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Tracking Military Aid Into Ukraine; Putin Honors Military Brigade Accused of War Crimes. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 19, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

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Have a good afternoon. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello, and thank you for being with us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

Russia and Ukraine seem to agree that they have entered a new phase of this war that could determine the fate of Ukraine. New video shows a column of Russian military vehicles advancing in Eastern Ukraine. Just a few dozen miles away is the first town that has fallen in this new eastern assault, Kreminna.

Now, a regional official says Ukraine's troops have fully withdrawn from that now-Russian occupied city and is urging any remaining civilians to evacuate. In Mariupol, a Russian bombardment focusing on this steel factory, one of the last Ukrainian strongholds there, and Russia's goal, according to an alleged Russian communications intercept released by the Ukrainians, is to level everything to the ground.

Chilling, because it's believed that about 1,000 civilians have been sheltering there, women and children, hunkered down in the plant's basement. This video purportedly shows a glimpse inside, where they have been enduring Russian attacks and deteriorating conditions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: "I'm with my three children. And conditions are not the best here," this parent says. "There's no way to study, not much food, and my kids' teeth are starting to spoil," she says.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And we have this new video of the desperate resistance in that port city. This is an ambush on a Russian convoy. And CNN has verified the authenticity of this footage, but it's

unclear when this happened. Ukrainian forces can be seen creeping towards a group of Russian vehicles. And then after one of the edits, you can see there some of those vehicles are seen on fire.

We have team coverage from Ukraine. CNN's Matt Rivers is in Lviv. And Ed Lavandera is in the capital of Kyiv.

Ed, what do we know about this disturbing new audio, allegedly Russian communications about the Mariupol attack?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is an audio recording released by the security service of Ukraine.

And it allegedly captures the voice of a Russian platoon leader about 2.5 miles away as he describes what appears to be the impending bombing of that steel factory.

And so, in that recording, the platoon leader goes on to say that they're expecting the bombing to happen, that this is the steel factory where Ukrainian military forces are essentially bunkered and hunkered down, along with -- could be hundreds of civilians, including women and children inside of that facility, and that that recording kind of alludes to the fact that this bombing is about to happen on that steel factory.

Now, we cannot identify -- vouch for the authenticity of this recording, but the security service here in Ukraine over the last few weeks and during the course of this war, they have released a number of audio recordings of Russian military officials who appear to have been open, using oftentimes unsecured communication lines here in this country, a significant moment, because that also, in that recording, that same Russian platoon leader goes on to describe how another city nearby had been -- is being bombed off the face of the earth for three days in a row now.

So, some very chilling audio having to do with the city that has just been under some of the most horrific attacking and horrific conditions that we have seen during the course of this war -- Ana.

CABRERA: Right.

So you have the audio that reportedly says they're going to level everything to the ground in Mariupol. And then, as Ed mentioned, Matt, there's another city that was talked about. They have been facing constant bombardment, saying that it's being wiped off the face of the earth for three days in a row.

What more can you tell us about what's happening right now on the ground in the Donbass region?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, that audio recording alludes to the city of Lysychansk, which is one of multiple cities in the east that had been facing relentless Russian shelling, in many cases for weeks now, with Russian artillery pounding these different cities ahead of this new offensive that we know has launched.

It's not just Lysychansk, however. It's Severodonetsk. It is the city of Kreminna, which you mentioned now has fallen to Russian forces. These are cities that will likely become household names as we cover this war over the coming days and weeks, because this is going to be a protracted battle.

[13:05:12]

That is something that we're hearing from Ukrainian officials, who are saying this is going to be a very different fight than what we saw in the northern part of the country during the first phase of this war. It's different terrain. In the north, there's a lot of forests in that part of Ukraine, more urban environments in the east, far more spread out, the kinds of areas you're going to see heavy artillery playing a huge role.

