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16-Year-Old Ukrainian Rape Victim Recounts Attack; White House Vows to Press for Whelan and Griner's Release; Mariupol Commander Makes New Appeal for Evacuations; Mariupol's Wall of Steel Holds Russian Forces at Bay; Report Finds Long Discrimination by Minneapolis Police. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired April 28, 2022 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Isa Soares coming to live from Lviv, Ukraine where it's just about 11:30 in the morning. If you are just joining us, an update on our breaking news coverage of Russia's war on Ukraine.
The British defense secretary says Russian President Vladimir Putin may try to consolidate what he has taken in Ukraine and dig in like a, quote, cancerous growth within the country. The comments come as the Ukrainian ministry says Russian forces are exerting intense fire on multiple fronts right across the eastern regions.
Ukrainian forces said the Russians are trying to make a breakthrough in Izyum, that's in the Kharkiv region. It's become a staging ground for Russian troops as they attempt to advance through to Donetsk as well as the Luhansk regions.
On Wednesday this fuel plant was hit in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk. Russian forces have been repeatedly targeting Ukrainian fuel stocks and energy infrastructure there.
Well, as the war drags on, horrifying stories of atrocities at the hands of Russian supporters keep emerging. Among them, a 16-year-old who says that she was raped by a Russian soldier. She recounted the account to Nick Paton Walsh. And a warning the details are harrowing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): It's from these gentle shrugs of villages, lazy and clean, in the green expanses of the Kherson region, that some of this war's ugliest crimes are being dragged into the light. This is Dasha. She is 16. And was six months pregnant when just over a month ago, Russian forces came to her village here. Her family were in the basement sheltering from bombs, the cold and the Russians shooting in the air or at cars and legs, she said. At dusk, they brought the children out to the kitchen to eat, where there were two soldiers, one drunk.
DASHA (through translated text): He asked how old every one was. There was a girl there who is 12, another one 14, and I, 16. First he called my mother into another room. He let her go quickly.
Then he called for me and he started to shout. Well, first he started telling me to undress. I told him, I will not. And he started shouting at me. He said if I don't undress, he will kill me.
WALSH (voice-over): His sober colleague then came in and told the drunk attacker to stop to no avail and left.
DASHA (through translated text): When I resisted, he was strangling me. And he was saying he'll kill me. And he said, either you sleep with me now or I will bring 20 more men.
WALSH (voice-over): By then, night had fallen in the cold house.
DASHA (through translated text): I just remember that he had blue eyes. It was dark there and I don't remember more.
WALSH (voice-over): She heard the Russians say her attacker's name was Blue. He was from Donetsk and had a criminal past. He tried to attack her again, she said, until Russian snipers later came to help her.
WALSH: But still some of the Russian soldiers in that unit even were disgusted by what happened then tried to move her and part of her family away to safety. That began a process in which Russian soldiers seemed to try to get her to go back on the claims she had made.
WALSH (voice-over): Two days later, she was taken to a Russian paratrooper commander who, she said, began shouting at her, like her attacker had.
DASHA (through translated text): He said he would do to me the same as what the rapist did. I was so frightened I started crying. He it was a test for him to check whether I was lying or telling the truth.
[04:35:00]
WALSH (voice-over): It seems that they did believe her, but the fate of her rapist remains unclear. While we cannot independently verify her harrowing story, Ukrainian prosecutors told us they have investigated the case and confirmed this attack, which they said was a war crime.
But like so much here, the question why is the one without a humane, palatable answer.
DASHA (through translated text): If we hadn't gotten out to eat, he wouldn't have seen us and then maybe he wouldn't have touched me. We were told that he was going around the village looking for someone he could -- "a girl of easy virtue" as they said.
WALSH (voice-over): There are lives here that you can see Russia has changed forever, but also those whose trauma sits beneath the surface and lives on.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kherson Region, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: So many horrors. And if you would like to help those in Ukraine who may be in need of shelter, food and water, please go to CNN.com/impact. And there you will find several ways that you can help safely and as well as securely.
Now the news of Trevor Reed's release from Russia is raising questions about the other Americans still being held there. The Biden administration says it will continue to work for Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner's release. Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges and is now serving a 16 year prison sentence. And WNBA star, Griner was retained in February -- if you remember -- on drug smuggling charges. CNN's Nada Bashir joins me now live in London for more. And Nada, obviously wonderful to see Trevor Reed finally making his way home. Where are we on the efforts to release the other detainees, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner -- as we mentioned there?
NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, Isa, certainly, wonderful news for Trevor Reed and his family, that has been echoed by the family of Paul Whelan. But they share their statement yesterday expressing that they felt mixed emotions upon hearing the news. His parents are said to have been devastated and completely crushed upon hearing the fact that Trevor Reed had been released and Paul Whelan not.
