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Interview With Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk; Several Airlines Drop Mask Mandates; Biden Holds Call With Allies on Ukraine; Russia's Strategy in Ukraine?. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 19, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

We begin with Putin's war on Ukraine. Now, Ukraine's security services just released audio of Russian forces discussing their plan to level everything around Azovstal. Now, that's this steel factory. You see it here. It's turned into a shelter in Mariupol.

The Russian forces have been targeting this facility. And Ukrainians say that there are lots of families that have been living there trying to find some safety there. Video shows a lot of young children among the survivors. The people there said the conditions have been worsening, with limited food and shelter.

Russia set a second deadline today for those inside to surrender.

CAMEROTA: And in a conversation that was captured in an intercept, according to Ukraine, a Russian platoon leader is heard saying "three- ton surprises from Russia" -- end quote -- were coming from the sky. The leader then says his command -- quote -- "said to level everything to the ground."

Russia's foreign minister declared today a new phase for Russia. He says this offensive to take the Donbass region will be "a very important moment of this entire special operation" -- end quote.

And Ukraine's president acknowledged the battle for the Donbass is under way.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in the capital city of Kyiv.

Ed, we want to warn some of our viewers about the very disturbing and graphic images that are coming out of Kharkiv, after Russian shelling has killed many people there. So, what are you learning about this?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, this latest video coming from an attack here today, where three people were killed, 16 others wounded, the video is very graphic and shows just the devastation that's been leveled on the city. And this is kind of on the northern edge of where Russian forces have

-- redeploying to move into Eastern Ukraine, devastating scenes there, because this is a city that has really taken relentless shelling and attacks for weeks and weeks. It sits just about 25 miles away from the Russian border, and has been a significant area of confrontations for weeks, as I mentioned.

And so the attacks of today really kind of bringing home the brutality of what could be seen here in many eastern Ukrainian cities in the days to come.

BLACKWELL: Ed, we learned from Ukraine's deputy prime minister that there are no agreed-upon humanitarian corridors, that the Russian forces have not set up these places where people can go.

And when you look at what's happening in Mariupol and so many other places, they're trapped.

LAVANDERA: Yes.

If you look at the map, there's -- as the Russian forces are kind of in a crescent shaped sphere along the Ukrainian-Russian border, and inside of those areas where Russian forces are trying to move down and basically encircle the Ukrainian forces on the ground, that area is filled with many villages, small cities where there are tens of thousands of people who have still not been able to evacuate or have chosen not to evacuate at this point.

And the urgent pleas for these people to leave have really intensified today. In one city in particular, Ukrainian officials were saying, don't follow the example of the people who were left trapped in the city who didn't leave for whatever reason, because those people are now hostages of a Russian-occupied force in that city. So that's why they're urging so many people to evacuate as quickly as they can.

But the situation complicated today by the fact that there are no safe passages that have been agreed upon in these humanitarian corridors. So anyone venturing out would have to do so in their own car or by foot or however they might choose to do that. And that becomes a far more dangerous and treacherous journey.

CAMEROTA: And, Ed, also, many Ukrainians are observing the Easter holiday this week. This is when they celebrate it. What does that even look like in the middle of this?

LAVANDERA: Well, there's one church leader in the Sumy region, which is pretty much just straight east of where we are here in Kyiv, but it sits along the Russian border.

This is an area that at one point was occupied by Russian forces, is no longer. And church leaders there are urging people to attend Easter services, which, in the Orthodox calendar, will be taking place this coming weekend, to attend virtually, that they're worried about Russian -- quote -- "provocations."

[14:05:08] And, essentially, what that means is, they're concerned about mass gatherings of Ukrainians in specific areas that could easily serve as a target for Russian forces. And we have seen that kind of attack play out. Remember the attack on the train station in Kramatorsk. That train station was obviously a gateway to a safe haven for tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

So there's a great deal of concern that a mass gathering of civilians, whether it be at a church service or anywhere else, could make them an easy target for Russian officials. So they're sounding the alarm about that and, in various areas of the country, urging people to attend these kinds of church services virtually.

