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Russia: Video Shows Russian Soldiers Killed After Apparent Surrender To Ukrainian Forces, But Precise Details Of What Happened Are Unclear; 2 Men Face Charges For Alleged NYC Synagogue Threats; Twins Born From Embryos Frozen In 1992; NASA's Artemis Makes Its Closest Approach Yet To Moon. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired November 21, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:33:02]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, says Russia will do everything possible to search for and punish those it believes are responsible for committing war crimes.
Moscow says video circulated online shows Russian soldiers killed after surrendering to Ukrainian forces.
CNN has GEO located videos to the outskirts of Makiivka,
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Makiivka.
BLACKWELL: Makiivka. All right. A recently liberated village in the eastern Luhansk region.
GOLODRYGA: The edited video purports to show a group of Russian soldiers lying face down with their hands over their heads. More soldiers are seen emerging from a building and laying down next to the other troops in the yard.
A man can be heard yelling, "Come out, one by one. Which of you is the officer? Has everyone come out? Come out."
A short outburst of gunfire is heard before the video cuts off.
A second clip, shot from a drone, shows the same men dead on the ground surrounded by pools of blood.
BLACKWELL: We're unable to verify what happened in the first clip or what happened between the clips.
But we know from "Reuters" that the U.N. Human Rights Office is aware of the video and is investigating.
Russia's Ministry of Defense says it shows, quote, "a deliberate and methodical killing of more than 10 immobilized Russian servicemen."
GOLODRYGA: Executing prisoners of war is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Ukraine has also accused Russia of multiple war crimes since the
invasion began, including the continuous attacks against civilian infrastructure.
Let's bring in CNN senior international correspondent, Matthew Chance.
Matthew, Ukraine is now responding to Russian war crime accusations. What is Ukraine saying and has Russia commented on it?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, it's absolutely horrible video to watch. I mean, there's no doubting that. No one is denying that these soldiers were killed.
[14:34:58]
But what the Ukrainians are saying is they're rejecting this idea that this was an execution of Russian soldiers. This is what the Kremlin accuses the Ukrainians of carrying out.
They're saying the Ukrainian soldiers faked a surrender. They're saying that because, at the end of the video, which has been edited -- at the end of the video, you can hear gunshots. That's when the camera goes down and chaos breaks out.
You then have the video reappear from a drone with those dead bodies.
But the Ukrainians are saying faking a surrender itself is a war crime. Under those circumstances, the Ukrainian soldiers on the ground had every right to open fire, which is what they did.
They make the additional point that there wouldn't be any Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine if Russia hadn't invaded the country.
So this is the Ukrainian position, pushing back strongly on allegations that their soldiers on the ground committed war crimes in this instance -- Bianna?
BLACKWELL: I'll take it.
Matthew Chance, thank you.
For the first time ever, the world laid eyes on Kim Jong-Un's daughter at this weekend's latest missile launch. North Korean state media confirms the girl made her first public appearance Friday. These images appear to show Kim holding her hand. There you see it.
BLACKWELL: North Korea confirmed it launched a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile last week. And the weapon launch was sparked -- it sparked, rather, outrage from leaders around the world.
Have you heard about this? They were conceived 30 years ago but born a few weeks ago. Details on the longest frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth.
GOLODRYGA: Look at those babies. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:41:25]
GOLODRYGA: At least one person was killed and 16 others injured after a car drove through an Apple store in Hingham, Massachusetts, this morning.
The city's fire chief said responding units found multiple patients injured inside and outside of the store. And a few people were pinned against the wall by the car.
BLACKWELL: One doctor treating victims there said several people have life-threatening injuries. That investigation is active and ongoing.
GOLODRYGA: Meantime, here in New York, authorities say federal charges are being considered for the two men accused of threatening a synagogue in Manhattan. The two suspects were arrested over the weekend.
BLACKWELL: CNN's Brynn Gingras is here with details.
So what led up to these arrests?
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, a swift and coordinated effort between the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI and the NYPD.
Let's go back to just really over a week ago, November 12th, we're told by authorities that this online posting became alarming. They were able to trace some of those postings back to a computer used by one of the suspects.
I want to read to you one of the tweets that was so alarming. It said, "Gotta ask a priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die."
There were also postings about a date and time, but not a target of a possible synagogue.
Of course, you can image, sources are telling us there was a frantic effort within law enforcement to try to identify this person and also, of course, find them, which they did.
They sent out an alert to law enforcement cell phones last Friday, called a BOLO, be on the lookout for.
And two MTA officers -- the officers that sort of man the subway systems in New York City -- spotted this person, 21-year-old Chris Brown, along with a friend of his, Matthew Mayer, and they were both arrested.
As Bianna said, federal charges are a possibility. Right now, state charges are there for Chris Brown, terroristic threats along with a weapons charge. He is still behind bars.
The friend has bonded out on a criminal possession charge.
But the most alarming part of this, why was this such an imminent threat? I want to explain to you what law enforcement said they had in their possession. They had a swastika arm patch. They had a bulletproof vest, a long knife, a gun, a 30-round magazine, ski masks.
I mean, law enforcement was working so hard to find these people. And then, of course, to come across this.
I want you to hear from the mayor, his reaction to all of this.
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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY): To have a person armed -- have the means, the hate and the desire to carry out a crime of this magnitude is serious. We averted that step.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRAS: I mean, they really did. The mayor even saying, can you imagine someone having a swastika arm band in 2022 in New York? It's just so alarming. As it is, we know about what happened in Colorado. And of course, we've had other incidents here in the city.
So there's a strategic event to deploy resources around the city coming up to Thanksgiving. A number of reasons why law enforcement is being vigilant.
GOLODRYGA: A couple of weeks after the threats in New Jersey as well.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: Thank goodness for these quick-thinking law enforcement officers.
(CROSSTALK)
GOLODRYGA: Brynn, thank you.
BLACKWELL: Thanks, Brynn.
[14:44:33]
GOLODRYGA: Well, NASA's Orion space craft just did a lunar flyby just about 80 miles away from the moon's surface. Now what this means for the mission to put people back on the moon. We'll tell you up next.
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BLACKWELL: An Oregon couple may have just given birth to the world's oldest baby.
GOLODRYGA: This is an incredible story.
Twins, Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway, were born on October 31st after waiting in a frozen embryo lab since 1992. For those of you doing the math, that's 30 years ago.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta talked with the couple who gave birth to these history-making twins.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President of the United States --
(CHEERING)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In April of 1992, more than 30 years ago, the world was a lot different. Bill Clinton was running for president. Phones looked like this. I was 23 years old.
And at a small clinic, these embryos were frozen, suspended in time at nearly 200 degrees below zero, waiting patiently at the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.
That is until just a few weeks ago when twins, Timothy and Lydia, were born to Rachel and Philip Ridgeway of Oregon.
[14:50:01]
PHILIP RIDGEWAY, LYDIA AND TIMOTHY'S FATHER: When we heard about embryo adoption, we thought, that's something we would like to do and it's something we think we're able to do.
DR. SIGAL KLIPSTEIN, REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGIST: Adoption refers to living children, and it's a judicial order, it's a legal process by which a parent/child relationship is created when it did not previously exist.
GUPTA: Dr. Sigal Klipstein is a fertility specialist in Chicago and chairs the American Society of Reproductive Medicine's Ethics Committee. She was not involved in the Ridgeway's case.
KLIPSTEIN: Embryo donation is a medical procedure. It's a way by which we take embryos from one couple, or individual, and then transfer them into another individual in order to build families.
GUPTA: Freezing embryos is not a new technique. In fact, the first baby born from a frozen embryo was back in 1984.
But at a time, when medical science has pushed the boundaries of life earlier and earlier, a new question has arisen, how late is too late?
RACHEL RIDGEWAY, LYDIA AND TIMOTHY'S MOTHER: Going into this process, we wanted to choose children that, in our eyes, were the most unwanted, the most needy. The ones, in a lot of ways, that have been overlooked.