And we heard directly from Paul Whelan, he shared a statement with his family and I can read you just a little bit of what he said yesterday.
Why was I left behind? While I'm pleased Trevor is home with his family, why hasn't more been done to secure my release?
That is the question that he and his family have been asking for some time now. What is being done to secure his release? The Biden administration as you mentioned there has said that Trevor's release is a testament to the priority that the Biden administration is given to the cases of those U.S. citizens still detained -- wrongfully detained in Russia. That has been echoed by the U.S. State Department. Take a listen to what spokesperson Ned Price had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: We were in contact with Paul Whelan's family earlier today. We are in regular contact with Brittney Griner's network, her legal representation with the WNBA and others. We're doing everything that we can to see a successful outcome for both of these cases. In the case of Brittney Griner, support her, to provide her what she needs. Including in terms of consular access and within recent weeks, a senior embassy official was able to visit her in detention in Moscow.
When it comes to Paul Whelan, we are calling on the Russian government to release him. We're working to secure that outcome. Our business today, our job today was not finished. We have a lot more work do and we're going to continue do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASHIR: Now, Isa, according to the State Department, Reed's release was secured after many months of discreet diplomacy and according to the U.S. government that is expected to continue for the cases of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner -- Isa.
SOARES: Nada Bashir for us in London. Thanks very much, Nada.
Well, heartbreaking barely begins to describe how Mariupol residents feel about what's happening in their city. Coming up next, we talk to people who watched Russian forces lay waste to their home town, they can do absolutely nothing to stop it. That's next.
[04:40:00]
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Well, Ukrainian commander is making a desperate new appeal this morning to world leaders to help organize evacuations from his city. He says hundreds of civilians and wounded soldiers are stranded in a steel plant besieged by Russian troops. And he is begging world leaders to help saying many more people will, quote, simply die if they stay there.
As you are about to see, the fighting has taken a horrific toll on the plant, the city and more importantly, its people.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
SOARES (voice-over): Ivan (ph) used to live on Mariupol Peace Avenue. "You want your city to remain the same as it was in your memory," he tells me. That city now lies in ruins, a shell of what it once was.
And the steel plant his family has dedicated three generations to suddenly finds itself as Mariupol's last line of defense.
"Seeing your city being destroyed is horrible," he tells me. "You could compare it to a relative dying in your arms and seeing him or her dying gradually, organ after organ failing, and you could do nothing."
For his colleague Alexei (ph), it's also personal. He has lost not just friends, but his mother-in-law to shelling when they first tried to flee Mariupol.
SOARES: How does this make you feel? You must be so angry.
SOARES (voice-over): "My emotions appeared already there in Mariupol," he says, "that's why there's nothing but hate."
Alexei (ph) has worked at the steel plant for 26 years. He's one of 11,000 employees who have kept the iron furnaces turning here.
A major player in the metals industry, Azovstal produces 4 million tons of steel a year. It's metal shining brightly in Manhattan's Hudson Yards and London Shard. Now as Russia pummels its plant, and production jolts to a halt, the CEO of the company behind Azovstal steel, tells me at least 150 of his employees had been killed and thousands are still unaccounted for.
YURIY RYZHENKOV, CEO, METINVEST: Out of the 11,000 employees of Azovstal only about 4.5 thousand people get out of Mariupol and got in contact with us.
SOARES (voice-over): This is our plant as Matata (ph) says. He works here says little girl in a promotional video, built in 1933 under Soviet rule, Azovstal was partially demolished during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s.
[04:45:00]
Now it faces the wrath of a president who says he's de-nazifying it, attacking the very foundation that his country helped build.
Holed up inside are thought to be around 1,000 civilians hiding in shelters, women, children and the elderly, who haven't seen sunlight in more than 50 days. And then there's the injured in field hospitals like this one. Russian forces continue to encircle the plant and they are not patching.
RYZHENKOV: I don't think it's the plant that he wants. I think he's about the symbolism.
SOARES (voice-over): A win in the port city of Mariupol will provide President Putin with a land bridge to Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. If fully taken, Rinat Akhmetov, one of Ukraine's richest men and the main shareholder of the group behind Azovstal steel tells me via e-mail --
Under no circumstances will these plants operate under the Russian occupation.
Alexei agrees. Telling me after what they did never. The wall of steel defending to the bitter end, the place they have called home.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
SOARES (on camera): And our thanks to Ivan and Alexei for taking the time to speak to me.
