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Interview With Lviv, Ukraine, Deputy Mayor Serhiy Kiral; U.S. Officials Meet with Zelenskyy in Ukraine. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 25, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:24]

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

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

The U.S. is showing new signs of confidence in Ukraine as Putin's war enters its third month. Now, the State Department says it is reopening the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. President Biden announced a nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with President Zelenskyy in Ukraine. Now, they are the most senior U.S. officials to visit the country since the invasion began.

And both assured the world that Ukraine can win this war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: In terms of our -- their ability to win, the first step in winning is believing that you can win. And so they believe that we can win. We believe that we can win -- they can win, if they have the right equipment, the right support.

And we're going to do everything we can continue to do everything we can to ensure that gets here.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're seeing that, when it comes to Russia's war aims, Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.

We don't know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The British Ministry of Defense said that Russia has made minor advances and it's pushed to take over the east.

CAMEROTA: The U.K. also found that Russia has -- quote -- "yet to achieve a significant breakthrough."

But Vladimir Putin's forces continue to destroy more Ukrainian buildings and lives. CNN just learning of a gas explosion in a Kreminna government building in the Luhansk region. Officials say no one there survived.

Russian missiles hit five train stations in Central and Western Ukraine. This is part of a campaign to -- quote -- "systematically destroy railway infrastructure" -- end quote. This is according to the leader of Ukrainian state rail.

And this video shows an electrical substation in Krasne that was damaged in those rail attacks.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Anderson Cooper is in the capital city of Kyiv.

Anderson, do you know when or has the State Department said when the U.S. Embassy will be back open there?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, Victor and Alisyn.

They have said that American diplomats will return this week to Ukraine. First, they're going to start with day trips into Lviv from Poland and then gradually return to where I am here in Kyiv. The U.S. State Department, as you know, pulled out its staff in Ukraine from Kyiv in the days immediately before February 24, when the invasion began.

President Biden said the nominee to be the new ambassador to Ukraine is a person named Bridget Brink. She's got more than 25 years' experience in Foreign Service. She speaks Russian. She's currently the ambassador to Slovakia.

I want to go to CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann now. He's at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Defense Secretary Austin is going to hold a summit tomorrow.

Oren, Secretary Austin is going to be meeting with his counterparts there. Talk -- give us a preview, if you will, of this meeting at least 20 other nations attending.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: And we have gotten an updated number on that, so about 35 other nations.

You get a sense of how big this will be and how significant it was -- it will be. Late last week, the Pentagon didn't want to state that there any set goals or set outcomes that will come from this meeting. But it's more of a discussion, especially around what weapons Ukraine needs and what country is best suited to send those weapons in.

The U.S. has not only, of course, sent in some $3.4 billion or committed to sending in $3.4 billion of its own weaponry. But it has been one of the fundamental partners, along with, for example, the United Kingdom, of getting in weapons from other countries that perhaps don't want to be as outspoken and as loud about sending those weapons in.

So the U.S. has been a key cog in that wheel. And this meeting is an expansion on part of that, especially after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were just in Ukraine, having discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about what sorts of weapons they need.

Now, of course, we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks the weapons that the West is willing to send get bigger, from small arms and ammunition to, for example, howitzers that have now started arriving, with more expected to go in.

Here's what Austin had to say about the position of the U.S. and that commitment and what it means for not only Ukraine, but also for Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUSTIN: We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. So it has already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly.

And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:05:04]

LIEBERMANN: That wording there certainly raised some eyebrows, the weakening of Russia. That's an offensive statement.

But the U.S. has made it clear that U.S. troops will not be going in, as they haven't gone into this point to fight Russian forces. There will be no direct confrontation. But it will be Ukrainian forces that are weakening Russia through -- not only through attrition in a war that has lasted far longer than Russia has expected, but also, of course, in the use of U.S. and other weaponry to simply take out Russian forces.

It'll be U.S. and Western sanctions that are weakening Russia's economy and its ability to keep producing weapons to stay in this fight. So we got some clarity on what Austin meant there by weakening.

Also, of course, incredibly significant and symbolic that Austin was one of the first, if not the first heads of a defense ministry or secretary of defense to go into Kyiv and to meet there. So we're seeing the U.S. commitment to this fight as it stays standing alongside Ukraine. And we will see that here as well tomorrow.

COOPER: Oren Liebermann, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Across the eastern part of Ukraine, fighting is intensifying, as the Kremlin tries to zero in on that region. And in the nation's second largest city of Kharkiv, heavy Russian shelling continued over the weekend. Three policemen, one woman, were injured in the strikes.

CNN's Clarissa Ward takes us inside a once-magnificent government building in Kharkiv that's now mostly rubble and dust.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I do want to show you this, because it gives you a real feeling for just the enormity of that blast, I mean, absolutely astonishing.

