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Ukrainian Fighters Inside Steel Plant Remain Defiant; About 7.7 Million People Displaced Within Ukraine; Violent Clashes in Jerusalem; Le Pen Accused of Being in Russia's Back Pocket; Volunteer Braves Russian Artillery To Evacuate Ukrainians; UK's Boris Johnson In India To Discuss Security, Trade; Anger Mounts In Locked-Down Shanghai With No End In Sight. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired April 22, 2022 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is "CNN Breaking News."

ISA SOARES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers in the United States and right around the world. I'm Isa Soares in Lviv, Ukraine.

And coming up, grim details are emerging about the horrors in Mariupol. Ukrainian officials say they have identified mass graves as thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians are trapped at a steel plant.

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kim Brunhuber in Atlanta. New clashes in Jerusalem. We are learning of injuries as Palestinians throw stones at police at the al-Aqsa mosque.

SOARES (on camera): We begin this hour with breaking news out of Ukraine. A sprawling steel factory in Mariupol is all that remains really of Ukrainian forces defending the strategic port city.

The Azovstal complex is surrounded by Russian troops and is being constantly shelled. The rather than storm the facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a blockade, even a fly can't get through, his words, while hundreds of men, women and children, and an unknown number of Ukrainian fighters are believed to be inside without much food or water.

Not very far away, the grim discovery of this. More suspected mass graves. Mariupol officials estimate 20,000 city residents have died so far. Many of those bodies are now believed to have been dumped in these very long trenches you can see right at the top of your screen.

And despite President Putin's boast of so-called liberating Mariupol, Ukraine denies the city has fallen. Ukraine's president says it will not accept any Russian annexation of its territory. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I want to say straight away: Any Kherson People's Republics are not going to fly. If someone wants a new annexation, it can only lead to new powerful sanctions strikes on Russia. You will make your country as poor as Russia hasn't been since the 1917 civil war. So, it is better to seek peace now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES (on camera): Well, despite the dire situations at the steel factory that we have been reporting now on for days, the Ukrainian fighters there remained defiant. Surrender does not appear to be in their vocabulary.

Our Matt Rivers has the story for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNKNOWN: We destroyed one tank today, two armored-fighting vehicles, and one armored-personal carrier. And the numbers of enemy losses are still increasing.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Ilya Samoylenko, an officer in the Azov battalion currently fighting for his life and others inside the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. The plant has taken constant bombardment for days on end, though he strikes a defiant tone.

ILYA SAMOYLENKO, AZOV REGIMENT STAFF OFFICER: Right now, Ukraine is not just fighting for ourselves, we are fighting for the freedom.

RIVERS (voice-over): And yet the reality in Mariupol is that Russia controls the vast majority of the city, apart from the last remaining pocket of Ukrainian resistance, enough that Vladimir Putin felt compelled to declare victory in a city he first tried and failed to capture nearly 10 years ago.

Completing the military task of liberating Mariupol is a great achievement, he says. I congratulate you.

But Ukraine and its allies have rejected the notion that Mariupol has fallen. How can that be, the argument goes, when the Russians have yet to force out the remaining Ukrainian fighters. Putin seemingly aware of this, acknowledge that fighters remain in the steel plant and essentially said, no problem, just wait them out.

He says, there is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities. Block off this industrial area, so a fly cannot get through.

For those inside the plant, this new blockade strategy, a sign of weakness of the Russian military, a force that has tried and failed for weeks to force out remaining resistance.

SAMOYLENKO: Russia right now is cowardly, hesitating with the assault, final assault, how do you call this, of Azovstal Steel Works because they know that they will fail, and they will fail.

RIVERS (voice-over): No matter whether the Russians cannot or will not fight their way into the steel complex, the end result is the same. Ukrainian fighters inside are not only responsible for themselves, but for the hundreds of civilians they say are sheltering there, some scene here in unverified video from Ukraine's government.

SAMOYLENKO: The most heartbreaking thing in this is that we have limited supplies here and we are trying to share everything with civilians.

[02:04:58]

SAMOYLENKO: But Russia claims that we use them as a human shield. It is (bleep.) It is completely (bleep) because, you know, real military does not do this.

RIVERS (voice-over): And even outside the steel plant, in areas firmly under Russian control, tens of thousands of civilians that need to be evacuated cannot. Only a fraction managed to leave in the last few days. Some seen here arriving in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. Not thousands, not hundreds, but mere dozens after Ukraine says Russian forces violated ceasefire agreement.

