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Zelenskyy Looking To Evacuate Soldiers At Azovstal; Emmanuel Macron Inaugurated For Second Term; Red Square Prepares For Victory Day Parade; North Korean Launch Possibly Ballistic Missile. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired May 07, 2022 - 05:00   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.

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.

We're following two breaking news stories this hour, each tried to grand spectacles in capital cities. In Paris, ceremonies set soon for the inauguration of Emmanuel Macron to a second presidential term. Guests and dignitaries began arriving about an hour ago.

In Moscow, Red Square is getting ready for Monday's important victory day parade. It is the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. And Russians call it the great patriotic war.

With Russia's brutal war in Ukraine, with enormous military losses, it is debatable whether President Putin has much to show for it. Our coverage begins in Paris. Macron's second inauguration set for about an hour for now.

CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas joins us from Los Angeles. We're just watching some live pictures. Some guests and dignitaries are waiting for him at the Elysee Palace.

Traditionally, these second inaugurations are less showy than the first.

What might we see or hear from Macron coming up here soon?

DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: This is the first incumbent to win in 20 years. So it's been a while since we've seen someone have a second run at this.

Certainly this time around, Emmanuel Macron since his 201y victories is toning down the spectacle. But I think this speech is an opportunity to reach out. It was a very divided election. People were asked for the third time to vote against the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen or her father from back in 2002. So that is a tall order.

Very divided, as we saw in the first round, voter apathy. So Emmanuel Macron, I think, has the opportunity to capture the attention of the nation and to talk crucially, as we are just a few weeks away from legislative elections. And I think it's going --

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BRUNHUBER: I'll just jump in to point out that Emmanuel Macron is arriving now, a very somber face. Well, there he just cracked a smile. We see a band playing in the background there as he is greeting the people at the Elysee.

As we await to see what's going to happen, he's going to address the people, one of the positions he has to make is about prime minister. He said he will appoint a new one.

Any idea of when that might happen?

Who the front-runners are?

I know you said he wanted to appoint a woman. Just tell us what is at stake here.

THOMAS: Well, a lot of at stake. He has to send a very important and crucial message as we go into the legislatives. It's a bit of a difficult decision because the outcome of these elections, unlike 2017, when it was quite clear Emmanuel Macron was going to carry the momentum from his election into that, to be able to control the legislative branch.

It's a little bit up in the air this time around. He has to convince someone to be prime minister for potentially only a period of 3 to 4 weeks. If he doesn't have the majority, he may not be able to hold on to that.

He's made very clear that he is eager to appoint a woman to that position. He's eager to appoint somebody with important environmental credentials, so that he can reach across to some of those voters on the Left that he's hoping to capture.

Some names have been thrown around -- Christine Lagarde, for example. But I think it's too early to call. But those are the main concerns he has right now. But it will send a crucial message as we go into these legislative elections.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. Speaking of that, we have a coalition from the Left that is trying to oppose him there. He has formed his own centrist coalition. Notoriously, these coalitions are very volatile.

Do you think that they will hold in time for those parliamentary elections?

THOMAS: Yes. We see everyone sort of re-branding themselves. The country is divided.

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THOMAS: They know so many people didn't want to vote in either the first or the runoff stages. They're more eager to appeal to those voters and it introduces a lot of volatility, a lot of uncertainty.

Emmanuel Macron is trying to appeal to the center left and center right voters. But the biggest move has been on the Left. Ironically enough, his party has failed to come together in the first round.

I think it cost them, potentially, a place in the runoff stages. They seem to have forged an alliance going into these races. But the legislatives are a different thing altogether. A lot of strategy and a lot of attempts by different parties to keep candidates out in the runoff stages.

The percentages that they get in the presidential election very rarely translate into those kinds of seats when it comes to the legislative elections.

BRUNHUBER: Before we look ahead, I want to look behind at the last term. Many people say that it was plagued by different crises. Let's put COVID aside. What you think Macron has learned from that first term that he may be able to apply in the second term?

