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Zelenskyy: Russia Seeks To Destroy All Of Donbas; Ukrainian Commander Appeals For Safe Passage From Mariupol; Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Sending Shock Waves Through Global Economy; Moscow Keeps Eight-Year Grip On Crimea; China Defends Zero COVID-19 Strategy; Russia Making Slow Advances In Eastern Ukraine; Kansas Hit By Massive Tornado; Wall Street's Miserable Week. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired April 30, 2022 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.
ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: And a warm welcome to the viewers joining us in the United States and around the world. I'm Isa Soares.
Russian troops are making advances and stepping up attacks in Eastern Ukraine. The targets are vital supply lines.
NICK WATT, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And I'm Nick Watt in Los Angeles, I will have our other top stories, including China defending its zero COVID strategy amid a growing number of lockdowns, calling it a magic weapon against the spread of coronavirus.
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SOARES: Welcome to the show, everyone.
Russia is increasingly targeting key infrastructure as it ramps up the assault on the east of the country. You are looking at extensive damage to a railway hub that was a vital supply line for Ukrainian troops. That is near the Donetsk region. A senior U.S. defense official says Russian forces are making incremental advances in the area.
And meantime, another mass grave was discovered Friday in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha; 900 civilians have already been found dead in the Kyiv region in the wake of Russian forces pulling out. Russia's focus now on the eastern Donbas region. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow's goal is to kill everyone that it can.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Only if Ukraine would stand, will they live. If the Russian invaders succeed in realizing their plan, at least in part, they will still have enough artillery and aircraft to destroy the entire Donbas, just as they destroyed Mariupol.
The city, which is one of the most developed in the region, is simply a Russian concentration camp in the middle of ruins.
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SOARES: Well, the situation is growing ever more dire for Mariupol's last defenders holed up in a steel plant. A Ukrainian commander inside told us of relentless Russian attacks and scores of people injured. Scott McLean has the story for you.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are Russian troops making a break for cover in the streets near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. One of them is shot along the way. His fellow soldier attempts to pull them to safety amidst heavy fire.
One Ukrainian deputy commander says that Russia is not only bombarding the plant from the sky but now also attacking from the ground.
SVIATOSLAV PALAMAR, DEPUTY COMMANDER, AZOV REGIMENT (through translator): As of today, there have been attempts to storm the territory of Azovstal. This is infantry. This is enemy military equipment but those attempts have been beaten off as of this hour.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, which is leading the fight from the plant says that recent bombing left some sellers and bunkers cut off by rubble. He's not sure if there are survivors trapped inside.
He says bombing also hit a field hospital turning the number of wounded soldiers to more than 500. City mayor puts the number of injured at more than 600.
MCLEAN: How many do you think will survive the next day or two?
PALAMAR (through translator): I'm not going to say how long we could be here but I'm going to say that we're doing everything we can to stabilize them.
MCLEAN (voice-over): With the soldiers in the plant are hundreds of civilians, mostly elderly, women and children they say as young as four months old. Ukrainian officials say are also running low on food and water.
Thursday, the U.N. secretary general arrived in Kyiv determined to broker a deal to safely evacuate civilians from the plant after securing an agreement in principle from Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Friday morning, the lens keys office announced an operation to evacuate civilians was planned for Friday but no other details. Palamar said a convoy was in route but had yet to arrive. He is also hoping for a deal to allow soldiers to get out though perhaps it's a long shot.
MCLEAN: Would you rather die fighting then surrender yourself to the Russians?
PALAMAR (through translator): We are not considering the terms of surrender. We are waiting only for guarantees of exit from the territory of the plant. That is if there is no choice but captivity, we will not surrender.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Petro Andryushchenko, an advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol says getting soldiers evacuated safely would take an international intervention or a divine one.
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PETRO ANDRYUSHCHENKO, ADVISOR TO THE MAYOR OF MARIUPOL: I really want something like miracle. It look like a Pope has to sit to the main bus from Zaporizhzhya and driving to Azovstal to take to the bus our soldier and get back.
MCLEAN: You don't think that it makes sense for the soldiers at the steel plant just to surrender themselves to the Russians?