ZELENSKYY (through translator): It is more like not a war but a terrorist operation by Russia against Mariupol and the people of the city.

RIVERS (voice-over): Matt Rivers, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES (on camera): Well, early on Thursday, a convoy of vehicles arrived in the city of Zaporizhzhia, really carrying people from the embattled city of Mariupol and surrounding towns really under Russian control. They look relieved, as you can see there, to be out of the war zone, but, as you can imagine, anxious about what comes next.

Russian and Ukrainian authorities as well as eight groups have been trying to negotiate for weeks to get more people out of harm's way. The mayor says many more are desperate to leave, but can't.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VADYM BOYCHENKO, MARIUPOL MAYOR (through translator): There are still 100,000 people in the city who, for the second day in a row, are waiting for evacuation. And they give us such a tiny number of buses like yesterday. They said there would be 90 buses, but only seven of them arrived.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES (on camera): Well, those evacuees are among the nearly eight million internally displaced. Try to get your head around that number, eight million displaced internally. Another five million people have already left Ukraine to different countries, as you can see there on your map.

My next guest is working to keep her head really on the changing humanitarian needs in Eastern Ukraine. Karolina Lindholm Billing is U.N. refugee agency's Ukraine representative, and she joins me now.

Karolina, thanks for taking time to speak to us here today. Give us a sense of the magnitude, the scale, as we look at these numbers, five million, the magnitude of what is unfolding in humanitarian crisis on the ground here.

KAROLINA LINDHOLM BILLING, UNHCR REPRESENTATIVE IN UKRAINE: Well, before this war started, there were about a million internally displaced people living in Ukraine. And now, 7.7 million and five million as refugees as well. It's more than a quarter of the population. And this is a quarter of the population who have left their homes, their belongings, their jobs, their communities behind, and who are now in need of help in order to reestablish themselves and start from fresh somewhere.

SOARES: And it's almost hard to say this. I mean, I would expect that this would only get worse as we see that new offensive by Russia, Kramatorsk, Kharkiv and so on, obviously the situation on the ground that we've reported on in Mariupol.

BILLING: Yeah. So, in these very hard-hit areas like Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, Kramatorsk, Kharkiv and so on, there, the situation is just extremely dire. I mean, we've been trying to reposition some aid. (INAUDIBLE) and other partners are still present in those areas. But places like Mariupol have just been impossible to reach.

So, now the priority is to help those fleeing those areas to be received, have somewhere to stay, receive some initials assistance before they figure out where to go next.

SOARES: Give us a sense of what your teams on the ground in these different places, what they have been hearing, and the challenges really that they're facing, because this is moving so quickly.

BILLING: So, one of the things they're seeing clearly is that a lot of the people are very vulnerable. It's persons with disabilities, older persons, women, children as we've heard. Also, in Eastern Ukraine, the majority of those or many of those left there were older persons who have chosen to stay behind despite --

SOARES: Yeah.

BILLING: -- continued hostilities over the years. So, now, they are in real need of it. So, people are asking for somewhere to sleep the first few nights, but then also, in the longer term, where they're going to live.

Initial assistance, so there we provide cash assistance to displaced people that they use to pay some rent, food, basic needs. It's also about some non-relief -- nonfood items like blankets and hygiene items and so on as people are just coming with a bag and moving. But then the trauma is also something we hear a lot.

SOARES: And now we talk to you about trauma. To just pick up on something you said, I mean, something that struck me and struck my producer as we've been looking at this crisis since the beginning of the war in February, it seems that a lot of the people that we've seen, from our teams on the ground -- Ben Wedeman, one of our correspondents, today is reporting this piece on this elderly lady, so many elder who have been left behind, you know, in the shelters, basements, I think it's fair to say, with no running water, no electricity.

[02:10:04]

SOARES: One old lady, she had dirt under her nails, and she couldn't comprehend or fathom what has happened to her life. I mean, how hard is it hearing these stories and how can you help these people to try to leave?

BILLING: So, it's incredibly hard because these are people who have been living in the eastern part close to this contact line for the past seven or eight years where there was continuous shelling and ceasefire violations. And they chose to stay there and they got used to it. They become resilient almost against the hostilities.