CAMEROTA: Ed Lavandera in Kyiv for us, thank you very much. Stay safe.

BLACKWELL: President Biden held a secure video call with international allies to talk about how to respond to Russia's aggression.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins us live from the White House.

So, 11 of the world leaders on this call. Do we know now what the plan is, if anything's going to change?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Victor and Alisyn, this was an all-of-the-above call between President Biden and those U.S. allies, both European countries, as well as Canada and Japan.

And that is to say that President Biden and those leaders discussing how they can continue to support Ukraine, from a security perspective, economic, humanitarian assistance perspective. They also talked about the -- their respective diplomatic engagements that they have had as it relates to the conflict.

This call went on for nearly an hour-and-a-half. And what's important to note here is that, every time President Biden has convened one of these calls, typically, within a couple of days, you do see additional sanctions announced by the United States, by those allies.

Remember that coordinated, united front is at the center of this pressure campaign that the Biden administration has been leading to try and hurt Russia's economy and make it suffer consequences for its invasion of Ukraine.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, both yesterday and today indicating that additional sanctions could be announced in the coming days. And what those sanctions could include, not only new additional economic sanctions, financial sanctions on Russia, but also potentially sanctions that would be aimed at tightening sanctions that have been announced previously, looking to close some of those gaps, loopholes perhaps, that Russians have been trying to use to get around some of these sanctions.

At the same time, we also know that the State Department is currently considering looking at the possibility of naming Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. That is something that is under review currently at the State Department. I wouldn't expect that to be one of those announcements coming this week.

Officials have told us that that is a process that typically takes a number of weeks, and it's a very specific definition that the U.S. needs to be able to make sure that all of the criteria here are met -- Victor, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Jeremy Diamond for us at the White House, thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, so there were cheers and applause from passengers on Delta and Southwest flights after flight attendants announced that masks were now optional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Delta position is, masks will be optional this evening for all crew and passengers as well.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that it's official on Southwest Airlines for the whole...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yay, no more masks! Whew!

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: It's been two years of mandatory face coverings on planes and public transit.

BLACKWELL: A federal judge struck down the Biden administration's requirement for masks on public transportation.

Adrienne Broaddus is following this story.

So, Adrienne, although that is the decision from that judge there are still some train systems ,some organizations that say you still got to wear a mask here.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. That is the case, Victor.

Some city transit systems, at least five across the country, still will have their mask mandates in place. For example, here in Chicago, if you want to get on a public bus, you have to wear the mask. Same story in New York, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.

Now, here at Chicago O'Hare's international airport, the message is spreading. If you look behind me, you will notice there's a line of folks waiting to drop their luggage. A handful of them are wearing masks. Others are not. We spoke with a gentleman and his wife earlier today who were relieved to hear the news. They were married over the weekend.

And to celebrate their honeymoon, they wanted everyone to know they were just married. So they purchased a mask with that message "Just Married," and now they said it was an unexpected gift to be able to ditch those masks.

But people still have mixed emotions. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELAYNA KAROLEVITZ, PASSENGER: Part of me is excited to see a new normal unfold, but, also, it's still a little bit unnerving coming out of two years of having them. It was kind of like a safety blanket.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm more comfortable without a mask. I feel very safe, especially since airplanes are one of the safest indoor places, that I don't think a mask is necessary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:10:10]

BROADDUS: And there are several airlines no longer requiring you to wear that mask anymore. For example, American, Delta, Spirit, Southwest.

If you would like to continue wearing your mask, you still can. And we heard from travelers who say, even though this judge knocked down that mask mandate ruling, they will still continue to wear their mask -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Adrienne Broaddus, thank you very much.

Let's bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

So, Sanjay, you heard those passengers. They were excited and relieved to throw away their masks. Are you excited about this decision?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, some were nervous as well, Alisyn.

I mean, so, I think it's one of these things where I think we are still in the middle of things. The CDC did not make this recommendation. This came from a legal -- a legal authority, a judge.