It literally took out six stories. And that's why, as you can probably imagine, we're hearing from authorities here that they do believe some people are still trapped under that rubble, but that it is just simply impossible for them at this stage, with bombardment continuing day in and day out in this city, for them to try to dig down underneath that and get a sense of just how many people may have lost their lives here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Clarissa joins us now live from Kharkiv.

What more have you seen there?

WARD: Well, Anderson, this is a city that throughout the war has just been continuously pummeled with cruise missiles, with shelling.

Most of it is taking part in the northeastern outskirts of the city in an area of Saltivka that we visited over the weekend, where people are still living in some pockets of it, despite the fact that artillery is raining down on them almost every single day. You hear it throughout the night.

Last night, it started about 4:30 a.m. You hear the thuds of shells. You see the sky lighting up with flares. And I want to be clear, though, it's not just Russian bombardment of Kharkiv. You are also now seeing Ukrainian forces fighting back really hard. And they have been successful previously in pushing the Russians out of certain parts of the city.

I think what is most astonishing to see, though, Anderson is that there are still people living here. This is a city of 1.5 million. Authorities estimate that 40 to 50 percent of the population are still living here. It's impossible for us to verify that.

But you do see some people out on the streets. And they're unwilling to leave their homes because either they feel like they want to participate in some act of resistance or defiance or because they don't have anywhere else to go.

But it is pretty extraordinary to see that kind of resilience in the face of this continued onslaught, which really has only intensified in the last week or so, since Russia began this new offensive to try to take the Donbass region, which is just south of here. COOPER: Could you talk a little bit about the significance of

Kharkiv? I mean, it's close to the Russian border. It's the second largest city. Why is it so important?

WARD: Well, exactly that, because it's really just 30 miles away from the Russian border and this city of Belgorod, which has been kind of a launching point for Russian forces pushing into Ukraine.

And it's also positioned just a couple of hours north of a city called Izyum, which has been the site of the heaviest fighting over the last few weeks, because it's strategically hugely important, Anderson, for Russian forces to take that if they want to be able to cut off Ukrainian forces in that Donbass area and take back that region.

So, the edge of Kharkiv, the kind of eastern edge of Kharkiv, becomes this hugely strategic point, where they want to move their supply lines through there. They have also been having constant battles with Ukrainian forces, who, as I mentioned, are continuously launching these counteroffensives.

[14:10:04]

There are people here who believe and fear, just based on what they have had to live through for nearly nine weeks, that Kharkiv could be another Mariupol, that it could be besieged, that it could be bombarded on that scale.

From what we have seen, though, Anderson, the efficiency of Ukrainian forces in fighting back the Russians makes it very unlikely that they would even probably try to attempt to fully encircle the city. But that's not that much comfort for people when shells are still raining down every day.

COOPER: Yes.

Clarissa Ward, appreciate it. Thanks very much -- Victor and Alisyn, let's go back to you.

BLACKWELL: All right, Anderson, thank you very much.

Let's bring now a retired Army Colonel Liam Collins. He served as an executive officer for the U.S. senior defense adviser to Ukraine from 2016 to 2018. He helped train Ukrainian soldiers. Also with us, Evelyn Farkas. She's the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia.

Let's start with you, Colonel.

We heard from the secretary of defense there that, if the Ukrainians have the right weaponry, if they have the right equipment, they can win this. From your assessment, what they're getting now, is this what they need at this moment to win this war?

COL. LIAM COLLINS (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Yes.

I mean, it's not that they need new capability. They just need to replace the combat capability that's been attrited through the fighting to date.

And so that's really what's going to allow them to be successful, is just replacing those combat losses, because they're facing overwhelming combat power of the Russians. But they have a much superior tactical force, superior leadership, training, and culture, and so they can defeat them, as long as they have those weapons systems being replaced, anything from artillery to drones to ammunition to bullets.

CAMEROTA: Well, right, but, I mean, therein lies the rub, Evelyn, because, when we see Ukrainian cities being leveled and devastated, and hundreds, if not thousands of civilians being slaughtered, and a refugee crisis, it's hard to see what Secretary Blinken means when he said, we're seeing that, when it comes to Russia's war aims, Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.

Is that how you would categorize it also?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: At the moment, Ukraine is succeeding because Ukraine is holding its territory and keeping the Russians from taking more.

I mean, it's quite stunning, even in Mariupol, and we know that they even conducted a very daring resupply mission of that factory in Mariupol, the armaments factory where the last fighters are holding out.

Having said that, that's not really victory yet. But I think the reason why members of the administration are feeling so optimistic now is because they know what is coming. We are now supplying Ukraine with far better munitions to take out Russian artillery. We are providing Ukraine with air defense systems that are of a higher range and capacity.

And I'm guessing we are also providing the Ukrainians with highly time-sensitive intelligence and advice on making a new strategy, because what they need to do now is not just defend operationally, but they need to move into a new military phase, where they -- from the defense, they go on the offensive.