I was in Eastern Ukraine just two weeks before the war started and asked many, are you planning to leave, kind of as preemptive measure, and they said, no, no, we will stay, this is our home, we have lived our life here. And now, they hadn't expected the ferocity with which the military offensive would roll in. And now, they're trying to leave behind a place that they had chosen to stay despite the challenges.

So, what we're trying to do is when they managed to get out, ensure that they have receptions, working closely with local authorities in places like Poltava, Dnipro where people are arriving to, to see if there is reception capacity so people can stay. And then initial assistance.

SOARES: And you and I were talking just before we came on air, and I saw that you were very moved by some of these stories that you've been hearing. I mean, your team might be facing -- you're talking trauma of those on the ground, but also the team that you work with.

BILLING: Yeah. You know, we spoke about Mariupol. Our colleagues, they chose to stay behind until the situation got unbearable. And they were also drinking rainwater and trying to find some food to eat in the basements where they were sheltering before they could get out.

So, I think this -- yeah, it is still affecting them and it's going to affect people for a long time. And the expectation that it would be this bad, this fast, and have such a complete impact on people was not -- I think it has taken everyone by shock.

SOARES: Very briefly, do you think it's going to get worse?

BILLING: I think the way things are looking, it's going to get worse in the coming weeks.

SOARES: Karolina Lindholm Billing, thank you very much. And thanks for your team for all their work. I appreciate it.

BRUNHUBER: We are following a developing story out of the Middle East. New clashes have broken out between Israeli police and Palestinians at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. The site known to Jews as a Temple Mount has been a violent flashpoint over the past few weeks.

CNN's Hadas Gold joins me now on the line from Jerusalem. So, Hadas, take us through the latest. What is happening?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA AND GLOBAL BUSINESS REPORTER (via telephone): So, Kim, what we're seeing this morning is once again clashes breaking up in the al-Aqsa compound. As you noted, it is also known as Temple Mount. Jerusalem has been experiencing violence for the past week or so. Today is officially day seven of these clashes.

We're seeing videos showing the groups on the compound. Palestinians are throwing rocks towards the security forces. Israeli police are entering the compound into groups with stun grenades and tear gas.

According to the Israeli police, a statement from them, they say that this began at around 4 a.m. They say 100 people began throwing stones and launching fireworks, including some stones that were being thrown towards the back of the western wall. This is where Jewish worshippers pray. They're not supposed to go up to the compound to pray there.

The Israeli police say that their forces, they say, were forced to use means of dispersing the demonstrations in order to stop the violence and allow people prayer. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (ph) says there have been 31 injuries so far, 14 of whom were taken to hospital for treatment. The rest were treated on site.

We are also seeing video of a tree on the compound that caught fire (INAUDIBLE) smoke. The Israeli police said in a statement that it was from fireworks that were being launched.

Today is the third Friday of the Ramadan. It is also the last day of Passover. This is the first time in at least a decade that the holidays of Ramadan, Passover, and Easter have all overlapped. That contributed to the attention as well several weeks of tension and violence that have been occurring in Israel and across the West Bank for the past few weeks.

There were a series of attacks in Israel that killed 14 people, and as a result, there had to be military step-up raids in the West Bank, they said, to target (INAUDIBLE), but as a result, at least a dozen Palestinians have been killed as a result of violence between the Israeli forces and Palestinians in the West Bank.

[02:14:57]

GOLD (via telephone): In addition to what has been happening in Jerusalem this past week, there have been two nights where rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. The Israeli defense forces have responded to that rocket fire which was called the most significant airstrike since the 11-day war with Hamas (INAUDIBLE) since that war last year, last May. These defense forces are saying that they struck (INAUDIBLE) and underground targets.

Keep in mind that clashes like what we are seeing right now at the al- Aqsa compound, that helped spark that 11-day war last year. But right now, Gaza has been, despite (INAUDIBLE), at least relatively quiet. It doesn't seem like the militaries there are gearing up for a major escalation. However, Hamas has warned that their -- quote -- "finger is on the trigger" and they watch the events in Jerusalem.

Things right now as we speak have been much calmer than they were earlier this morning, but will continue to monitor the situation at the al-Aqsa mosque compound throughout the day to see where it goes from here.

However, the Israeli forces have stopped visits from Jews to the al- Aqsa mosque compound. This is in accordance with previews years where for the last (INAUDIBLE) Ramadan, those visits have stopped. I think there was a hope that that would help calm the situation, so we'll have to see how the rest of the day unfolds. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. As you said, we will keep monitoring that story and we will speak with you in the next hour. Hadas Gold in Jerusalem, thank you so much.