You might see tank-to-tank battles, the kinds of which we haven't seen in Europe. Since World War II. It's going to be an entirely different conflict and one that I think will be measured in weeks. This could be much bloodier than what we have seen before, which is hard to imagine.

And some of these cities, including the one mentioned in that alleged audio recording, these are the new front lines in the war in Ukraine.

CABRERA: Matt Rivers and Ed Lavandera, thank you both so much for your reporting.

Meanwhile, in Russia, President Vladimir Putin is celebrating the military brigade accused of committing war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. He's not only commending the unit's -- quote -- "heroism," but calling those Russian fighters role models.

You will recall CNN cameras documented scores of bodies, some of them with their hands bound behind their backs, lining the roads of Bucha, as well as these mass graves filled with hundreds of civilians. The city's mayor was discovered half-buried in a ditch alongside members of her family.

We're joined now by CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson. He has reported extensively for Moscow.

And, Nic, you spent some time there in Ukraine as well, and you have been in Russia. You're in Belgium now. Putin is clearly sending a message with his very public praise of his fighters in Bucha, no?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's a message that's for the international community that he's not going to listen to any talk about war crimes, that his troops are not responsible for it.

It's an internal message for Russians as well, because he's had a huge attrition rate in his troops, and, in particular, those ones in and around Bucha, those troops who tried to go and capture the capital, Kyiv. So he's trying to morale-boost his nation. He -- we heard him last

week talking about that this was a noble fight in Ukraine. So, by calling these troops heroic, he's essentially saying those who lost their lives, this was -- this was a sacrifice, a worthwhile sacrifice, and indicating that any other troops that should join, they're getting into a noble cause, and that they won't face accusations or being taken to an international war crimes court either.

So it's a double message. But this is Putin undoubtedly thumbing his nose at the international community, because the scrutiny is on him, the conduct of his forces, and the allegations and results of war crimes there in Bucha and so many other places.

CABRERA: It's a double message or meant for multiple recipients. But it's also a mixed message, because, on one hand, you have Putin awarding these soldiers for their actions in Bucha. On another, you have Russia calling the atrocities there fake and staged.

So how does Russia square this?

ROBERTSON: Russia doesn't.

It continues to fabricate and broadcast to its own internal audience the fiction that it wants them to believe. It called at one point the deaths in Bucha as a -- not just a fabrication, but they called it a provocation of the authorities in Kyiv, which is unfathomable for you, for me, for our audience, for most audiences who recognize what's going on.

But the Russian leadership continues to try to fabricate for his audience to keep support for this war that's killing a lot of soldiers that, over time, will become harder and harder to sustain, as they take more and more casualties.

But, for now, it doesn't seem to matter to the Russian leadership what they say, as long as they try to get their gains on the ground.

CABRERA: I want to ask you about the thinking of the Russian warship, Moskva.

A Russian father whose son was on that ship and is reported missing, not dead, has taken to social media in an attempt to get answers.

And he writes this: "The official report of the Ministry of Defense states that a fire broke out on the ship and the ammunition detonated. It was reported that the entire crew had been evacuated. It's a lie, a blatant and cynical lie."

And he goes on: "After my attempts to clarify the data on the incident, the cruiser commander and his deputy stopped communicating. I asked directly why you, the officers, are alive and my son, a conscript soldier, died."

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Nic, I have had some analysts tell me that, if there is a sea change in Russia about this war, it will be because of the parents of Russian soldiers. Do you agree?

ROBERTSON: And -- very much so, and because of the conscripts as well.

And this father, his son was a conscript. And what we see are occasional high-profile burials of generals and leading captains, officers within the Russian army. Their bodies are brought home to Russia. They're given -- they're given burials. There's lines written in newspapers about them.

But there's not much being written about and very few burials for the conscripts, because the soldiers who have been in the front line, the ones who have borne most of the brunt are the ones who are being killed. And as we saw in the war in Chechnya, as we saw in the war -- Russia's war in Afghanistan as well, it's the parents of these young soldiers who are captured or killed that eventually turn on the leadership.