ANDRYUSHCHENKO: It might be.
MCLEAN: That might be the best thing to do.
ANDRYUSHCHENKO: Yes.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Scott McLean, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.
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SOARES: Well, some civilians who did manage to make it out of Mariupol have a night club owner to thank. He used his van to organize convoys to help evacuate 200 people and bring them to safety.
He housed them in a makeshift bomb shelter in his club, as they were waiting to be evacuated. The rescue missions were full of danger and not everyone survived. Here is a look at one of the missions followed by the owner's interview with CNN's Erin Burnett. A warning: the video is graphic.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Are you bleeding badly?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Fucking burning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (from captions): Please move her, please
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Come on, Grandma. Gasoline. Pull! Pull!
The foot!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Where to, man, where to? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's it. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see? Fucking hell.
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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: It's very hard to watch this, to see a grandchild drag his grandmother, who had died, from the street.
What moved you, Mykhailo, to document this, as it was happening?
MYKHAILO PURYSHEV, REFUGEE CONVOY ORGANIZER (through translator): ... and, frankly, just actually happened by accident, because initially I was going there and I was told by DNR that I had to do video recording of how I was getting out humanitarian aid.
But then after the first air raid, which I was supposed to record -- and I was sending as I came out to record that hit on the hospital and basically I ended up recording a bomb that fell where we were.
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SOARES: Incredibly courageous acts there.
Ukraine is also accusing Russia of stealing wheat from the areas it has occupied. Ukrainian officials claim it is happening on what they call an industrial scale, including 60 tons reportedly taken from a single cooperative in southern Ukraine.
Officials also say they took video of more than 50 vehicles taking wheat from another location this week. CNN could not independently verify their claims. But they are reminiscent, of course, of the great famine of the '30s under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin when millions of people died when officials stole crops from Ukrainian farmers.
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YURIY GORODNICHENKO, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/BERKELEY: I don't think in the immediate future, (INAUDIBLE) is going to change because Ukraine has a lot of grain and other food products.
But if this campaign continues at this scale, then we should seriously think about starvation on the ground. And this is really very close to what we had in the 1930s there, when millions of people perished because the Soviets expropriated food from peasants and they had nothing to eat.
SOARES: We are seeing it now.
And I suspect -- and I am pretty sure that you can correct me -- when did they need to start planting?
When does that season start?
Because that's going to be a concern, too, whether those areas have been occupied by Russia -- what that future would entail and what impact, crucially, that would have on food, on wheat exports right around the world.
GORODNICHENKO: I would say this. You know, the area that is controlled by the Russians, I don't think there is anything going on in terms of food production. On the other hand, the area which is controlled by the Ukrainian government, to the extent possible, they try to plant as much as they can.
Various estimates suggest that 70 percent to 80 percent of the land is going to be farmed and so we will have some food. I don't know if we're going to have starvation. But the bigger challenge is, OK, you plant the food. You collect the harvest.
What do you do next?
You need to transfer this from Ukraine to other markets. And, traditionally, Ukraine was relying on seaports, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson and others. Those ports are not operational now.
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GORODNICHENKO: They are blockaded by the Russian navy.
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SOARES: I'm joined now by Maria Tomak, she heads President Zelenskyy's mission for Crimea which helps activists in that region.
And a reminder, of course, that Russia annexed, occupied and annexed Crimea more than eight years ago.
A very warm welcome to the program. Let me start by asking you really about Crimea, given it's your area of expertise and you are so familiar with it. Like we said, annexed by Russia in 2014; we hear very little in fact, what, about what's happening. Give us a sense of what you have been hearing on the ground.
MARIA TOMAK, MISSION OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE IN CRIMEA: Well, hello. Yes, indeed. Actually, Crimea was occupied by the Russian Federation eight years ago and it's important to consider when we try to assess the situation there.
Because after eight years, it's, especially after the all-out aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine started, it became really hard to get any information from the inside, from inside the peninsula.
However, we get this information from open sources but also from our insiders, so to say. And I would point out two major trends. First, is the militarization, which means that Russia turned Crimea into a military base to launch its offensive against mainland Ukraine, which is really dramatic, I think.