Ultimately, what these Ukrainians want to do is push the Russians out of their country.

BLACKWELL: Colonel, put these five strikes on these rail stations into context. We have talked about phase two now, that the Russians say they want to take full control of the east and the south.

But these attacks were in Central and Western Ukraine. Put those into the context of Russian goals.

COLLINS: Yes, in some case, right, the trains might be used for resupply or to move things east and west across the country or north and south.

So it can serve some tactical purpose at that way. But, I think, largely, also, Russia is -- they're not doing well. And they're underperforming. And so it's just a punishment strategy to inflict as much pain and suffering on the Ukrainian population as possible.

And so that probably has as much to do with attacking these targets as anything else.

CAMEROTA: Evelyn, we're -- there's some talk about why Vladimir Putin's reported girlfriend, reportedly the mother of his three children, has not been sanctioned.

And the thinking seems to be among U.S. officials that it would be such a personal blow to him that it would be seen as escalatory. But when he's killing civilians by the scores, how much more can he escalate? I mean, do you think it's time to sanction her, where much of his money and wealth may be hidden?

FARKAS: Absolutely, Alisyn, yes.

I mean, we know, and it's clear that our government knows, that Vladimir Putin has a lot of his wealth tied up with his girlfriend and the mother of three of his children. And the intelligence community, the media knows that she had has lived on and off in Switzerland. Apparently, I guess she's back in Russia now.

[14:15:05]

But there is no excuse. I mean, if we allow her to get away with holding all of this money for Vladimir Putin, then, in essence, it nullifies -- it could nullify our sanction of Vladimir Putin. So, I don't see any rationale for holding back. And, again, this also falls into that category of being deterred by our fear of what he might do.

If they're afraid he's going to use chemical or nuclear weapons, I would just remind the Russian government that we also have nuclear weapons. That's how deterrence is supposed to work. We're supposed to remind the Russians that they should not escalate because, if they escalate, they're likely to find themselves in a place they don't want to be.

They don't want war with NATO. And they -- and I don't think that the Russian government is ready to escalate. And that -- sanctions on his girlfriend is not going to convince certainly not the entire Russian security elite that they should escalate to nuclear or chemical weapons.

CAMEROTA: Really helpful perspective.

Colonel Collins, Evelyn Farkas, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Well, as we just discussed, Russia struck five rail stations across Central and Western Ukraine. Casualties have been reported. One of those attacks was near the city of Lviv. We will take you there next.

CAMEROTA: And CNN has obtained thousands of text messages from Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and they offer the most revealing picture yet of how Trump's inner circle and GOP lawmakers tried to overturn the election. Our exclusive reporting is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:21:01]

COOPER: I'm Anderson Cooper in Kyiv.

A short time ago, explosions rocked a separatist region located in Moldova. The attack comes just days after Russia declared its goal of establishing access to the country, which borders Ukraine's southern region.

Russian state news is reporting the blast in the state capital of Transnistria, which lies between Ukraine and Moldova.

CNN international correspondent Scott McLean joins us now.

So, Scott, this is confusing, because a lot of people haven't paid all that much attention to Moldova, but it's an independent nation. But it does have this region that Russian troops maintain a presence in called Transnistria since the 1990s.

Could you talk a little bit about why this specific region is so important right now?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

So this is a separatist statelet, you might call it. It's on the eastern part of Moldova. It is a very long, skinny strip of land. And this area has essentially been stuck in the Soviet area. There have been a contingent of Russian troops there, as you mentioned, since the 1990s.

It maintains very strong links to Russia. And it essentially governs as its own independent state. It is part of Moldova, but Moldova doesn't really have all that much control over it.

And so that is why this explosion here is so significant, especially in light of the news that we heard from this Russian commander earlier today, where he basically said that Russia's goal in Ukraine is not only to control the eastern part of Ukraine, the Donbass region, but also the southern part of the country along the Black Sea, which would give Russia access to Transnistria, this little statelet, which has a Russian-speaking population.

The Russians are trying to frame this as the Russian-speaking population there is repressed or mistreated. And so the Ukrainians obviously are not keen on that. The Moldovans are even more upset about it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in response to that, that, look, Russia should worry about Russian speakers on its own soil -- Anderson.

COOPER: We should just point out that the notion of -- again, we don't know who's behind the explosion, the cause of the explosion in Transnistria in Moldova. But it's a concern, because the Russians have used allegations of attacks on Russian-speaking populations in the Donbass region and Luhansk as a pretext for this invasion.

So, the thought is, if it's -- that that's one possibility, that any kind of an explosion in a Russian-speaking area could be used as a pretext for Russia to go into Moldova.

MCLEAN: I mean, it straight out of the playbook, Anderson. We saw this in Crimea.