It's much harder to turn on the leadership now in Russia than it was during the Chechnya wars, but it is hard for Russia to continue to hide the truth from so many people. And more people like this father are going to speak out, because they can no longer communicate with their children, because they're very probably dead.

And the Russian government doesn't want to admit it. And this is in the long term going to count against Putin. But he thinks he can face it down because of the sort of brutality, the propaganda, and the way that he's playing up the patriot -- patriotic part of fighting the war. Don't question the deaths and casualties right now.

CABRERA: Throughout this conflict, we have been trying to understand the mind-set or potential mind-set of President Putin in Russia.

And Austria's chancellor recently had a face-to-face meeting with Putin. And he says Putin believes he is winning this war and that he has his own war logic that's really not based in reality. What did you think when you heard that?

ROBERTSON: This seems to fit in with a Putin that's becoming more and more apparent over the past few months.

This is a Putin who believes that the international community isn't going to come and fight him in Ukraine, that he -- the worst that his soldiers can face are weapon systems and intelligence that's being supplied to the Ukrainians, that this is not an international community that's going to come in and force Russian troops out, the more territory he believes that he can take now, that he is going to be able to hold on to it in the future.

His aim is to diminish the economic stability, the political stability of Ukraine, to try and reduce its capacity to have a negative impact on Russia, to try to reduce its value, as he sees it, to NATO. The key thing here is that Putin has calculated that the international community will not come and face off with him in Ukraine, and, therefore, he has a free hand, as much as he can, to take territory in the time before the international community can fully supply Ukraine with the weapons that it needs.

So it really is, in this very, very key time, when the Russians have gone on renewed offensive in Donbass, it is very important how much the Ukrainians can hold the line, because, if they can't, that will give Putin fresh impetus. What he said to the Austrian chancellor last week, he even switched to German to say this. This is what the Austrian chancellor said.

Putin said, it's better for the war to end soon. He thinks that he can gain territory and hold it because no one will take it off of him.

CABRERA: Nic Robertson, thank you.

President Biden just hosted a high-level call with key allies. And it came after CNN learned the State Department is considering labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

Let's bring in CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood.

And, Kylie, how far along are these discussions about whether to move and actually label them a sponsor of terrorism? When might we see a decision on this?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, likely a determination on this front is weeks away. That's according to a senior administration official.

The State Department is leading this process. What they're doing is looking at what Russia has done in Ukraine, and looking at how that stacks up to the definition of a state sponsor of terrorism. That is a country that has repeatedly backed efforts, backed acts of international terrorism.

So that's the process. It is a nitty-gritty process, but the State Department is looking into it. And we should note that President Zelenskyy requested that President Biden add Russia to the list of state sponsors of terrorism in one of their recent phone calls.

So, obviously, there is a push from the Ukrainian side to do this. But there are not very many countries on this list right now, Ana. It's only four other countries that are on the list, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. So, putting Russia on this list would be a hugely symbolic move.

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CABRERA: Is it more than symbolic, though? What would the practical effects be?

ATWOOD: Yes, that's a good question.

I mean, it is largely symbolic. But there are some practical effects that would come into play here and further hurt Russia's economy. So there are some things that Russia would no longer be able to import from the United States that are items that could be used for commercial reasons or could be used for military reasons. And then there would also be secondary sanctions on countries that are

still engaged in certain trade with Russia. And that is where the conversation does come into play with allies here, because there are implications not just for what the United States' economic relationship with Russia would look like, but also for what those other countries' relationship would look like -- Ana.

CABRERA: Interesting, especially when you know China is doing a considerable amount of trading right now with Russia and providing some support that way to Russia's efforts.

Thank you so much, Kylie Atwood. I appreciate it.

