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CNN International: NATO Chief: Ukraine Must Get The Weapons It Needs To "Win This War"; Ukraine In Focus As NATO Defense Ministers Meet Today; