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War Crimes Trial of Russian Soldier Resumes in Kyiv; Biden Arrives in South Korea to Begin First Asia Trip; Parts of U.S. Threatened by Fires, Hight Temps, Droughts. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired May 20, 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]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: First war crimes trial of this conflict is resuming right now in a Kyiv courtroom. Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin admits killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the early days of the war. Prosecutors have asked for life in prison. There was high drama in the courtroom the day before Shishimarin was directly confronted by the man's widow. CNN's Melissa Bell is following this for us and joins us from Kyiv. So, this is just getting started now. What are we expecting to hear today -- Melissa?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, those proceedings just inside the courtroom outside of which I'm standing now, Kim, back under way. Vadim Shishimarin that 21-year-old accused and who has now pled guilty to killing an unarmed civilian, a the 62-year-old man on the fourth day of the war up in the north of Ukraine in the Sumy region. Not very far from the border with Russia.

He is now back in that courtroom and he's expected to testify again today. We're expecting to get more information from him. And I think that that's important because that's been one of the most interesting aspects of went on yesterday, Kim, to hear firsthand from these young soldiers. Because we didn't only hear from Shishimarin, we heard from another soldier who'd been with him that day about the circumstances in which this happened.

Essentially their tank column had gotten -- had hit a mine, they'd gotten stuck. They escaped in a stolen car. And the chaos that ensued in that car was really what we got a sense of yesterday listening to both young soldiers. There were several soldiers traveling in the car. They saw the unarmed civilian on a bicycle on his phone -- not very far from his home -- and Shishimarin said both soldiers was given the orders to shoot that man. Which he initially refused and then carried out because the other soldier in the car senior to them gave him the strict order to go ahead and do it.

So just fascinating details about exactly what it was like for these young soldiers engaging, remember, Kim, in a special operation that they didn't understand very much about. There was also, as you just said, she's that extraordinary moment when the widow of the man who -- Shelypova was the man who was killed on that day got to confront Vadim Shishimarin. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATERYNA SHELYPOVA, WIDOW OF OLEKSANDR SHELYPOV (through translator): You can please tell me what did you feel when you killed my husband?

VADIM SHISHIMARIN, RUSSIAN SOLDIER ON TRIAL (through translator): Shame.

SHELYPOVA (through translator): Do you repent?

SHISHIMARIN (through translator): Yes. I acknowledge my fault. I understand that you will not be able to forgive me but I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: An extraordinary moment there between Kateryna Shelypova and Vadim Shishimarin. And in the exchange, as a continued, almost got more interesting still when she said, you know, you came here to protect me. Who did you protect me from? Did you protect me from my husband? Alluding to, you'll remember, the justification that Vladimir Putin had given inside Russia for this invasion of Ukraine, not calling it a war, calling it a special operation. Explaining that it was all about protecting Ukrainians themselves from their own government. So, it really takes us back to those first few days and to the chaos and fear that there would have been amongst these foot soldiers of the Russian army.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, lots of emotion there on both sides, I guess. Melissa Bell live for us in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Well right now, the U.S. President Joe Biden has just arrived in South Korea. So right now, you're looking at live pictures there of Osan Air Base where Air Force One just landed. And this is President Biden's very first Asia trip as president. And he's expected to meet South Korea's new president to reaffirm America's support amid intensifying provocations from North Korea. So, as we await the president coming down those steps, let's bring back CNN's Kevin Liptak. And he is live in Seoul. So, Kevin, first the logistics. Take us through the time line of his visit.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, certainly the president has just arrived here in South Korea. It's almost a 15 hour flight from Washington, certainly the longest journey that the president has taken since he took office. And there was a refueling stop there in Alaska.

But it is interesting when you look at the course of the president's day. He started the day Thursday meeting with the leaders of Sweden and Finland at the White House to talk about their desire to join NATO.

[04:35:00]

And so, you really see the president's quote/unquote pivot to Asia happening sort of in real time. He's focused on Ukraine in the morning and then he turns to get on the plane and come here to South Korea. And that sort of demonstrative of the president's whole foreign policy really. The president has said that he wants to make Asia a centerpiece of his sort of global outlook. Mainly with the goal of countering China, both in the military space and in the economic space.

But of course, these other foreign hot spots have bubbled up and consumed so much of the president's time. And the latest is of course, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And what White House officials say is of course, the president can focus on two things at once and that in fact, the president's ability to rally allies behind the sanctions regime against Russia is very reassuring to his partners in Asia. Who look at the global outlook and wonder what might be coming down the pike here.

And so, the president is here. He's about to come out of Air Force One. The first thing he'll do is be met on the ground. We're told that the Korean foreign minister is here -- is at Osan rather -- to meet him as is the commander, the army commander of U.S. Forces Korea. Obviously, a major military -- American military presence here in South Korea. So certainly, that's a focus of the president's while he is here.