Could heavy American-made weapons fall into the wrong hands in Ukraine? We are learning this is a growing concern among U.S. officials as they struggle to track massive shipments of drones, anti- tank missiles, and much more -- details just ahead.

Plus: The mask mandate for mass transit here in the U.S. is gone, for now. But what happens if there's another surge?

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay right there.

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CABRERA: As you know, the U.S. is sending high-powered military hardware to Ukraine. But what happens after it gets there? That is the concern, sources tell us.

So far, the U.S. has sent more than $2.5 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine, including a new shipment that landed in the region just this week, with helicopters, howitzer cannons and military drones, among other things.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is following the developments for us.

Katie Bo, is the worry that these weapons could potentially fall into the Russians' hands at some point?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Not exactly, Ana.

According to our sources, the risk is a little bit more long-term than that. U.S. officials acknowledge that there is a possibility that, at the close of this conflict, some of this free flow of arms could wind up on the black market and could end up in the hands of militaries and militias that the United States didn't intend to arm, similar to what has happened in past conflicts where the United States is armed one side or the other.

But the reason for this, Ana, as you mentioned, is that the United States doesn't have a terribly reliable way to track what happens to these arms after they cross the border into Ukraine, what units they go to, how they're used. I want to read to you how one source briefed on the intelligence described this to us. This person said: "We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero. It drops into a big black hole. And you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time."

Now, there's a couple of reasons for why this is. One of them is that some of the arms or many of the arms that the United States is sending are smaller man-portable systems, things like shoulder-fired rockets and single-use drones that are easy to transport and certainly far easier to transport and more difficult to track than things like large air defense systems, like, for example, the S-300 that Slovakia sent.

The other and perhaps most critical reason that these arms are difficult to track, Ana, is that the United States military is not in Ukraine. It's not embedded with the Ukrainian military, and therefore making it that much more difficult for the U.S. to keep a strict inventory of where these munitions are going and how they're being used.

But at the end of the day, this is a calculated risk that the Biden administration has been willing to make. As one defense official told us, they view the risk of not adequately arming Ukraine as a much greater risk than the potential that, in the long run, some of these arms might end up on the black market -- Ana.

CABRERA: Katie Bo Lillis, thank you for your reporting.

Let's bring in Colonel Andrew Milburn. He is a retired special operations commander in the U.S. Marine Corps who has now set up a military training center for Ukrainian troops. And he's joining us in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Colonel, thanks for taking the time. Thank you for your efforts.

How can the U.S. guarantee that the security assistance being sent to Ukraine doesn't end up in the wrong hands?

COL. ANDREW MILBURN (RET.), U.S. MARINE CORPS: Ana, that's a great question.

By the way, great pleasure to be here. Good evening to all of your listeners.

And I'm going to answer your question. I'm going to just to say how wonderfully circumspect and balanced the previous reporter was when she said that the means of ensuring that this stuff, logistics, supplies get in front lines -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- is not terribly reliable.

My guys here, who are all former special operators from across all services, and we have -- got Brits here and various nationalities -- they have a term for U.S. logistics supply within the country itself. And I will just say the second word is show, and -- but it's not a particularly complimentary term. And there's good reason for that, OK? You guys have hit on this. I would say that the very last concern that the United States government should have right now is that these arms end up in the wrong hands, all right? I mean, they are ending up in the wrong hands, but through no malign intent.

They are piling up in Lviv, all right, which is the western part of the country? People will get the mistaken impression that Lviv is near the front line because a few missiles hit the city the other day. But, by and large, Lviv is remarkably secure for any part of Ukraine.

[13:25:08]

And yet, when you go to Lviv, it's packed full of NGOs. There's hospitals. There are warehouses bulging with U.S. supplies.

CABRERA: Right.

MILBURN: There are -- there are well-kitted-out troops, because that's as far as it goes.

The bottom line is this. You lose control of logistics supply system unless you have your own guys manning the nodes. Again, not through any ill intent, but there's no one who's motivated or to get the stuff out of those warehouses to front-line units.

