Targeting schools. Just terrible.

Arwa Damon, thank you so much.

Well, next, Ukraine's train stations have been a key target of Russian strikes as they bring critical supplies to troops and take civilians out. The head of Ukrainian railways joins us live in just a few moments.

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