And then from Osan, he will drive over to a Samsung plant that is manufacturing semiconductors, microchips, and this is really a critical message that the president wants to bring first thing here is South Korea, is the importance of these very critical technology for cars. And there's been a shortage of them globally that has affected car manufacturing in the United States. And the president is working to wean the United States off its reliance on Chinese semiconductors, hopefully to make more of them at home and of course make them in South Korea as well.

So, you really start to see the economic component of the trip materializing as well. So, the president has just landed, taking his time of course, freshening up maybe to get off the plane and really make his first step on Asian soil as president.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, we're just waiting as that door of Air Force One is open. It is taking him a while to make this first trip to Asia, as you said, but he is here at Osan Air Force Base just outside of Seoul. And there we have President Biden striding down the steps.

LIPTAK: Yes, and it's interesting, he's wearing a mask. Of course, the president and his aides have gone sort of back and forth about mask mandates on airplanes. Here in South Korea, mask wearing is very prominent. It's required indoors and most people still wear them outdoors as well. So, the president clearly sort of adhering to the local custom.

He has taken it off as he is greeting these folks on the tarmac. I believe that would be the Korean foreign minister, sort of the highest ranking official to greet the president on the tarmac. And then he will make his way down to these other officials. Some other U.S. military officials who are here to greet him. There's the top American diplomat in South Korea, the charge d'affaires. There isn't a confirmed ambassador in South Korea yet. The president has nominated a career diplomat to that post, but he hasn't been confirmed yet. So, the top American diplomat here to greet the president as well.

And this is an interesting moment. This is the first time the president has been in Asia since taking office, and certainly he probably would have liked to have come here a little earlier in his presidency. His predecessors both came to Asia within their first years in office. But of course, the coronavirus pandemic restrictions have hampered the president's ability to travel, as have these other crises that have popped up. As I said, the war in Ukraine that has consumed so much of the president's time.

But now the president at last has come to Asia and he has been sort of building up to this trip in the past several weeks. He hosted the leaders of the Southeast Asian Collective called ASEAN, at the White House a week or two ago. As sort of beginning this turn to focus on Asia.

And now the president greeting the American military members as well. That's something that the president's aides say that he does want to focus on while he is here in South Korea. He is opting not to go to the Korean demilitarized zone unlike his predecessors. He has been there before. He went as vice president.

[04:40:00]

But The National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on the way over to South Korea that they thought it was more important to meet American service men and women who are on the ground here, that is something the president likes to do in nearly every foreign -- I think he's met with servicemen in every foreign trip that he's taken so far. So that's something that he will also do sort of over the course of his visit in the next two days -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Well, Kevin, let me ask you, hanging over all of this visit, we're expecting some sort of weapons test by the North Koreans, which I believe is a first while a U.S. president is visiting. So first off, concretely, are they taking any extra sort of security precautions or special protocols? And then more broadly, how are the U.S. and South Korea going to respond to this, what are the options?

LIPTAK: Well, in terms of securities protocols, I don't think that the White House would lay them out ahead of time. But certainly, whenever the president travels to South Korea or anywhere in the world, there is a massive security contingent that accompanies him. So, I'm not sure that they are necessarily worried about that so much for the security component. But certainly, the optics of it would be very troubling and what the White House says is that they have prepared contingencies with their allies. They have consulted with leaders in Japan and South Korea should one of these tests take place. Whether it's North Korea's seventh underground nuclear test or a test of a long range inter ballistic missile. They say that they are prepared for that and they actually do believe that North Korea could be doing it.

They say they've seen signs that North Korea is actually fueling up one of their long range missiles. So that's clearly an indication that they may be considered something. Now, what we would see when that happens, we haven't gotten a concrete outline, but I think that you can expect the president to immediately confer with his South Korean counterpart and maybe come together in some sort of show of resolve.

And what Jake Sullivan said on the plane today, was that it would of course force the United States and South Korea to reconsider forced postures on the ground. The various deterrent effects that the U.S. and South Korea have in place. And so that would be quite a striking demonstration of the threat that North Korea still poses to this region. Even as the world is sort of focused elsewhere in Ukraine, that would be as clearest sign as any that North Korea's nuclear ambitions have not faded at all. That it wants to sort of thrust itself back into the collective global consciousness after sort of a period of quiet for the last several years.

And so, the president knows that is a possibility going forward. But as you said, that has never happened while a president is in Asia. It's happened, you know, when I was covering President Obama, there was an underground nuclear test shortly after the president departed a conference in Laos. The North Koreans had threatened missile tests shortly before the president arrived for an earlier conference in Asia. So, it's not necessarily unheard of that they would use these kind of visits for that sort of test.