THOMAS: Yes. I think, when it comes to foreign policy credentials, he is absolutely ideally poised. His reputation abroad is better than it is domestically. I think what he needs to understand, when it comes to the situation in France, going all the way back to the Yellow Jackets, is whether or not he goes to the people, saying unemployment numbers are good.

As far as he's concerned, cost of living is doing OK. There are deep- seated emotions running high in the country. And he needs to understand. He needs to listen better to the grievances of the people have. That is the way in which you go about combating the policies of the far right.

He has to focus on the domestic agenda and can't simply rely on his leverage with the European Union and on the conflict with Ukraine to distract from those particular issues.

That's going to be a very difficult, uphill struggle for him in a very divided country. The majority of the population did not vote for him in the first round.

And when there are deep divisions on the far right and on the far left and contempt in many ways for a president that they see as not being a good listener and as rather aloof and not attentive to the genuine grievances of so many French people when it comes down to their lifestyles, cost of living, gas prices and the broader, economic concerns in the country.

BRUNHUBER: I think we're just going to listen. I believe he's being declared the Grand Maitre de Legion d'honneur.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sorry, not the Foreign Legion; the Legion D'honneur, the Grand Master of the Legion d'honneur.

BRUNHUBER: I think as our translator was just saying, he was just being declared the Grand Maitre of the de Legion d'honneur, the Legion of Honor. And then we are going to get the signature of the official report of the election and then he will step up to speech. I think we're going to listen in now.

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): Ladies and gentlemen, at the time when the French have entrusted me with the responsibility of this country, I'm fully aware of the gravity of our times and the return of war in Europe, the pandemic, as well as the ecological urgency.

This is a time of crisis. Rarely that we have known recently, our country has been confronted with such a conjunction of challenges. In the name of the people, you have decided to vote for me.

At times, not given in to the temptation of nationalism, to the nostalgia of the past or the ideologies that we hoped we had left last century, the French people made the choice of a clear, explicit project for the future, a republican project and a European project, a project of independence in a world that is destabilized, a project of scientific and social progress and ecological progress.

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MACRON (through translator): A project that is faithful to the time of the enlightenment, when we turned our back on demagogues. This choice is now part of the history of our republic.

In the presence of my two predecessors, I thank you for this that you are here to witness it. This sovereign choice requires me to do so much because it is the French people who chooses its representative; in particular, the French president of the republic.

Today I received the mandate of the French people, has not prolonged the project of 2017. This is a new French people from five years ago has entrusted in me, a new president, a new mandate.

The time that comes upon us will be a crucial time for France and Europe. We must act first to avoid all escalation, given Russian aggression in Ukraine. We need courage. We need to build a new peace in Europe, a new autonomy on our continent.

We need to act in a way to make our country a power agriculturally, scientifically, industrially stronger, simplifying our laws and to create the France looking to 2030, act to build a society of full employment.

France has to continue innovating with creative added value in business, act to make us a leader in ecology, a great power, a radical transformation of the way that we create power, that we move around our country and also in our overseas stories (ph) to confront inequalities at their root, recreating our schools and health system.

Schools that are more inclusive, fundamental, looking at fundamental knowledge to guide us, schools that are open to new cultures, to sport, so that we have those to reflect the Olympics in '24.

So we need to create and improve working conditions, improve when people get sick the conditions for them. We will address all the problems that we confront as individuals, the problems between men and women, act to protect our compatriots with a strong, engaged, committed army on all our continents.

And fight daily, the daily challenge of terrorism and new threats. Act, finally, ultimately, to reunite and bring together our people and dissatisfactions we've had. Yes, we must act without rage, with one objective, to be a more independent nation, to live better and to construct French and European responses to our challenges.

This action, we all know we must do it. It comes at a moment in the life of our nation when there is a lot of division in our society. So acting will not be about administering. It will be about administering the country and just offering already made solutions.

Actions will be about bringing people together, dialogue, consideration, reunifying us. That is why we must, as a country, invent and find a new method far from the old ways and old choreographed acts that so we can create a new contract, productive, social, ecological contract.

Because bringing together and just pacifying us would mean to just accept to do nothing and to forget our responsibilities. By sharing objectives and ambitions and responsibilities at a national level, making the government, the administration, parliament, social partners work together, associating all of us, all political, economic, cultural, social agencies and agents to bring them together.