I'm Isa Soares in Lviv, Ukraine. We'll have much more ahead on our breaking news coverage of the war in Ukraine at the top of the hour on "EARLY START." For now, let's get back to Max Foster -- Max.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Isa, thank you. CNN has learned Rudy Giuliani is expected to meet with the House Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. That meeting expected sometime next month. Giuliani was of course former President Trump's attorney and one of the main players in trying to overthrow the 2020 election results spreading false information and conspiracy theories.
The mayor of Minneapolis says his city has its work cut out following the release of a damning report on policing. A state investigation began after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in May 2020. As Omar Jimenez reports, investigators found a pattern of discrimination against the city's black residents going back for years.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A wide-ranging report from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights looking at data going back to 2010. Some of what it found, those that were pulled over in Minneapolis, were disproportionately people of color and that it happened even more frequently during the daytime when officers were, quote, more likely to see the race of the people in the car.
The report also presented data around use of force showing that black people were the subject of it more than white people even if the alleged offenses were the same. The report also found that some Minneapolis police officers used covert social media accounts to watch and even engage with at times black people, black organizations, everybody elected officials who were all unrelated to criminal activity. And at least one posed as a black community member just to criticize the local chapter of the NAACP. After the report was released Minneapolis local public officials responded. Take a listen.
JACOB REY, MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR: I found the contents to be repugnant, at times horrific. They made me sick to my stomach and outraged and I think that our community feels the same way. We have a hell of a lot of work do as a city.
JIMENEZ: Now separate from this state investigation, there is still a federal Department of Justice probe into the patterns and practices at the Minneapolis Police Department that is ongoing. But when asked about it, the state commissioner for the Department of Human Rights said there is not going to be an issue of dueling jurisdictions here because their investigation focused on any state laws that may have been broken while the federal one, as you can imagine, will focus on whether any federal laws have been broken.
Omar Jimenez, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: California needs rain and lots of it. Reservoirs are way down and people are being asked to cut their water usage. We'll look at just how dry it has actually got there.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: An incredibly dry start to 2022 across a large area of California. We're going to touch on what this means. We have numbers as much as a 16 inch deficit in the rainfall department in the wet season in California. We're going to break this down coming up in a few minutes.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Southern California is facing a stubborn water crisis fueled by climate change. Officials there told citizens to cut their water usage by more than a third in order to avoid water bans later this year. Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri takes a look at the situation.
JAVAHERI: Good morning, Max. Yes, so often in recent days we've talked about the fire weather concerns around the Southwestern U.S., but across the state of California, the big concern for years now is the drought situation. Where upwards of 90 percent of the state was dealing with extreme drought. This was just this last October. We had an incredible run of wet weather in November and December, historic amount of rainfall that actually brought our extreme drought situation in the state down to just 1 percent.
And then what followed was a very dry January, February and March essentially going right back toward historic drought situation. Which brought the extreme drought numbers from that 1 percent up to 40 percent and the entirety of the state dealing with at least some level of drought.
So really concerning setup. And mind you this is in the heart of the wet season that is now beginning to taper off. In fact, look at the reservoirs across the state, a lot of these areas running 10, 20 percent below where they should be for this time of year. Say Lake Orville, 53 percent current capacity, that should be closer to 70 percent. Work your way toward Pine Flat, sitting about 48 percent of current capacity, that number should be closer to 81 percent. So very dry situation. And there has been wet weather, but unfortunately, a lot of it locked in across the Pacific Northwest. With that said, Max, an incredibly dry start to the year.
[04:55:00]
Look at these areas, very densely populated regions. San Jose, San Francisco on into Santa Rosa, Monterey, only eight, nine, up to 16 inch rainfall deficits again in the wet season. So, a concerning start here as we head on into the dry season -- Max.
FOSTER: The latest SpaceX mission is off to a successful start after docking with the International Space Station a few hours ago. You can see the Crew-4 team being greeted by Crew-3 already aboard the station, set to return to earth next week. Among the new tenants is NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, the first black woman to join the space station crew. There she is on the left. Here's what she had to say about her final moments before entering the station.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSICA WATKINS, NASA ASTRONAUT: Right as we were coming in for docking, we started to get suits on and were starting to prepare and we had just enough time to take a last minute look out the window and we could see the space station kind of off in the distance, but super bright with the solar arrays shining towards us and the earth below. I mean, it's just absolutely gorgeous. So, we're super excited to be here and to see more of those amazing views.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Here on earth the Milwaukee Bucks advance to the next round of the NBA playoffs, the Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls in game five of the series 116-100. It was a third consecutive win for the Bucks. Game one of the series against the Celtics is Sunday. And it's on to the next round of the playoffs for the Golden State Warriors. They beat the Denver Nuggets 102-98 in game five of their series. The Warriors advance to the second round of the playoffs where they will meet the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Memphis Grizzlies.
Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. Our coverage continues on "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. You're watching CNN.