But on the other hand, something that you mentioned already is the oppression, that the local population, Crimean residents are performing. First of all, it relates to Ukrainians and to Crimea and Tatars. Crimean Tatars are the indigenous population of Crimea. So they do it in various ways. It's not the mass protests, not the
mass protests unfortunately, because eight years ago the occupation, it was all the time a huge pressure on people who could oppress. Almost all of them had to flee, more than 15,000 of Ukrainian residents that fled Crimea.
Nevertheless, they do their very small protests by just making some posters, small posters, and placing them in the cars or in public spaces. Even, you know, by discussing the war of Russia against Ukraine in some public places, by recording video and on social media.
Even school teachers that try to explain to children that what is actually going on in mainland Ukraine -- they face problems with the police. Not even with the school administration but with the police.
So it's really hard because, you know, just to explain the atmosphere in Crimea, it's very much militarized in terms of informational and public space. So children in schools are really brainwashed heavily.
And it's important also to stress that Russia tries to expand these practices now in the new occupied territories in Kherson region. So they even try to take school teachers from the region, to transfer them to Crimea, to you know, to teach them, so to say, to instruct them about how we have to teach children in the new location.
And just, to brainwash everyone in order to install this, you know, imperial thinking, so to say, into their minds. And then something will --
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SOARES: We have been reporting on Kherson and the push to have a so- called referendum. And we have been reporting on the fact that Ukrainians are turning their backs against the occupiers and providing very little in helping them with their so-called independence referendum.
But you said something that struck me, you said -- and I wonder if you can clarify -- you said Russia is using Crimea as a base to ship out, for their supplies to the front line.
What more can you tell us?
How big are the operations from what you are hearing?
TOMAK: Actually, Russia uses -- mostly, they use the Crimea bridge that was illegally built after the beginning of the occupation. And they use this bridge in order to transfer to Crimea, military personnel, military vehicles, et cetera.
But also they use it to transfer, for instance, back to the Russian territory, for instance, bombs (ph), Russian soldiers, so on. So that's why, actually, Crimea is now a huge military base, because a lot of weapons, ships and airplanes.
[02:15:00] TOMAK: Military personnel is there and also those wounded soldiers or dead or killed soldiers of the Russian army are transferred to Crimea and places in the civilian hospitals by the way.
The huge number of civilian infrastructure in Crimea is literally occupied by this military proposes (ph). And civilian people in some places have no access to hospitals, for instance, because the Russian soldiers are there. And no one else, I mean, only special people can get access to these places.
What we've heard recently, which is also very concerning, there are plans to transfer doctors from Crimea, nurses and doctors, from Crimea to Russian occupied parts of Donbas, because there's a lack of medical personnel there.
So Crimean hospitals suggest to send voluntarily. But we understand that it's voluntarily, it's very, it's just wrong. It's false. It will not be voluntarily, because nobody will want to go to the front line, of course.
So -- and so that's our next concern is that people, medical personnel might be sent to the front line, of course. Lots of doctors and nurses working in the hospitals in Crimea are Ukrainian citizens. So therefore --
SOARES: Maria, I think we have lost your connection. We thank you for taking the time to speak with us.
Well, next, living through one of the most draconian lockdowns in the pandemic. We will get a look at what life is like in Shanghai. Many have been locked in their own homes to stop the spread of COVID-19.
And then incredible pictures of a building collapse in southern China, where it's unknown how many people may be trapped, that is next.
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WATT: American parents hoping to vaccinate their young children against COVID could soon get their wish. According to the latest meeting schedule put out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a COVID vaccine for kids under 5 could come as soon as June.
The agency's vaccine advisory committee will review data from Moderna and Pfizer and discuss whether their emergency use authorizations for young children should be approved.
From there, the CDC would have to sign off on that authorization before shots could start going into young arms.
And according to a recent study, Pfizer's COVID pill is effective once you are infected but doesn't keep you from catching the disease. According to Pfizer, recent data shows its drug Paxlovid did not significantly reduce the risk of infection in adults who had been exposed to COVID by someone in their household.