By planning, by reforming, by coming together, I am sure that our country can, at the same time, decide to have big, national ambitions and liberate the creativity and the initiatives all -- that we find all around our country.

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MACRON (through translator): Most of all, this will be the fundamental refounding of the democratic renaissance of our country. It will be institutional, political but it must be in our everyday actions. And everybody will have their part to play.

Ladies and gentlemen, our passion must show in these most difficult times. And it is often in difficult times we show our best side. It's often from tragedy that we will find the power to transcend these, to write in ink, in universal ink, the history of our country. This is where we are at.

As the century, we do not know where we go and with the issue, planetary issues, we must create a new path and show and be an inspiration. My conviction is already in place.

Let us have the courage to look at the real in face, to make our ideals more concrete instead of giving into nebulous solutions in the name of democracy, fraternity and secular ideals. Let us work together. How we are all together as this -- in this new

millennium that we bring together, under universal beliefs, let us continue to love the republic and everything it brings, the preeminence of public and general will help us.

The respect of law as a main duty of the social contract, let us love our country, our history and our heritage. Its geography, its landscape from the Pyrenees to the plains of Picardy, from top to bottom and left to right, this ancient nation with its great roots, which has offered the most wonderful dreams, humanist dreams, enlightenment, rights of man.

So yes, France has not finished, will never end inspiring the world. Because of what you have entrusted in me, French people, here I am ready to fulfill this duty. This trust you have in me is always fragile and I am aware that.

But it is the foundation of our government and our freedoms. Each day it will be just to you, the French people, I will be serving, serving the country, miracle of the will of man's belief in freedom, serving other citizens in the sense of duty and the love of our nation, serving our children and our youth.

I think of them particularly at this time and to whom I say this sermon to -- and I say, I will leave them a safer planet and a stronger living France. Long live the republic and long live France.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We're listening there to French president Emmanuel Macron, being inaugurated for his second term. The ceremony was taking place at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

He defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a runoff last month but now is facing a coalition of left-wing parties as he tries to retain majority in parliamentary elections in June.

I want to bring in Dominic Thomas, who's been watching with me there.

Dominic, we heard him start off with that phrase, "this is a time of crisis." And, you know, top of the speech he was talking about having to act in order to avoid aggression. He's referring to the war in Ukraine. Macron has sought to play a peacemaking role since the beginning of the war.

So what do you get a sense of here?

Will he continue to carve a path a bit separate from the other European nations to try to get Russia to the table?

Are we going to see Macron fall more in line with the rest of Europe and become even more confrontational perhaps with Russia on this issue?

THOMAS: I think that Emmanuel Macron is ideally poised now, particularly given the fact that the Merkel era is over in German, to assume the kind of leadership position in the European Union. He still controls the presidency until the end of the European Union,

until the end of the month of June. Of course, the distraction of the electoral campaign played a part in it.

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THOMAS: And the conflict in Ukraine is the number one priority. I think that, now that the election is out of the way he's got to focus on the legislatives.

With that in mind, it is absolutely clear that he remains committed to maintaining that foreign policy objective and to finding a solution to that conflict in Ukraine. And he has been a repeated interlocutor with President Putin, from his very early days in office. And I think he sees himself as a key broker in this conflict at the stage in the game.

BRUNHUBER: So many challenges, internationally and domestically. We will be following along throughout the day. Thank you so much, Dominic Thomas. We really appreciate it.

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BRUNHUBER: There have been no new evacuations reported yet today from Mariupol besieged Azovstal steel factory. Both Russia and Ukraine have said evacuations should continue. On Friday last 50 civilians were evacuated. Let's go to Isa Soares in Lviv, Ukraine.

Isa, on the steel factory, what more do we know about the evacuations there?

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Very good morning to you, Kim. We were expecting evacuations to take place, of course, earlier today. We have been told that we should be expected. And still, we're three hours in or so.

Remember, there is still about 100 or so civilians inside the Azovstal steel plant, looking for a way out. They've being really bombarded every single day. The intensity of this is increasing.