So, the reason the CDC wanted to wait a bit longer was because we're still not entirely sure how this subvariant of Omicron is going to behave. It is true that airlines, as a general rule -- we have been talking about this -- airplane rides have not been big sources of outbreak, but we're also dealing with a much more transmissible virus.

So is it going to evade some of the protections that those airplane rides have offered in the past? We don't know. And that's why they wanted to collect the data. I think what I was a little bit surprised by was just how abrupt this was.

So, people may have been on the plane, thinking they were going to be in a masked environment. Maybe they have somebody with them who's a child who's not yet vaccinated. They were taking comfort in those precautions. And then, all of a sudden, those were lifted. People may have flights that they have booked over the next few days, where they're concerned about this sort of thing.

So, we're still -- I mean, to answer your question, Alisyn, we're still in the middle of a pandemic. I mean, I hate to be the one to point that out. But if you look at the numbers overall, there's still a lot of cases out there. And these are probably undercounted, because a lot of people are doing home testing. There's a lot of people in the hospital.

And, still, there's 500 people, on average, who are dying every day, roughly. So, it's, I think, a bit jarring from a public health perspective.

BLACKWELL: Sanjay, that's an interesting point you make, because I was considering, when this announcement came, you're on a plane. If you wanted to take the mask off, you were excited.

But if you were finding some comfort in everyone having a mask on, it was jarring. I wonder, is there any protection? Are the masks as effective if, let's say, only a few people on the plane are wearing them?

GUPTA: Well, I think -- to sort of describe this, I think, in the beginning, we talked about the fact that the masks -- and we were talking mostly about cloth masks -- were done -- you wear them to protect people around you.

As you have gotten higher and higher filtration masks, like N95 or KN95 masks, these masks are going to provide a lot more protection for the user as well.

But, Victor, I mean, if there's everyone wearing them on a plane, obviously, you're going to have less virus that's circulating on that plane at any given time. Airplanes have done a great job of increasing ventilation, exchanging air, so you're not as likely to be exposed. But we're dealing with a lot of virus and a very transmissible variant, at that.

So, you -- if you're worried, you should still wear a mask and wear a high filtration mask. But the answer to your question is, yes, if more people wore them, that would offer even greater protection.

CAMEROTA: And, Sanjay, just anecdotally, I can't tell you how many people in the past week or two have called me and said that they or their spouse have just tested positive for COVID. And some of them have mild symptoms.

I just want to pull up the maps for a second. Here's the case map. There was a time when this was all green. I mean, there was a recent time when we celebrated it on our program... BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... when the entire map was green.

Today, you see a lot -- well, here's the -- this is the hospitalizations graph, which has come way down from its high in January, which obviously is a relief and a great data point.

Here's the map. And so cases are up in a lot of states. And that's as represented by the orange and the red. So, cases up, hospitalizations down, well, I mean, what do you make of that? Is that -- obviously, that's great, that hospitalizations are down, but is -- are you heaving a sigh of relief?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, I think, as a general rule, we can say that this is a far less pathogenic or -- a virus that makes people less sick as the variants in the past, because even as you see those case numbers on that map, according to some models, I mean, we're probably getting 7 to 10 percent of positive cases, because so much of the testing is going on at home.

So the bad news is, that means there's a lot more cases out there. The good news is that, as a denominator, it means it's making people far less sick, this variant. The concern, I think, is, in some ways, the same concern that we talked about at the very beginning of this pandemic.

We know who people are that are the most vulnerable. We know there are populations like young children who still cannot be vaccinated. They're still at risk. And that's a lot of people when you start to add them up.

[14:15:10]

My own parents are -- they're going to be flying on a plane in the next couple of weeks. I have told them they should still wear a mask. They are vaccinated. They're boosted, but they're vulnerable because of their age and preexisting conditions. I have told them they should still wear a mask.

BLACKWELL: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Sanjay.

The U.S. is working at unprecedented speed to get weapons to Ukraine. But will the help arrive soon enough?

BLACKWELL: And nearly seven years after it was removed, a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is reinstalled in a Russian- occupied town in Eastern Ukraine.