But the safety data was consistent with earlier studies. It shows the pills to be nearly 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalization or death in high-risk COVID patients when taken for five days, shortly after the onset of symptoms.
COVID cases in Shanghai, China, appear to be on the way down. On Friday, the global financial hub reported just over 10,000 new infections, a fall of 5,000 from the day before. Shanghai has been one of the country's hardest-hit cities in the latest outbreak.
On Friday China credited its zero COVID policy with protecting lives as well as minimizing the economic impact. The Chinese government defends that harsh COVID policy as a, quote, "magic weapon" to prevent the spread of the virus.
Shanghai COVID numbers are gradually falling but daily cases, they do remain fairly high and millions are still under a strict lockdown, including CNN's David Culver, who has more from Shanghai.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lockdown in China is like nowhere else on Earth. Here, you see a man getting swabbed for a COVID test through the fence.
Using a megaphone, healthcare workers call for others to get tested. The country's zero COVID strategy turning millions into virtual prisoners across the nation.
Outside of Beijing, these residents forced to hand over their apartment keys so community workers can lock them in from the outside. For those who refuse, crews drill holes to chain the doors shut.
In a northeastern province, no need for a lock. Workers installing steel bars to keep people from leaving the building. Right now across China, at least 27 cities are under full or partial lockdown. CNN's calculation estimating that directly impacts up to 180 million people -- more than half the U.S. population.
For over two years now, China's COVID containment has become more extreme, fracturing everyday life. In Shenzhen, a city not under lockdown, babies kept off the subway.
The reason?
They didn't have negative COVID test results. It is now mandatory to get access to most of public life in the city. To accommodate the new rule, they have opened 24/7 testing sites.
A delayed test result had this groom in Shenzhen watching his own wedding ceremony via livestream, not allowed to enter the venue, laughing off the insanity of it all. China's zero tolerance for any new cases comes from the top. President
Xi Jinping tasked the vice premier to oversee major outbreaks.
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CULVER (voice-over): In Shanghai, that means working with the city's most senior official, the Communist Party secretary.
Their orders are carried out by the municipal government, which runs the quarantine centers and coordinated at local levels with thousands of communities. Those local workers are our little gatekeepers, determining who goes in and out of each compound, facilitating food deliveries and managing our health information.
CULVER: In addition to very regular PCR tests, each day we are also required to do rapid antigen tests. We then upload the results to this government app. And then we take a screenshot of that and a picture of the test. And we share it publicly with our community group chat, so that all our neighbors can see we are negative.
CULVER (voice-over): The community group chats can serve as a helpful way to source food but also as a space to call out neighbors, sometimes becoming a witch hunt to kick out positive cases and have them sent to quarantine centers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It has become quite common for local authorities basically to say we have a wartime situation and, therefore, we have to apply emergency measures and, therefore, you have to simply follow orders.
CULVER (voice-over): It reminds some residents of the Cultural Revolution from the '60s and '70s, a painful era of political and social chaos, sparked by extreme policies. Criticism of Beijing's zero COVID strategy is not tolerated from anyone, including the son of a Chinese billionaire who was also sent to a crowded quarantine facility in Shanghai.
He was banned from Chinese social media after criticizing the policy. His profile, with 40 million followers, erased. But not everyone is silenced. Back in Shanghai, many residents confined to their homes adding to the growing chorus of dissent. As COVID cases surge across China, millions now sentenced to lockdown.
Their release date?
Unknown -- David Culver, CNN, Shanghai.
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WATT: And some shocking video coming in to CNN following a building collapse in a city in southern China. Five people have been rescued and it's unknown how many more may be trapped in the rubble.
The structure had six stories, including a restaurant, a cinema and a hotel in addition to private living quarters. No word yet on the cause. When we come back, rail cars on fire, bridges destroyed: Russia's
march in Eastern Ukraine. We will have the latest.
And we are learning more about a U.S. citizen killed in Ukraine while fighting against Russian invaders. We will tell you about the 22-year old and why he left home to join that battle.
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SOARES: Welcome back to our viewers in United States and around the world. We are coming to you live from Lviv, where it's 9:30 in the morning.