So we're keeping a very close eye on the city this morning to see if there are any developments, to get any good news, of course, as we have seen last few days, that Russia has promised, made a promise, of evacuating civilians. That hasn't happened with the exception of Friday.

We saw 50 civilians evacuated from Mariupol. The Russian military was seen escorting those two buses, said to be carrying some of those evacuees to the town east of Mariupol. Ukrainian officials say that they were later able to travel to Ukrainian-held territory.

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SOARES (voice-over): But you know, like I was saying, the sprawling factory has been under constant bombardment. President Zelenskyy is saying he's hoping to negotiate the safe evacuation of the soldiers. There's about 600 or so still inside.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are also working on diplomatic options to save our military who remain in Azovstal. Influential mediators are involved, including influential states.

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SOARES: Russia has been hastily putting its stamp where it can in Mariupol ahead of its victory day holiday on Monday. A Russian flag, that you can see flying above city hospital, signs have been changed from Ukrainian into Russian.

An advisor to Mariupol's mayor say that Soviet-era statues are appearing across the city. Meantime, reports that Ukrainian forces are in northeast Ukraine having some success against the Russians.

For the first time, Ukrainian general staff is accusing Russia of blowing up bridges to slow down Ukrainian counterattacks. A sign of course, that the offensive in Kharkiv might not be going well.

But Russia is touting progress in the region. It's saying it has destroyed a stockpile of Western weapons at a railway station northwest of Kharkiv. But CNN cannot independently verify either of those claims.

Jill Dougherty is at Georgetown University.

Jill, good morning to you. Let's talk about what we can expect on that May 9th parade. For years that you have been covering this. The significance probably shifted, maybe not.

What should we expect this year?

JILL DOUGHERTY, FORMER CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: I think it's one of the most important times for Russia in a very long time. As you know, that holiday -- it really is the biggest holiday in Russia.

It's filled with kind of not contradictory but very deep feelings of both victory, because Russia is celebrating the USSR's victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, but there is also a very large amount of suffering, understanding what the Soviet people went through. So it has always been very, very important.

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DOUGHERTY: But I think for President Putin, this has become kind of the core issue of his ideology, what makes Russia Russia. It really looks back to the past.

There's been increasing militarization in Russia of society. There are organizations, one group in particular, for young people, the young army, leading people, you know, into that understanding of their past in a very militarist way.

So that said, that's kind of the basis. What will be important, obviously, is what President Putin will say. He could, you know, no one really knows precisely.

Will he say mission accomplished, in some fashion?

He kind of has to I think for the Russian people to say that all the suffering, a lot of which they have not seen on state TV, I should add, all of this is worth it, what has been accomplished.

So there has to be that. He could also broaden it and say the fight against, this is all in quotes, of course but the fight against what he perceives as neo-Nazis is not over. So it's going to be a very important part. People of Russia will be watching and listening carefully. But so will the world.

SOARES: Yes. I do wonder, Jill, whether the messaging and the parade this year will have, obviously, a different significance, given the fact that, you know, it's not just about avoiding the repetition of horrors of war. More likely, perhaps, interpreting it as a warning against its enemies, given the show of force.

DOUGHERTY: Yes. It always is. On this day, there will be, May 9th, there will be missiles. There will be a parade. It's a show of force. But as we see the pictures of some of the parade preparations, you're going to get a lot of reference to 1945.

I think the president is going to link that and say what the grandparents accomplished back in 1945 is what these brave, young people, especially men, are accomplishing for Russia right now.

It really is emotionally linked for every Russian, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. It is what happened in 1945 because 27 million people died on that side, on the Russian Soviet side. So everybody has a relative.

This is very resonant. So the president is using, some would say exploiting, those emotions to build support for what he is doing now.

SOARES: And that, of course, what we are seeing with the Red Square this morning. We saw the dress rehearsals in Moscow for May 9.

What do you think, Jill, what do you think will be the message?

When you think we will see in Ukraine?

We're talking, of course, of Kherson and the independence of Kherson and the Russification of some of the territories they have taken. What do you think we're expected to see here?