Next, another big story. Sunday's presidential runoff in France. Coming up, how one candidate got accused of being in Russia's back pocket on national T.V. We will have that story coming up. Stay with us.

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[02:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER (on camera): Two French presidential candidates are about to make their final pitches to voters ahead of Sunday's runoff. President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, will hold their final rallies in the coming hours.

They are back on the stump after clashing head on in a T.V. debate on Wednesday. That is when Macron pressed Le Pen about a nearly $10 million loan her party took from a Russian bank. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You depend on Russian power. You depend on Mr. Putin. A few months after saying that, Marine Le Pen, you took out a loan from a Russian bank in 2015. First, check Russian banks.

When you talk about Russia, you are not talking to other world leaders. You are talking to your banker. That's the problem, Marine Le Pen. We see it. When there are brave and difficult stance to take, neither you nor your representatives are there.

MARINE LE PEN, FRENCE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (through translator): He knows very well that I am a completely free and independent woman. I defend France and the French because I'm a patriot, and I have shown that all my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER (on camera): For more on Sunday's runoff, I'm joined by CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas. Dominic, thanks for being here with us. So, let's start with the fallout from that much anticipated debate. Before the debate, you outlined how high the stakes were. Has that debate managed to change the momentum of the election so far?

DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes, you're right, Kim. It was an extremely important debate. I mean, first of all, Emmanuel Macron, the incumbent, refused to debate in the first round. So, once they move to the runoff stage, of course, all the attention was going to shift to that particular opportunity.

I think, ultimately, well aware of the fact that any kind of a televised appearance and debate with Marine Le Pen was ultimately going to be a referendum on his five-year presidency, he came out fighting to defend that record. And by doing so, pointed out his presidential criteria.

And in so doing, Marine Le Pen, who has struggled in the three elections she has fought, to convince the France electorate that she is somebody that could take over and provide a genuine alternative.

Emmanuel Macron kept attacking her on, essentially, her lack of policy. When she was scrutinized for those, ultimately, what you end up with is fearmongering, kind of an alternative narrative of the French nation. And he was ultimately able to deliver a fairly strong punch, when he pointed out that is in fact her that people should be afraid of.

And so, I think to that extent and the fact that he came out also talking a lot about green politics, reaching out supposedly across the aisle on these issues, I think he came away from that debate essentially pointing out the fact that Marine Le Pen is not currently an alternative to a new presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: So, Dominic, when I -- I was in France when the election kicked off. I have to say the apathy was quite palpable, which was later quantified with the relatively low turnout. So, what accounts for the apathy, especially when you consider, as you pointed out there, the contrast between the two candidates and what may be at stake here?

THOMAS: Yeah. It is a great concern. I mean, we know, of course, the lesson of 2002 where we had huge abstention rate of 28%. The mainstream political parties, for the first time in the fifth republic, were displaced by the arrival of Le Pen's father, who made it through to the second round.

Since then, we have seen increasing disillusionment as mainstream political parties have weekend and disappeared. In the last election, the main right and main left parties scored under seven percent.

So, we have these new parties, these new movements that are there, and it is a system in which unlike, say, the German electoral system, where after the federal election, you get representation in public, the French system is a winner takes all. So, the stakes are very high in that regard.

And although Emmanuel Macron came out ahead, the fact is over 70% of the French people did not vote for him. And as much as the system rewards in the second round, in the runoff stage, voting against a political candidate, the fact is that people do not feel represented.

[02:24:57]

THOMAS: And they are tired with the fact that, for the third time in five elections, in other words for the third time in a 20-year period, they are being asked to vote against Marine le Pen or against the father, Le Pen, in other words the far-right political candidate. And of course, the far-right continue to exploit fear, disillusionment, anxiety to try and drive the vote down.

We certainly saw that with the Brexit vote, and saw it in the American election when president -- when candidate Trump attacked Hillary Clinton. So, all of these strategies are working together toward heightening disillusionment and disaffection.

BRUNHUBER: Now, I wanted to ask you about a wildcard in this race, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. He got maybe a surprising amount of support in the previous round. So, what role might he and his supporters play in this presidential contest and maybe beyond as well?

