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Ukrainian Prosecutor Shares Photos of Bucha Atrocities; Residents Flee Russian Offensive as it Nears Central Ukraine; Russia Cuts Off Natural Gas Supplies to Poland and Bulgaria; Guterres Says He Went to Moscow as Messenger of Peace; Ukraine: Losing Towns in East Amid Russian Offensive; Deutsche Bank Warns Major U.S. Recession is Coming. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired April 27, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and right around the world. I'm Isa Soares coming to you live in Lviv, Ukraine. And we are following the breaking news coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine. And just ahead right here on the show --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Putin is now a pariah, and Russia is more isolated than it ever has been.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is this atmosphere of fear, people don't want Russia there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What people here fear in this city is that Kharkiv could be the next Mariupol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The coming weeks will be so crucial for Ukraine. So, we've got to move at the speed of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

SOARES: Welcome to the show, everyone. It is Wednesday, April 27th, 11:00 a.m. here in Ukraine. And we begin with new developments in building the case to prove Russia committed war crimes and makes repeated denials from Moscow. CNN has exclusively obtained drone video placing Russian forces near the scene of civilian killings in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Now highlighted on your screen there -- in the middle of your screen

to be precise -- is a Russian military vehicle sitting at an intersection in Bucha, right up the street are the bodies of several dead civilians. It is the first evidence to emerge really showing Russian forces operating there. And it was filmed on March 13th.

And then this video from March 12 shows Russian soldiers around a military vehicle parked outside a house down the street from the same killed civilians. CNN has geolocated as well as confirmed the authenticity of these videos.

Meantime, Ukraine's top prosecutor has exclusively shared photos with CNN's Anderson Cooper showing atrocities in Bucha. And a warning they are very graphic indeed. They were taken in early March and show bodies just thrown on the street. The photos are further evidence in Ukraine's investigation into war crimes. And CNN's Anderson Cooper will have the full report on this later today. So please stay tuned for that.

Well, despite evidence like this, Russia continues to insist videos are being faked and that the bodies were staged. And here is what International Criminal Court prosecutors had to say about that. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARIM ASAD AHMAD KHAN, PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: Those bodies that are in bags on the street are not fake. I've seen them. I stood beside them. The issue is how did they die and who is responsible and in what circumstances. And this is why I think independent investigations are needed because the families of those that have perished deserve answers and the rest of the world is looking for how vigorous and effective the rule of law can be in these circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Prosecutor Karim Khan there. While on top of denials, Russian President Vladimir Putin now claims talk of Bucha derailed peace talks with Ukraine. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Unfortunately, after reaching agreements and after our clearly demonstrated intentions to create conditions for favorable conditions for the continuation of negotiations, we encountered a provocation in the village of Bucha to which the Russian army has nothing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: Well, Bucha of course isn't the only Ukrainian city where Russian forces are accused of carrying out atrocities. These are new satellite images from just outside the besieged coastal city of Mariupol in the country's south. The city's mayor says it shows a third mass grave they've discovered and he says Russia is forcing civilians to dig them in exchange for food. Vladimir Putin claims it's actually Ukraine that is putting civilians in harm's way. Here's how the Russian President described what's going on there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PUTIN (through translator): The situation there is difficult and tragic, but, but it's simple. There is no fighting there. It is over. There is no fighting in Mariupol. It has stopped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:05:00]

SOARES: Well meanwhile, there are fears that pro-Russian elements in the southern city of Kherson will stage a sham independence referendum and this would really a Kherson's People Republic similar to found of course, in separatist regions in the east. As a result, some Kherson residents are fleeing to central Ukraine including president Zelenskyy's hometown. And Nick Paton Walsh is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): The southern fields conjure a peace long past, a world away from Ukraine's hell. It's quickly ruptured by Russia's new offensive sending waves of evacuees fleeing the growing unthinkable world of Russian occupation. Families for whom the shelling over the last two hours was finally too much.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH: He's just saying grads hit one of the villages further down here. I don't know if the Russians are actually close to them yet, but it's impossible to stay, a woman was injured there.