DOUGHERTY: Well, I think on the issue of Russification and I've seen video and pictures on social media of a Soviet flag in the hands of a statue. This Soviet nostalgia is very big in Russia. It's a very strong tendency among some people.

So I think we're going to get echoes of that. It might be visual. It might be a flag raised, a little parade. No one knows precisely whether that can even happen under the circumstances. But I think, again, you're going to have emotional resonances. The problem will be, what can President Putin show concretely that he

has accomplished?

Right now, you know, you have, as everyone is saying and seeing the graphic in front of us, the war for Russia is not going well in Ukraine.

I think also, Isa, it helps President Putin expand the idea of who the enemy is here, because if the enemy is simply Ukraine, you know, fascist, quote, "neo-Nazis in Ukraine," then that is one thing.

But if the enemy gets broadened to NATO, the United States, the really big powers of the world, it makes I think Putin's message stronger. So I would not be surprised if you had hints, maybe not by name but it could be.

But I think broadening that idea, that the person, the entity that Russia's fighting against, is, again, in quotes, as Putin is displaying here.

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DOUGHERTY: He's trying to present it as Nazism, fascism and that Russia, once again, is leading the fight and saving the world. I think that is the message I expect to hear.

SOARES: Yes. I think the images of, you know, military strength is something you and I have seen pretty much every year. But it will be interesting to see what exactly he says. I'm sure many of us will be reading between the lines, as he, in regards to what he might declare come Monday. Jill Dougherty, I'm sure we'll talk later. Great to have you and your insight.

DOUGHERTY: Thank you.

SOARES: Tune in on Monday for a live coverage of victory day parade in Russia. We will have live coverage as troops and officials gather from 9 am Moscow time. That is 7 in the morning in London. And the parade is expected to get underway an hour later.

That does it for me here in Lviv. Back to you, Kim.

Thanks so much, Isa.

The eyes in the sky are playing a huge role in ground battles in Ukraine. Next, we'll see a brutal fight recorded in its entirety by a military drone. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM. We're tracking efforts to get civilians out of the besieged Azovstal

steel plant in Mariupol. Both Russia and Ukraine have both said evacuations should continue today but there haven't been any sides signs of them happening so far.

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BRUNHUBER: A number of civilians remain trapped in the underground bunkers in the complex as well as the last remaining Ukrainian defenders. On Friday about 50 civilians were rescued and made it to Ukrainian held territory.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he's working on diplomatic options to get the soldiers out safely as well. Ukraine's military says Russian forces have begun blowing up bridges east of Kharkiv to slow Ukraine counteroffensives.

Russia claims it has destroyed a stockpile of Western weapons in the Kharkiv region. CNN can't confirm either those claims independently.

So we'll show you the war in Ukraine from an entirely different perspective. It involves a ground battle, recorded in real time by a Russian military drone. The footage released from Pro Kremlin. Salma Abdelaziz says the video demonstrates how important drones have become on Ukrainian battlefields.

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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is drone warfare as Russia wants you to see it, Moscow's troops hunting down Ukrainian defenders in the town of Popasna, backed by surveillance from the skies.

We sat down with a military expert to parse through the 22 minutes of aerial footage released by Pro Kremlin channels.

ABDELAZIZ: What am I looking at here, this column?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are Russian forces there. The first soldiers moved into the trench to clear that trench.

ABDELAZIZ: Then we see that Ukrainian soldier popping out of that shed, over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Small arms fire taking place now. He's essentially pinned in that location. Whoever is on the drone will be speaking to the soldiers on the ground.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): This is close and intense combat with limited visibility. The Russian fighters here depend on the drone operator for a bird's-eye view and real-time intelligence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see him toss another grenade, this time he will be a little bit closer. He's done it properly this time. The fact that grenades did not kill him, I would be particularly surprised if he survived. ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Now watch this part carefully. The video

cuts. We are still looking at the same location. But now there are at least six captured men on the ground, reportedly Ukrainian defenders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can see the Russian soldiers that are marked with the white armbands and white legbands. We have a series of soldiers that appear to be prisoners, on the ground. We don't know where the soldiers have come from.

ABDELAZIZ: What is the plan for these guys?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have been told to take off their body armor. They have been stripped of their fighting capability immediately.