CABRERA: Sure.

MILBURN: Local commanders -- local commanders, quite understandably, want to take care of their guys.

I would love -- in the backroom here, I have got a commander who just came off the front line. He's going back there tomorrow. Actually, we're going with him to the -- down to the southeast, so just about a six-hour drive. He is short of everything.

CABRERA: Wow.

MILBURN: He's a special operations commander.

He had six guys, six guys die two days ago at casualty collection points. They bled out through lack of tourniquets, lack of individual first aid kits, no trauma kits, lack of training, lack of equipment.

CABRERA: Well, Colonel...

MILBURN: And so it's a big joke to read in the papers -- sorry. Go ahead.

CABRERA: No, forgive me.

I have so many questions for you. And I want to make sure that we get a chance to discuss a number of things.

MILBURN: Yes. CABRERA: But I -- to kind of just wrap up a little bit about this whole supply chain issue when it comes to the weapons, I know we have been reporting -- and correct me if the reality on the ground is different -- that there are challenges in getting equipment and aid of any sort, humanitarian aid, military aid, to the places that need it most because of Russian bombardments of those supplies moving in different parts of Ukraine, hence why perhaps they're stuck in Lviv, which is a little bit safer and more secure for everybody who's in that country right now.

I do want to ask, because of your experience as a former special ops commander for the U.S. and your role now in helping to train Ukrainian forces, what is the number one piece of equipment you need or they need right now?

MILBURN: Number one, drones, OK?

So, unfortunately, very much a lot of publicity has been given in the news to the Turkish TB2 drone, which has performed magnificently here. But there's only a handful of those things. And they're kept at the drone command within the armed forces of Ukraine.

Not a single unit, not a single unit that we have spoken to, actually with the exception of one -- I will talk about that -- has anything other than the DJI drone, which is Chinese-manufactured, totally susceptible to geolocation of its user, totally vulnerable to Russian jamming interference, and, frankly, a piece of crap.

Have not seen -- we have just seen a handful, the first group of U.S.- made drones make it to the front line. And they were hand-carried. And they're hand-carried by my guys who train units on the front line.

That's -- by the way -- sorry. I should take a step back. I am -- I suppose you would call it a CEO of a nonprofit organization called the Mozart Group. And what we do here, we're not an NGO. We can't be an NGO because we train people. And training people includes train them to use weapons and kill people.

But we do a lot. A lot of what we do is what you might call humanitarian. And drones are not -- the drones we're delivering are not lethal weapons. They are used to -- for what we call ISR, reconnaissance in front of the lines.

As Ukrainians, as they transition into the offense, we hope, then they're going to increasingly need what we call type two drones with longer range. They do not have them at all right now, except for these Chinese just -- these pieces of trash. So, that's number one, OK?

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: So, is part of the issue that -- go ahead.

MILBURN: Yes.

So, number two, medical -- medical gear, all right? There's -- and medical gear is -- it's one of the favorites for nongovernment organizations. They're pouring it into the country. It does not get beyond Lviv. The guys on the front line -- I'm not just simply spouting.

We have visited units that are short of medical equipment. I'm talking simple first aid kits. I'm talking trauma kits. As I mentioned, this case of a commander in the kitchen behind me losing guys in these casualty collection points is not unusual. It happens all the time, everything from the point of injury to getting guys into hospital.

Sadly, the casualty rates among Ukrainians are not publicized, but are much higher than they should be.

CABRERA: I'm sure.

MILBURN: And for those of us involved in this war and reading all this ridiculous attention to what the U.S. is doing, it's heartbreaking to hear the real stories.

CABRERA: Well, Colonel Andrew Milburn, thank you for sharing with us, shedding some light on what's happening and the efforts there to keep this fight going.

I really appreciate your time.

MILBURN: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Excitement, confusion, concern.