But certainly, that's something that the president is thinking a lot about. And just to note, I think that we also saw there on the tarmac the U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo really kind of focusing on the economic and trade aspects of this trip. That's a big component of what the president will be talking about here in Asia as well.

BRUNHUBER: All right, and we just saw him get into his limo here as he heads off as you outlined his schedule. He is eventually going to go and meet with South Korea's president and then continue on to Japan. Eventually to talk with the leaders of the quad of Australia, India and Japan. And so, we'll continue covering his trip here. Thank you so much, Kevin Liptak, reporting for us from Seoul. Really appreciate that. And we will have more news after this short break. Please do stay with us.

[04:45:00]

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BRUNHUBER: The suspect in Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo, New York appeared in court on Thursday as investigators focus on a private social media chat he created just before the rampage. Payton Gendron had been indicted by a grand jury and so far, faces a charge of first- degree murder. A source says 15 people were part of the "discord" chat he started before the shooting. The suspect started that chat before the shooting spree which left 10 people dead and wounded three others in what is believed to be a racially motivated attack. One victim's daughter couldn't hold back tears. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN WHITFIELD, DAUGHTER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: That racist young man took my mother away. I am the eldest daughter of Ruth Whitfield. She was my best friend. What am I to do? What am I supposed to do now?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: The first funerals for the victims will be held later today.

Well, parts of the U.S. are experiencing above normal high temperatures and it's making this year's wildfire season even worse. We'll have details from the CNN Weather Center ahead. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Parts of the U.S. are being threatened by wildfires. New Mexico is seeing the largest fire in the nation this year. In just a month the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires have burned through more than 300,000 acres and it's only 34 percent contained. And in Texas, the Mesquite Heat fire has burned almost 10,000 acres and it's only around 5 percent contained as of Thursday. Officials say nearly 30 structures have been destroyed and dozens of homes lost.

Joining me now is meteorologist Derek Van Dam. Derek, so much fire, so much destruction.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It has been a grueling fire season so far and we're talking about only middle of May. So, let's try to put it into context for you at home. Because we have burned nearly twice the year to date average acres so far this fire season. And again, it is only May 20th as we speak. So just incredible to look at these statistics.

Because through the course of the year already, we've had 26,000 wildfires across the U.S. burning just shy of 1.5 million acres. On a 10 year average, we should only see about 800,000 acres burned up to this date. So really saying something about our season so far. There are currently 17 large active fires across the U.S. Seven states being impacted by those wildfires.

Here's one of those wildfires coming out of central Texas. The Mesquite Heat fire billowing smoke into the upper levels of the atmosphere. Also, think about what that does to the quality of the air across that immediate area as well. Central and western Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Arizona under critical fire dangers today once again. We start to sound like a broken record here. Because it has been day in and day out about similar weather conditions and unfortunately our long standing drought impacting these fire conditions as well.

We've got our Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fire now sitting at 40 percent containment, so some slight improvements there. That's good news. But still we're talking about a wildfire that has scorched over 300,000 acres and that has put it at the largest wildfire in New Mexico's history. Kim already mentioned that, but just sounding to see some of the footage coming out of this region. The firefighters battling such difficult circumstances and weather conditions, changing winds, changing weather patterns and that just complicates things on the ground. And you can see how dangerous that can be.

And I just wish that we could bring some of the moisture just to the north. We're talking about a couple hundred miles north of that fire, there is a full-fledged winter storm taking place across the Colorado Rockies. They're going to be dumped on with snowfall. We're talking about over 2 feet in some higher locations.

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If only, if only, we could take some of that moisture and help extinguish some of the fires just to its south -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, I wish it worked that way. Derek Van Dam, thanks so much.

Tiger Woods had a disappointing first round at golf's second major of the year, the PGA Championship. The 15-time major golf champ shot 4 over par appearing to grimace several times while playing on his surgically repaired leg. Woods had a horrific car accident last February. He joked his leg has felt better before. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIGER WOODS, 15-TIME MAJOR CHAMPION: I drove it well, but my actual scoring was not very good. I didn't get the ball very close. I got off to a great start and didn't keep it going. And I really didn't give myself any looks for birdie. You know, I was struggling trying to get the ball on the green and I missed quite a few iron shots both ways. So, it was a frustrating day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Tiger and the rest of the field tee off for the second round in a few hours. Rory McElroy has the first round lead.

In the U.S. basketball playoffs, the Boston Celtics have earned their eastern conference final series against the Miami Heat. The Celtics easily defeated the Heat 127-102 as Marcus Smart had 24 points to go along with 12 assists. Best of seven series now shifts to Boston for game three on Saturday.

Well, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber "EARLY START" is next with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. You are watching CNN.

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