We have here a Russian soldier that looks like he is giving physical abuse to a prisoner of war that's on the ground just out of sight. They're looking for individuals of interest. They're looking for individuals of intelligence interest. And they will get taken away for questioning.

ABDELAZIZ: You can see him kicking that man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's quite normal. But it's interesting where they are going to next. It's a bit crowded in a prisoner of war pen. And within that pen, they will get searched in more detail, they will get questioned. And then they will go back to a centralized prison system.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The Ukrainian military's effective use of Turkish made drones helped it beat back Russian troops around Kyiv and other areas. Now the Kremlin wants the world to believe that it is capable of the same success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we are witnessing is that the Russians are being much slower to pick up the use of tactical drones than Ukrainians are.

ABDELAZIZ: Are you saying the message here is, look, we are really good at using drones too?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe it is. We also have propaganda material. This is effectively staged propaganda material.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): It's unclear when the footage was shot. But Russian troops are now largely in control of what is left of Popasna. And that's the other Kremlin tactic on display here: scorched Earth on the eastern flank.

Ukrainian troops have largely stood their ground, retreating if possible, surrendering when no options are left -- Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.

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BRUNHUBER: All right. Much more to come on CNN, including reports that North Korea has fired another ballistic missile. The latest from the region after the break.

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BRUNHUBER: Japan's defense ministry believes an identified projectile fired by Pyongyang could be a ballistic missile, that coming from the Japanese Coast Guard. South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said it was fired into the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, traveled at an altitude of 60 kilometers over a 600-kilometer trajectory.

I'm joined by CNN's Will Ripley in Taipei.

So yet another missile fired by North Korea, a real flurry of them this year. We're learning some disturbing things about this one.

What is the latest?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you just talked about the fact that the maximum altitude of this missile was only 60 kilometers. That is less than 40 miles, which means it could literally be launched from a submarine along the coastline of Japan or South Korea, hypothetically.

And it would fly under the radar and be essentially impossible for existing missile defense systems to shoot down or certainly very difficult. This is the kind of missile that could be launched by surprise. That is the nature of submarine warfare.

Even though North Korean submarines are diesel, they're loud, they're relatively easy to detach, unlike the United States nuclear submarine fleet, which are far more silent, stealthy, one of the reasons why the U.S. Navy is supreme in the Indo-Pacific is because of its submarines.

North Korea don't have anything close to the U.S. level of technology. But if they are demonstrating a submarine-launched ballistic missile that could travel, more than 370 miles inland, that is certainly an escalation and a major potential security threat when you're talking about an already volatile situation in an arms race.

Essentially, that has been happening in the Indo-Pacific region with China developing nuclears and hypersonics, North Korea developing the same. The U.S. is saying a North Korean nuclear test could happen possibly within the month.

That also echoed hours ago by the Japanese defense minister, who is speaking publicly about this submarine-launched ballistic missile. We know that the South Korea national security council held an emergency meeting. That meeting was held in the overnight hours of the East and in the afternoon hours here in Asia. The end result of that was strongly condemning North Korea for this

launch. President Moon Jae-in vowing to keep a readiness posture in the final three days of his presidency, because the new South Korean president takes office on May 10th.

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RIPLEY: You know, for Moon Jae-in, who had hoped to define his term by making peace with North Korea, the detente, the diplomacy that began with President Moon, continuing with former president Donald Trump, for him to end his years in office with this flurry of missile attacks, North Korea has conducted 14 missile tests this year.

More than 2020 and 2021 combined. It has to be a real gut punch for him. It's concerning a lot of people in the region to see what Kim Jong-un and the North Koreans are going to do next, as the world is essentially focused on Ukraine. And Kim's activities just seemed to continue and escalate almost unabated at this stage.

BRUNHUBER: Yet another in a long list of worrying developments there. Will Ripley, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

All right, coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, two sport legends in a sit- down interview.

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BRUNHUBER: I'm Kim Brunhuber. For viewers in the U.S. and Canada, "NEW DAY" is next. For everyone else, "HIDDEN TREASURES" is coming up. Stay with CNN.