While Russia has raised the issue of nuclear attacks in the war in Ukraine, Russian's foreign minister said there could be no winners in a nuclear war and that Russia has kept the world safe from that happening. Have a listen.
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SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We have been champions of making bridges by all nuclear countries, never to start a nuclear war.
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SOARES: Another mass grave is found at Bucha, the site that we reported so many horrendous atrocities already. Details are scarce. And since Russian troops withdrew from the area, more than 900 bodies have been discovered.
And to the southeast in Mariupol, the bombardment of the steel plant is not letting up and neither is the resistance. A Ukrainian commander inside the plant tells CNN, Russian attempts have been deflected.
Hundreds of civilians and Ukrainian troops have been holed up in the plant for weeks now. According to a senior U.S. Defense official, Russia's advances in Eastern Ukraine are slow, incremental and uneven. Even so, there's been extensive shelling and it may only be a taste of what is to come.
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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Russia continues to put pressure on this eastern front as part of what the Russians are calling their second phase, having redefined their entire campaign effort here in Ukraine.
From trying to essentially topple the government, they are now suggesting their effort is to seize the Donbas, the east of the country, and potentially a large swath of the southern coastline. Now as part of that campaign, they have been driving southeast from
the town of Izyum and due south. There have been reports they have been attacking a railway close to a town just effectively on the outskirts of where I am here in Kramatorsk.
Kramatorsk is the ultimate prize.
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KILEY: And part of that, the Ukrainians know well, is going to be the Russians trying to get across the Donetsk River. They have done so in the Izyum area. But they haven't done so due north of here.
In this part of the campaign, there they are putting pressure on the town of Lyman. A bridge linking Lyman across the river to Slovyansk has been blown. We don't know whether it was blown by the Ukrainians, which is most likely, or the Russians.
The Ukrainians have been blowing bridges in order to slow the Russian invasion all over the country and it has proved highly effective. But ultimately, as sources here, notably, the mayor of Kramatorsk, believes that the main Russian effort is likely to begin next week.
Perhaps, approaching May the 9th with the signature day of victory day in the former Soviet Union. On top of that, of course, there has been significant troop movements, both on the Russian side and we've seen very substantial troop movements also on the Ukrainian side -- Sam Kiley, CNN, in Kramatorsk.
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SOARES: Well, the G20 summit is still six months away but there's a diplomatic showdown brewing over the attendance. Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to attend and President Biden has called for the ejection of Russia from the G20.
The White House press secretary says Mr. Biden is discussing the situation with advisers. U.S. officials are once again warning Americans not to travel to Ukraine while expressing condolences for the death of a U.S. citizen there. The family tell CNN that he died fighting along side Ukrainian forces. Oren Liebermann has more.
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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Willy Joseph Cancel, this wasn't his war. The 22-year old had already served his country in the Marines. But after Russia invaded Ukraine, Cancel's family says he felt the need to leave Tennessee and join the fight.
REBECCA CABRERA, WILLY'S MOTHER: Even before he left to go to Ukraine, he was proud because he wanted to do the right thing and fight alongside the underdogs and help them with things that he thought was important.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): Cancel's says he started working for a private military contractor shortly before the war. Cancel agreed to go fight in Ukraine. He arrived in a country still defending on multiple fronts in mid-March.
Russian forces inching toward Kyiv and carrying out more strikes on western Ukraine. His mother says she was told he fought with men from different countries before he was killed in action. His body has not been recovered because of the danger. His new brothers in arms mourning his loss.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This make me feel sad and I'm grateful for his sacrifice. It's unbelievable that you are able to -- that he was able to go here and put an ultimate sacrifice for my home country of Ukraine.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): Cancel leaves behind a wife and a seven- month-old baby, a family left without a father and a husband. His brother-in-law says he was the type to fight for what's right regardless of the outcome. He's not the only one.
Ukraine's military created International Legion for foreign fighters. A Ukrainian official said more than 20,000 volunteers and veterans from 52 countries wanted to join, though how many served is unclear.
The U.S. has sent billions of in weapons to Ukraine to help them fight Russia but the White House says American citizens should stay out of this fight.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We know people want to help but we do encourage Americans to find other ways to do so rather than traveling to Ukraine to fight there.