WALSH (voice over): Antonina was three when the last war ended but doesn't know when this one will. Hour by hour, everything changes.

WALSH: Things are moving fast enough here that just 24 hours ago a village about four kilometers in that direction was the meeting point from which people were getting evacuated. Now, it seems to be on the fire and we just see panicked, locals rushing in to collect their relatives.

WALSH (voice over): Distant tree lines are packed with troops. The blue horizon sometimes pockmarked by smoke.

WALSH: Here, the rumble of rockets still here and you can see the damage of what they've done before, but somewhere like this has felt to some degree that it had survived the worst of the war. But now in this second phase of the Russian operation, the brutality of those forces is essentially coming straight their way.

WALSH (voice over): A flag flies still in the spot here where Lenin used to stand and it needs an army to hold it in place.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE, speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH (voice over): "People don't want and cannot live under occupation," he says. "We've managed to get 7,000 out across our hundred miles of frontline, some by bicycle, some in wheelbarrows or by foot."

Here is where they are welcomed, in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown, Kryvyi Rih, talk of a sham referendum on Wednesday, trying to gentrify the Russian occupation had many flee these past days with queues of cars backed up for miles.

This father and son lost a wife and mother, respectively to a bomb and even here do not want their faces shown.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE, speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH (voice over): "If they see us, they'll shoot everyone left there," he says. "We left on foot over the water in the river."

For this family, it was about saving the eldest, fearing their 18- year-old son would be conscripted after the sham vote.

(UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH (voice over): "The first time we tried to leave, they shot at us. The second time, we got out," she says. "We are completely occupied," she says. "There is no food, no money. We have nothing. They'll do a referendum and take our children. My son is 18 and they'll take him as cannon fodder. We ran as fast as we could."

It is jarring among the generosity of donations and offers of new homes to hear of the casual brutality of the occupiers.

Mikhaylo was tortured for days in a basement after Russian troops mistook his rough builder's hands as a sign, he'd been a soldier.

(MIKHAYLO speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH (voice over): "One got out a gun, a real one," he says. "I saw it was cocked. Two shots, they hit the concrete wall. I think it was a starting pistol. Two other men then came in and talked less. They were drunk. One must have been a boxer as he beat me in the same place on my ribs, breaking six of them, rupturing a lung."

Broken in parts here, but even as Russia closes in, still breathing.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Well, Russia is this morning aiming a different sort of weapon at European economies. Russian energy giant Gazprom now says it has completely stopped natural gas deliveries to Poland as well as Bulgaria. This after both countries refused to pay in rubles. The Kremlin issued those demands -- if you remember last month -- today's supplies remain largely unchanged for now. Poland and Bulgaria say they aren't putting any restrictions on gas consumptions, but the news of course, as you can imagine, is raising concerns that Moscow could throttle supplies to other EU countries which is been a concern.

And a concern that Clare and I have spoken on many occasions and she joins me now from London. So, Clare, once again Russia putting pressure on some European countries and I suspect at this point that neither Poland or Bulgaria will agree to pay it in rubles here?

[04:10:02]

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That does seem to be the case, Isa. They have said in the past that they are not willing to do this. The EU has in fact warned that doing so could be in violation of sanctions. And we have a response from the EU Commission chairperson Ursula von der Leyen today.

She said -- and I quote --the announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail. This is unjust and unacceptable, she says.

And it shows once again the unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier. So, she is clearly very concerned about this. She said that a meeting of the gas coordination group in Europe is taking place right now. They are mapping out a coordinated European response. And she says that they've been preparing for this sourcing other alternative suppliers.