THOMAS: Yeah. You are absolutely right. And so, what's interesting is that Marine Le Pen only increased from 2017 by under 500,000. So, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left candidate, improved his -- his number of voters and quite dramatically. But nevertheless, did not end up in the runoff stages because to the left, there is so much discord amongst these different groups.

So, he sees himself very much as a kingmaker and to the extent that he scored almost 22% of the vote, and that well over 25% of people abstained in the first round. There is tremendous uncertainty there now. We know he has publicly called for people to not vote for Marine Le Pen, but that is a big difference between that and actually voting for Emmanuel Macron.

The polls show that more people will vote for Macron and for Le Pen out of that particular group. But I think as we move out of the second rounds towards the legislative election, it is going to be interesting to see how French voters go about recalibrating and rebalancing the power between the office of the presidency and the parliament in terms of how they vote.

And I think to that extent, the turnout on Sunday is going to be important and will determine in many ways what kind of presidency we will be looking forward over the next few years and how the legislators will work out. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, absolutely. We will be watching. So much at stake. Dominic Thomas in Paris, thank you so much. And on this, a programming note. French voters, as we mentioned, will go to the polls on Sunday for the second and final round of voting in the presidential election. So, join us on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Paris time, 2:00 p.m. Eastern, for our special live coverage of the French election right here on CNN.

Well, many are trapped in Eastern Ukraine as Russia intensifies fighting in that region. Up next, one man's brave mission to save those who so desperately want to escape. Stay with us.

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[02:30:00]

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ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Isa Soares live in Lviv, Ukraine. And at this hour, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers as well as, civilians are huddled in a steel factory in the battered city of Mariupol. It is believed to be the last pocket of resistance. The plant's owner says there was plenty of food as well as water, but it won't last forever.

Russia claims it has captured Mariupol however, with no proof U.S. President Joe Biden calls that questionable. Well, those, meanwhile, Satellite images show the cost of Russia's efforts to take over Mariupol. The photos as you can see there appear to show mass graves along a side road near there. President Biden announced another $800 million in military aid will be heading to Ukraine.

And those weapons shipments include howitzer cannons, 144,000 artillery rounds, and a type of attack drone the Pentagon tailored to Ukraine's needs. Well, many have been forced to flee as Russia intensifies its campaign in eastern Ukraine. For those desperate to escape it's almost impossible really to avoid coming on the fire but one brave Ukrainian is willing to face that danger and risk his life to help them evacuate. More now from CNN's Clarissa Ward.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): It's a road few are willing to take but everyday volunteer Aleksandr Prokopenko makes the dangerous drive towards Russian forces in his hometown of Popasna to rescue fellow residents from the heavy fighting.

ALEKSANDR PROKOPENKO, VOLUNTEER: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: They shell everything, he tells us, school buses, the Red Cross, anything that moves. So why do you do this work?

PROKOPENKO: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: I love my town and I can't leave it he says. I can't leave the people here. Somebody needs to help people. He's hoping the rain provides some lead-up to the relentless artillery.

PROKOPENKO: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: It's better for us but it's worse for the road, he says. You can't see the potholes and the shrapnel from the shells. He arrives at the village of Kamyshevakha on the outskirts of Popasna. In the last few days, it has come under heavy shelling. Anatoly is now being evacuated with his son Vladimir. A neighbor shouts at us to show what the Russians have done. Those who stay here are now completely cut off from basic services.

WARD (on camera): So there's no electricity here, no water at all and you can see they're actually collecting rainwater.

[02:35:00]

WARD (voice-over): It's time for Anatoly and Vladimir to go. Their entire life now packed into the trunk of Aleksandr's car. Leaving the village, we spot a house destroyed by shelling. As we get out to take a closer look, a tearful Galina Nikolaevna emerges. She tells us it happened two days earlier. The first hit was at 5:50 and then there was a second hit, she says, and that hit my garage. She takes us around what remains of her home. The steady thuds of artillery can still be heard. The roof is completely destroyed.

GALINA NIKOLAEVNA, RESIDENT: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: This is where the first shell hit she says. Galina had just woken up and was lying in her bed when it happened to you.

NIKOLAEVNA: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: We have nothing left she says. In the living room, she takes down the drapes that were hung to hide any light.

NIKOLAEVNA: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: This is how we tried to mask ourselves she tells us. There's no need for them anymore. Galina and her husband still don't want to leave their home but she understands that Russia's offensive here has only just begun and it's going to get much worse.