We will get reaction from Ukraine's former prime minister.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:21:45] CAMEROTA: A statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is once again looming over a Ukrainian town.

Russian forces reinstalled the statue in Henichesk. This is just north of Crimea. In 2015, this same port town removed its Lenin statue as part of a -- quote -- "decommunization effort."

The new Lenin was placed in front of a regional council building that now has a Russian flag waving from its roof. A Ukrainian official says Russian forces are -- quote -- "going backwards in time."

Joining us now is the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Mr. Yatsenyuk, always great to see you.

ARSENIY YATSENYUK, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: What does it mean that this statue of Lenin has been resurrected in the Kherson region?

YATSENYUK: This is the part of Putin's and Russian ideology.

Could you imagine -- I don't know whether American and global viewers know that, at the Red Square in the center of Moscow, they still have the mausoleum, mausoleum with the dead corpse of Lenin.

So could you imagine ,in the capital of the country, they still have dead bodies? And, actually, this kind of monument that they reinstalled, this is the Russian ideology, the Russian ideology of Bolsheviks, of Soviets, the Russian inhumane ideology.

And so this is the sign that Russia wants actually to conquer Ukraine. And, as far as I see, the playbook that Putin decided to invoke is similar to so-called Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. So they are to reinstall monuments. They are to push into circulation Russian rubles.

They will grant Russian citizenship. And if it is possible for him, he is ready to take over these regions and to make them a part of Russian Federation, similar that happened to Crimea.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that, about what's happening in Donetsk and Luhansk, because we have a graphic that I can pull up of where the bombings and shelling and fighting are happening here today.

Russia says it has now moved into this new phase of fighting. What happens next here for Ukraine?

YATSENYUK: Well, as we already discussed, he failed to -- actually, to accomplish his initial idea, is to take over the capital of Ukraine and to grab at least two-thirds of Ukrainian territory. Now he switched to plan B or another stage of this unprovoked and just

inhumane war that Putin launched against Ukraine. So, his idea is to take over the east of Ukraine and entire regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. And his idea is actually to grab the control over the eastern part and southern part of Ukraine, in order to have the so-called land bridge to Crimea, and then to make these territories as a part of Ukraine.

So this is his idea. But what is at stake for the world and for us? We are fighting. And Ukrainian victory is feasible. It is real, because it's not just only about Ukraine. This is about the free world. This is about everyone, everyone normal in this world.

[14:25:03]

So -- and the decision of President Biden and today's videoconference with the 11 heads of states and heads of government who support Ukraine is another sign that the world is supporting Ukraine. But what is needed -- you are well aware of this narrative, what is needed.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Yes.

YATSENYUK: Defensive, offensive weapons, sanctions, tough pressure on Russia, secondary sanctions and isolation of so-called elites to Putin.

CAMEROTA: And you have been very clear all along, as has President Zelenskyy, and every Ukrainian we have spoken to.

You need more weapons. You need more sanctions. But it's hard to get it to that region. Even the U.S. says they're cranking up -- never before have they moved this many weapons ever. But it's hard to get it to that east -- the eastern portion of the country.

And so what if those two regions that are being fiercely fought over right now, what if those are lost?

YATSENYUK: Well, I don't want even to deliberate over this.

The first and utmost, the decision of the free world to ship the weapon on the first track, on a very speedy basis is not just helpful. This is this the vital issue for us. What is needed more? Definitely, we need an anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems.

And I want to raise this issue with the Patriots. It's up to the military command to decide what to supply to Ukraine. But, as far as I understand, the U.S. managed to supply the heavy weaponry to Ukraine and actually the defensive and offensive weapon.

Ukrainian military is ready to ship this weaponry to the spots and locations which are most needed in this kind of weapon.

CAMEROTA: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, thank you very much. We appreciate talking to you. Stay safe.

YATSENYUK: Thank you. Take care. BLACKWELL: A far right lawyer who wanted to block former President Trump's electoral loss is still withholding thousands of documents from the January 6 Committee.

How that impacts the investigation -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)