But we know that for Europe, gas is the hardest one. They get about 40 percent of gas -- there are natural gas supplies from Russia and it is the area in terms of all the fossil fuels where it is really the hardest to source alternative supplies. There really aren't that many places that have spare capacity and Europe doesn't really have the infrastructure to import LNG -- liquefied natural gas. So, this is a critical situation.

But the other thing to point out here, in terms of Russia, Russia doesn't actually earn as much money from gas as it does from oil. Oil it makes about two to three times what it makes in terms of export revenues from gas. So, this is a way for Russia to use its leverage really on Europe without shooting itself in the foot so much in terms of revenues.

SOARES: Which is what we saw the sort of pressures. What we saw a really within it, Clare, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. So here we are once again. Let's stay in Europe though. How worried is Europe at this stage given what is happening in Odessa and Transnistria? What is Moldova saying about these latest shelling and attacks just across the border?

SEBASTIAN: Yes, this is a tricky situation. I think the geography is worth pointing out here because Russia has now stated that its goal in the conflict in Ukraine is not just a land/water from Crimea to Donbas up the sort of eastern border of Ukraine, but all along the south as well. And a Russian general was quoted last week by Russian state media, saying that you can see that the red there that borders the western border of Ukraine, the general said that gaining the sort of control over the southern border of Ukraine and the Black Sea would give them access to Transnistria.

So, we have that and we also reports from earlier this week of explosions in Transnistria on Monday near a government building. And then in the early hours of Tuesday morning, two radio towers were reportedly hit by explosions. The Ukrainian defense ministry has described what happened Monday as a provocation by Russia saying that the Russian-backed authorities in Transnistria were given warning of this.

Russia though also sort of blaming the other side. The deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying that what happened there was done by those forces who do not want stability in the region. So, it is concerning because of course Russia has done this in the past, has gone into breakaway republics to try on the face of to protect pro- Russian citizens there. So, concerning for sure.

SOARES: Yes, worrying that this could be a new front of course in Europe, a new front in this war. Clare Sebastian in London, thanks very much, Clare.

Well, the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres travel to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.N. says they met for about an hour, including several one-on-one discussions. During their meeting, Mr. Putin reportedly agreed in principle to involve the U.N. and the Red Cross in evacuations from the besieged city of Mariupol. Guterres who will meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday. Says his main goal is really improving the humanitarian situation on the ground. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: I came to Moscow as a messenger of peace. My objectives and my agenda is strictly linked to save lives and to reduce suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOARES: And while the U.N. chief brought that message to Moscow, military leaders from dozens of nations allied with Kyiv made renewed pledges to ship more weapons to Ukraine. American's top general spoke exclusively with Jim Sciutto and warned what he said would be the consequences if Russia isn't held accountable. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: If this is left to stand, if there is no answer to this aggression, if Russia gets away with this cost-free, then so goes the so-called international order. And if that happens, then we're heading into an era of seriously increased instability. What we want to see, what I think the policy of all of the governments together is a free and independent Ukraine with their territory intact and their government standing, and the Russian aggression has been halted and stopped. And at the end of the day, I think that is going to involve a weakened Russia, a strengthened NATO.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:15:09]

SOARES: And Michael Bociurkiw joining me now, a well-known face on this show. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Good morning to you, Michael. Thanks for being here with me.

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Good to be with you.

SOARES: Let's start exactly -- let me pick up exactly what we heard from the U.S. side now. Three U.S. -- two sergeants, really two leaders, and also earlier this week on Sunday we heard as well from the visitors here in Ukraine. Give me a sense of what you made of what you hear. Because to me, it is the clearest position we have heard so far from the U.S. on this war.

BOCIURKIW: Yes, well sure. I mean, the U.S. has made it clear that there's almost no limit to the amount of weaponry it's going to be giving to Ukraine. A lot of it is a lot more sophisticated and the other thing we're learning right now is very, very valuable intelligence has been shared with the Ukrainians as well. Allowing them the ability to move their missile batteries so they are not targeted by the Russians.