NIKOLAEVNA: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: I live until 60 and now I have lost everything she says.

NIKOLAEVNA: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: Honestly, I have no words. For those like Anatoly and Vladimir who do leave, there are few good options. Aleksandr takes them to a dormitory in the nearby town of Bakhmut. They can stay five days for free. After that, it's up to them. In the next-door bed, another couple rescued by Aleksandr, tells us there is nothing left of their home but they don't blame President Putin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Speaking a foreign language. WARD: Thank you America she says. It's a horror. It's a nightmare.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: So it's interesting. She's saying that she thinks that Russia actually wanted to negotiate here and she blames America primarily for this war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: Putin wants to find a peaceful solution her husband tells us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speaking a foreign language.

WARD: Please don't tell this bullshit to the whole world Aleksandr says. It's not an uncommon view in these parts of eastern Ukraine making the situation here all the more complex. Aleksandr says he evacuated anyone, whatever their political views. He knows there are still so many out there who need his help. Clarissa Ward, CNN, Bakhmut, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: And I'll be back at the top of the hour but after the break, emotions are boiling over in Shanghai as residents are forced into a COVID quarantine. We speak to some residents who are caught in lockdown limbo. That is next.

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[02:40:00]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Prime Minister Boris Johnson is meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Johnson is on a trip to India that Downing Street says will seal two-way investment deals worth more than a billion U.S. dollars. But an unforced error is dogging his trip abroad. Boris Johnson is facing heavy criticism after he climbed onto a bulldozer while touring a JCB factory. That happened just a day after the same type of machinery was used to destroy homes and businesses in a predominantly Muslim area of New Delhi.

In the U.S., the debate over mask mandates continues. Starting Friday, masks will once again be required on public transport in Los Angeles County. Health officials cited CDC guidance that contradicts the recent federal court ruling striking down a mask mandate on mass transportation. Meanwhile, about 40 percent of U.S. COVID deaths in January and February were among people who had been vaccinated. That's according to a CNN analysis of CDC data. Still, February data shows the risk of dying from COVID was still 10 times higher for the unvaccinated.

Shanghai reported 11 COVID deaths on Thursday. That brings the death toll to 36 in the latest outbreak. Local officials recorded more than 17,000 new COVID cases bringing the total infections to nearly 450,000 but some are raising questions about the authenticity of official government statistics. They say Shanghai's death rate from the Omicron variant is a lot lower than other areas and countries. And frustrations are boiling over as residents have been on lockdown for weeks with no clear end in sight. David Culver has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Test positive for COVID-19 in Shanghai, and Chinese officials want you out of your home and sent to a government quarantine facility assuming their space.

JOSH VAUGHN, AMERICAN: There's nowhere for them to send me, all right? I'm not allowed to go to the hospital and I have to stay here.

CULVER: American Josh Vaughn, taken in early April to a pop-up tent outside of Shanghai hospital.

VAUGHN: This is supposed to be like a nice hospital. And this is where I'm sleeping tonight.

CULVER: China's zero-COVID policy requires every positive case and close contact to be isolated.

[02:45:00]

CULVER: In the city inundated with an Omicron-fueled surge that began in early March, there has been a scramble to build makeshift isolation centers. The government is evicting some residents from their homes so their apartments can be turned into quarantine facilities, people living in mainland China's most international city, are frustrated by the city's admittedly mangled and chaotic execution of a harsh lockdown and mass quarantine efforts. For ex-pats, it's even more difficult.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was positive about 12 days ago. There's no way I'm still positive.

CULVER: This recording is widely shared on Chinese social media, appearing to capture the agitation one German resident experienced with a Shanghai local official, who called to apparently take him to quarantine for a second time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been in the camp already. They didn't want me. They send me back home. It's ridiculous. It's a disgrace for you, for the government, for Shanghai, for China. It's a really big joke. So get the CDC, come here take a test, I'll be negative, and then we can talk.

CULVER: Others left in COVID Limbo.

GABRIELE, SHANGHAI RESIDENT: The only way I can open my door is that I need to call my community and tell them I've received food because actually, there's no other way I can get food from outside.

CULVER: Gabriele, who asked we only use his first name fearing repercussions, spoke to us from his sealed apartment. He says officials told him his results were abnormal, never confirming he actually had COVID. Still, they've kept him inside for days. A COVID guard was posted to keep him from leaving.