GUPTA: Intentionally or not, the Ridgeways have set a record. After 29 years and 10 months, the donated embryos are believed to be the oldest embryos ever to result in a live birth. P. RIDGEWAY: We weren't looking to get the oldest embryos that had
been frozen the longest in the world. We just wanted the ones that had been waiting at the NEDC the longest.
GUPTA: NEDC is a faith-based center. The center says they have now facilitated more than 1,200 births through donated embryos.
And according to the Society of Assisted Reproductive Medicine, the number of donated embryos has steadily climbed, from about 1,000 a year in 2013 to about 2,100 in 2020. Of which, around 40 percent result in a live birth.
R. RIDGEWAY: Dr. Gordon hands me a picture and I see the three of them. And then he said, so, you know, multiples, you know, can cause problems in pregnancy. And so, he goes, so at this point, I would recommend just transferring two. We'll put the third in the freezer. You guys can come back for it.
And so I looked back at Dr. Gordon and -- and started to get teary eyed and said, no, you just showed me a picture of my three children, I have to have them all.
DR. JOHN GORDON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, SOUTHEASTERN FERTILITY: I didn't think we would get triplets. I figured it would be more -- (INAUDIBLE), maybe a single pregnancy.
GUPTA: But during an ultrasound, they discovered they were having twins.
KLIPSTEIN: I don't think there's any risk to freezing embryos that's related to the number of years that the embryo is frozen. We have been cryo-preserving embryos for nearly 40 years and there's not been an increased risk to the babies or to the pregnant women.
What makes the embryo a good quality oftentimes is the age of the woman at the time that she donated eggs. And so the younger the woman, the more likely that embryo is going to be chromosomally normal.
GUPTA: For the Ridgeways, it's all part of something larger, something they view as a personal mission.
P. RIDGEWAY: Well, it's hard to wrap your mind around it. I was five years old when God gave life to -- to Lydia and Timothy. In a very real sense, they're our oldest children, even though they're our smallest children.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: That's fantastic.
GOLODRYGA: Imagine having that conversation at the kitchen table. Let me tell you guys a story about when you were conceived.
BLACKWELL: I wonder if they have an inclination to like Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer because that really from that era.
GOLODRYGA: I love that those are your questions you ask.
(LAUGHTER)
BLACKWELL: I feel like Sanjay answered the important ones and then --
(LAUGHTER)
GOLODRYGA: -- growing up.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
[14:53:40]
All right, Team USA is on the pitch, taking on Wales. More on the match and the latest controversy surrounding the World Cup tournament, just ahead.
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[14:58:31]
GOLODRYGA: NASA is marking a major milestone today in its mission to return to the moon.
BLACKWELL: The Artemis Orion capsule passed just about 80 miles above the lunar surface. The agency tweeted this image captured by the capsule's cameras.
Wow, that's fantastic.
GOLODRYGA: Amazing.
BLACKWELL: NASA is describing this as a huge step in its mission to one day put humans back on the moon.
CNN's space and defense correspondent, Kristen Fisher, joins us.
Big day for NASA.
KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a really big day. And probably the most visually stunning of this entire Artemis 1 mission, aside from the launch of the Artemis rocket, which was just five days ago.
To be very clear, guys, what we're talking about is the Orion spacecraft, that little capsule that was sitting on top of that rocket that launched five days ago.
And so this morning, it made its closest flyby of the moon. You can see it in that video right there approaching the moon. And that little blue spot in the bottom of the screen, that, of course, is us. That's earth.
So the spacecraft got very close to the moon. On the far side of the moon, it lost communications. And that is really where the money shot is going to be.
And we still don't have it yet, guys. We're waiting for it. But what you are going to see is an up-close view of the moon as the spacecraft flies over it just 80 miles above the surface.
[14:59:47]
Victor and Bianna, it also passed right over Tranquility Base, which is where Apollo 11 famously landed back in 1969. So we should be getting good images of that as well.