But the big fear I have, on the one hand is very good that the West is finally developing the spine I think to really give Ukraine the ability to push the Russians back. But the Russians are striking back, targeting key supply lines, the railway line as well as trying to cut Ukraine off from its water access to the Black Sea. So, these are -- it seems like the Russians are acting in a much more surgical strategic way.

SOARES: Why do you think that the Russians have changed tactics somewhat here? We've heard in the last hour or so from the Ukraine side that they're losing towns in the east. So, that acknowledgment that that's happening.

BOCIURKIW: Yes, I think the Russians have realized that they've had terrible losses --tanks and personnel on the battlefield. So, they're using more these long-range missiles to target places -- even around here. And so, I've argued and including on CNN opinion that until the West gives Ukraine that really great ability, advanced ability, to close its skies to these types of missiles, then things will make a big turn in favor for Ukrainians.

SOARES: And I'm guessing the terrain that we're seeing in this new push and new offensive is very different from what we've been seeing elsewhere.

BOCIURKIW: Absolutely. A lot of your viewers will be familiar with that trade when MH-17 came down of July 2014. So, very bucolic fields and lots of open areas. Very different from areas for example north of Kyiv where you have swamp and forest in that type of thing. And then of course don't forget the Russian-backed rebels have been occupying a third of that part of Ukraine since 2014. They have a lot of advanced weaponry, GPS blocking ability, that sort of thing.

SOARES: On the U.S. front though, what we've heard from U.S. diplomats, we heard we want Russia to be weakened. Very strong words, indeed. Does this make it more of a proxy war here?

BOCIURKIW: No question. And it puts Ukraine in a very difficult position. Because of course, Ukraine will do its best to defend itself, but going against -- I think the West is now not talking much about peace talks anymore but trying to encourage Ukraine to not only push the Russians out but to destroy their armed forces as much as possible.

But I'm hearing directly from sources on the frontline that the new call offs that are arriving on the frontline, not very well prepared, not very well kitted out. And it takes -- I heard on Ukrainian television yesterday -- it takes about a week to train someone to use, you know, the arms properly. That's if you even have instructors available. So, there are a lot of those kind of little logistics that could add up increasing losses on the Ukrainian side unfortunately.

SOARES: Very briefly because we're running out of time. How worried are you about Odessa?

BOCIURKIW: Very worried. I think of course, very strategically important and the Russians have shown in the past few days they have their ability to target it at their will from long range bases in Russia.

SOARES: Michael, always great to have you on the show.

BOCIURKIW: Likewise, thank you.

SOARES: Thank you, very much. And of course, we've got much more ahead on the show. We'll take a short break for now. Actually, we're not going onto a break. Are we? No, we'll go to Max Foster who will have much more -- Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: You're going to get both. You're going to get me and a break. Still ahead, a stark warning from Deutsche Bank a major U.S. recession is coming -- a serious story. Why they say the Federal Reserve could be making things worse.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: A new report from Deutsche Bank predicts a major U.S. recession is coming and inflation will likely stay high for longer than expected. The bank says aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve meant to keep rising prices in check could actually make things worse. And recession fears are taking a toll on Wall Street. The Dow fell more than 800 points on Tuesday and the tech heavy Nasdaq sank to a 52-week low. U.S. futures suggests the markets could rebound though in the coming hours. And you can see there across the board, as well for Europe.

The U.S. housing market just keeps getting more expensive. Average home prices in February were up almost 20 percent compared to a year ago. Phoenix, Tampa and Miami reported the sharpest increases. Buyers with a 30-year loan on a medium-priced house are paying about $550 more a month on their mortgages than they did last year. Analysts say demands should cool or should cool off as interest rates rises and more houses come on to the market. Amazing numbers really.

What isn't expected to cool off is the cost of energy though and that means consumers will likely continue to see the price of their utility bills soar. CNN's Gaby Cohen has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ALI ZAIDI, POWER COSTS SURGING: This is kind of when the chaos really started.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Ali Zaidi lays out six months of baffling power bills for his house in Beacon, New York. The price rising from $190 to more than 400.