GABRIELE: It seems like they don't know what to do with foreigners or like their system is not really working with foreigners.

CULVER: China's gateway to the world, Shanghai, was widely viewed as a foreign-friendly metropolis. Hundreds of global companies have a significant footprint here and even now, the financial hub trying to promote itself as a leading destination for foreign talent. But after nearly a month of harsh lockdown measures and more than two years of relentless border controls, more and more foreign nationals are desperate to get out.

GABRIELE: The city will be the last its shine I will say. I don't know if we'll ever recover, especially for us, international people, like -- if it's like a completely different city is like we're going backward in time basically.

CULVER: In online chat groups, we found dozens of other ex-pats now trying to leave. One person writing China used to really have it all. It's just not the expat-friendly place it used to be. And this person is saying the first four and a half years were just incredible. Shanghai just isn't the same anymore. But some like Josh Vaughn are eager to hang on. He's got too much invested in his company.

VAUGHN: I've worked so hard on this. I've put everything I have preparing myself for this season, and it's almost like a make us or break us moment.

CULVER: With each passing day, the impact of this lockdown is reshaping Shanghai's future, leaving the locals increasingly frustrated and fatigued and ex-pats preparing for their exit. David Culver, CNN, Shanghai.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The leaders of North and South Korea have exchanged letters expressing hope for improved relations. In his letter, South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed the hope that the two Koreas would overcome the era of confrontation with dialogue. The exchange of letters comes as Moon prepares to leave office. Moon also encouraged Kim Jong-un to continue talks with South Korea's next president. In his letter, Kim thanks the outgoing president for his efforts to improve relations between the two nations.

On -- there's a new report on Europe's climate that's raising concerns. Last summer was full of records but that's not good news. We'll go to the CNN weather center for details coming up. Stay with us.

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[02:50:00]

BRUNHUBER: A new report has found that last summer was Europe's hottest on record. Temperatures swung from unusually cold in the spring to catastrophically high in the summer. Several wildfires in the Mediterranean burned through more than 800,000 hectares in just two months. There were also deadly floods in Central Europe last summer. Record rains killed more than 230 people on the German-Belgian border in July. Meteorologist Karen Maginnis is here with more. Karen, bad news all around there, and often with deadly, and catastrophic consequences as I said, what more do you have on this?

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Kim, it is nothing less than amazing to see some of the numbers that are coming out. This is the fifth year that this type of climate report has been unveiled and what it says is we can look at a lot of factors. But typically, most people think of the temperature as kind of the emphasis as to what the climate is doing gives us just kind of a very solid reading of how cold it is, how cool it is, is there a trend in this?

But it's not the only thing. Coastal flooding, heavy rainfall, and drought are some of the other key indicators. Well, for Europe, that temperature was the key. It was the hottest summer on record where temperatures were soaring way above normal, in some cases, 10, 15 degrees above where they should be.

All right, the hottest temperatures that occurred in Europe, that was in Sicily just under 49 degrees Celsius. You have to go back just about 45 years, 1977, and that was in Greece, where we saw the temperature at 48 degrees. But it wasn't just those two cities over a span of 45 years from about 2020 to 2021, and that's the year that we were looking at. Take a look at these temperatures. In the United Kingdom in 2019, the temperature soared, that temperature is in the upper 30. So of 53 European countries, 35 of them have seen some record heat since the year 2000.

[02:55:00]

MAGINNIS: That's the bulk of those 53 European countries. While 14 of those -- 14 of the 35, in the last five years have seen record-setting temperatures, so you can kind of see, there's this relentless temperature trend that seems to tick up. And in some cases, they're saying that the average temperature across Europe has gone up about three degrees Celsius, I like to keep it around one, or most places have been about one degree.

All right, flash flooding right along with that Belgium and German border. Now, you may not be able to see these numbers but look at this purple shaded area, that's where most areas saw between 101 and 150 millimeters of rainfall. The average for July, Kim, is only 87 but they saw all of that in one day. So these extreme events keep materializing and they're looking at them just a year after year. Back to you.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, and it's consistent with what we've been seeing in other areas like here in the U.S. as well. Karen Maginnis, thanks so much. And I like to thank you for watching. I'm Kim Brunhuber. And I'll be back in just a moment with more news. And our coverage live from Lviv with Isa Soares continues after a break. Stay with us.

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