It is a war zone. It's an active war zone and we know Americans face significant risks but certainly we know a family is mourning, a wife is mourning and our hearts are with them.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): Cancel's mother says the call was too great, the cause too important one for which Cancel gave his life.
CABRERA: He knew they needed help and it was just something that he felt that he could help in because he had the experience and the training and the knowledge to go and help them.
LIEBERMANN (voice-over): Oren Liebermann, CNN, at the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: That does it here for me. I will be back with the top of the hour with more of the breaking news coverage. In the meantime, I will send it back to Los Angeles after this short break. You are watching CNN
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WATT (voice-over): That is a massive tornado passing over Andover, Kansas, late Friday. Police say the fallout is considered an emergency situation. The Wichita fire chief said at least 12 people have suffered minor injuries. A city official said 50-100 structures have been damaged.
The National Weather Service says there were more than a dozen tornadoes reported, most of them in Kansas and Nebraska. Kansas is also reporting hail. All this is part of a severe storm system -- excuse me -- passing through the region this weekend.
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WATT: Meantime, people living in the Western U.S. are experiencing a long-term megadrought. Take a look at the new images of Lake Mead that straddles Nevada and Arizona. This reservoir supplies water for millions of people. And it's now so low that one of its original water intake valves is exposed for the first time. Stephanie Elam has more.
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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sometimes it's hard to see just how much the climate crisis is impacting our lives out here in the West. But you can see it with this megadrought dragging on and on.
There's now something tangible you can see.
Take a look at these images of this water intake valve inside of Lake Mead. It was put into service in 1971 and decommissioned earlier this year because of the fact that the valve is now above the water line.
Seeing it was going to happen, the Southern Nevada Water Authority put another intake valve that is now situated near the bottom of Lake Mead in place. They started to work on it in 2015 and completed it in 2020, because they saw that this was going to happen.
And this is how people in Southern Nevada, 2.2 million people, get their water in that region. So this is obviously very important. And when you look at the rings of Lake Mead, you can see how it has dwindled. All of this because there's not been enough precipitation.
And there's the issue with the snowpack, which is a frozen reservoir up in the mountains. And it has been too small over the last few winters. So that is playing out in California, where we are starting to see some mandatory water restrictions being put in place.
Specifically in parts of Southern California, you are only allowed to water outdoors one day a week beginning June 1st. If it's not going to save enough water, they say, on September 1st, there will be no outdoor watering for certain people living in certain communities.
Overall, authorities are asking people to cut their water usage in Southern California by 35 percent. As we are looking at unprecedented dry conditions out here and no sign of it getting better anytime soon -- Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.
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WATT: Coming up, U.S. markets tumble after the big names have little to get excited about. We will take a look at how the mighty have fallen and how that's affecting American workers.
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WATT: A brutal day to end a brutal month on Wall Street. The Dow closed down more than 2 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 4 percent, ending its worst month in 14 years, dragged down partially by Amazon stocks sinking.
And the S&P 500 had its worst month since the pandemic began. It closed down nearly 4 percent. Investors had to swallow three bitter pills this week. Tech giant Amazon losing nearly 4 billion in the last quarter, a warning on rising costs from Apple and new inflation data showing prices are skyrocketing. Richard Quest has the details.
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RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST: It was a horrible session that ended a difficult week. As more companies have revealed their earnings, so it's becoming clearer. Share prices could not be supported.
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QUEST: The latest victim was Amazon, one of the bellwethers, a favorite of the pandemic, who revealed losses that were much greater than expected and costs that were rising even faster.
As a result, Amazon was down some 15 percent -- an extraordinary amount for a stock like Amazon. Put it all together and investors are going into the weekend worried over inflation, concerned over higher interest rates -- which are coming on both sides of the Atlantic -- and bewildered about the market's inability to see a way forward.
With the current environment, there can be no assurance of gains anytime soon -- Richard Quest, CNN, New York.
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WATT: I'm Nick Watt, we'll go back live to Ukraine in a moment. As CNN breaking news coverage continues. Stay with us.