ZAIDI: That's the day I told my roommates, hey, we kind of got to buckle down.

COHEN (voice-over): And this month, a bill for $2,000.

ZAIDI: It had to have been a mistake.

COHEN (voice-over): It wasn't.

[04:25:00]

ZAIDI: They said that this was a reconciliation over the last six months. According to this, it should have been between 7 and $800 per month.

COHEN (voice-over): Millions of Americans are seeing surging utility bills with huge hikes on fuel oil, propane, pipe gas and electricity.

COHEN: How did the company explain the price hike?

ZAIDI: The first thing that they said was their costs have tripled.

COHEN (voice-over): The natural gas market is largely driving that, and the war in Ukraine is adding fuel to the fire.

RICHARD BERKLEY, PUBLIC UTILITY LAW PROJECT OF N.Y.: Because of the war in the Ukraine, which is continuing to get worse, those prices are going to stay high for the remainder of the year and maybe longer.

COHEN (voice-over): Lower income families are being crushed spending on average 38 percent of their income on energy up from 27 percent just two years ago. And the timing is terrible with rising inflation on food, rent, clothing and much more. A survey found half of Americans are now worried about affording power. REV. THOMAS JOHNSON, RECEIVED SHUT-OFF NOTICE: I'm very conscious of it. And a little paranoid.

COHEN (voice-over): Reverend Thomas Johnson and his wife had been keeping the lights off at their home in Queens. Their rate keeps rising and they owe the power company $13,000 after they were hit with a massive reconciliation bill.

JOHNSON: I'm saying to myself, am I going to have to take out a second mortgage just to pay an energy bill? That doesn't make any sense.

COHEN (voice-over): Eighteen percent of American households are in debt to their power company owing roughly $23 billion. Now many families like Reverend Johnson's are facing a shutoff notice.

JOHNSON: So, we really have our back up against the wall.

COHEN (voice-over): Most states banned shut offs during the cold of winter, but those moratoriums are ending.

JEAN SU, ENERGY JUSTICE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: We expect to see an explosion in shut offs happening in the next few months.

COHEN (voice-over): In the past year, the Biden administration has more than doubled funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP, which before that was only reaching 17 percent of eligible households.

SU: It's just simply not enough. What we're asking for is just for greater reform and a stop to all shut offs across the country.

COHEN (voice-over): This crisis has put energy companies under the microscope. In Washington, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating six of the nation's largest power companies after they took COVID bailout money and still shut power to millions of homes. In New York, the state has launched several investigations into potential price gouging by both the oil industry and utility companies.

JAMES SKOUFIS (D-NY), STATE SENATE: It's a crisis for my constituents.

COHEN (voice-over): State Senator James Skoufis is leading one of them.

SKOUFIS: They're being ripped off to have a modest home being hit with a $1,400, $1,500 bill is patently insane. And people are making money off of it and they should be ashamed of themselves and got to be held accountable.

COHEN: Now power companies say they're just passing along their own increased costs. We'll see if these investigations turn up anything else. And the two customers in that story both say they're now disputing those massive bills, but they are preparing to pay them off if need be. Because that is the price of keeping the lights on.

Gabe Cohen, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: New restrictions on the export of palm oil by Indonesia could drive grocery prices everyone higher. Palm oil is a common ingredient found in an estimated half of all packaged products in supermarkets, including snacks, baked goods and even cosmetics. Indonesia produces close to 60 percent of the world's palm oil. The president says he's making the move to ensure his country has enough affordable cooking oil.

Our coverage of Russia's war on Ukraine continues after a quick break, coming up --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And you can see this is what is left of the bedroom here. It's just astonishing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Heartbreaking images out of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city and one of the hardest hit as Russia intensifies its onslaught.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)