We -- Russians claiming that, look, these were people who wanted to be part of Russia, the Russian-speaking population there had stronger ties with Russia than it did with Ukraine. They used the same playbook in the eastern part of Ukraine back in 2014, when they first sent the little green men into that area, the sort of -- the soldiers without Russian uniforms, without any kind of markings on their uniforms, and went in there to essentially establish control of that area.

So, yes, as much as this is a military battle on the ground, there is also an ideological war and an information war. And this one seems to be a tactic that is well-worn by the Russians.

COOPER: Earlier today, there were a number of strikes, five different rail stations or substations struck. What more do we know about this in the western part of Ukraine?

MCLEAN: Yes, so this is in the western and the central part of the country.

And if you look at the map, it may seem quite random where these missiles actually struck. But if you look at where the rail lines go, it is not random at all. It is abundantly clear that the Russians were very likely trying to cut off access between east and west, because all of the strikes were along choke points or junctions along the railway.

And we know how vital the railway is to Ukraine, not only in moving supplies and goods, but also moving people out of the most dangerous parts of the country. In Vinnytsia, there were two strikes. The governor there said that five people were killed, 18 were injured.

[14:25:04]

The furthest west strike was near Lviv. I went out there earlier today. The governor released video showing an electrical substation on fire. We weren't able to get close to that substation. But what we were able to see on the ground, Anderson, is the remnants of a Russian rocket, twisted bits of charred metal partially melted with Russian Cyrillic writing on them.

And because they didn't find an actual crater on the ground there, they believe that that missile was struck down by the Ukrainian missile defense system.

COOPER: Scott McLean, appreciate it -- Alisyn, let's go back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Anderson, thank you very much. We will check back with you shortly. Joining us now is Serhiy Kiral. He's the deputy mayor of Lviv.

Deputy Mayor Kiral, thank you so much for being here.

So we just heard from our correspondent that one of those attacks on the railway stations -- there were five of them, five bombings -- was in or around Lviv. Do you know the damage that was done? And how big of a setback is that?

SERHIY KIRAL, DEPUTY MAYOR OF LVIV, UKRAINE: Thank you, Alisyn, for having me.

Yes, indeed, those were the five attacks in Western Ukraine. One of them is -- was about 40 kilometers from Lviv in area called Krasne on Zolochiv Raion.

A part of what we saw also from your report -- and we don't have any further information, but I do agree that apparent target for those attacks were these so-called important rail junctions, apparently to disrupt some of the rail traffic. And there was, in fact, from the Ukrainian railroad company, the state-owned Ukrzaliznytsia, a notice put out after those attacks about the delays on the dozens of trains, which were mainly evacuation trains, coming to Lviv or to Western Ukrainian cities from Zaporizhzhia, from Kharkiv, from many of the eastern Ukrainian cities, where you see the active combat is going on right now.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

I mean, not only does it mean that civilians won't be able to get to someplace with more relative safety, but what about all the heavy equipment and the weapons that are needed in the east to fight off the Russians? if the railway stations and tracks are destroyed, I imagine that would be much more complicated to get them the weapons they need.

KIRAL: No, absolutely.

And this is one of the reasons why Ukraine and the Ukrainian leadership has been begging, in fact, the West for the increased capabilities on air defense systems.

And, in fact, I also support some of your reporters and guests on your TV channel proposing to create some kind of a humanitarian corridor in Western Ukraine, in order to make sure that not only all those supplies which Ukraine need are safe, but also the evacuees, the refugees who are -- and the IDPs who are fleeing the war zone to Western Ukraine further to Europe, that they are safe as well, because there is no guarantee that, sooner or later, one of those attacks of those rockets and missiles will hit the train which will be passing by with dozens, if not hundreds of civilians in it.

CAMEROTA: Well, that brings us to Mariupol. And, as you know, there were humanitarian corridors promised by Russia last week, but they never materialized.

And so we just -- we have some -- an interview with one of the women who has been trapped in that basement with families, with children, with the elderly, who have basically been cut off for weeks from civilization. This is in the basement of that steel factory.

So let me play that for you and everyone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): My mother is up there. We don't know what's happened to our families. I don't even know what the weather is like there. I have a feeling that it's still February 28 and the world is just watching.

I don't know. Is the world just watching us being killed? Is it up to them to decide where we should live? I want to live in a democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, she says that she doesn't know what the weather has been like.

She -- time is frozen for her after February 28 while they have been hiding. How are they going to get out? Have any people from Mariupol been able to make it to Lviv?

KIRAL: Yes, we have people coming from Mariupol.

And you can imagine in what sort of psychological and physical state they are arriving, mainly women and children, a lot of them in injuries, many hospitalized immediately to get some urgent treatment in our hospitals.

But, yet, indeed, I mean, this is, again, the demonstration of how Russia cannot be trusted in anything.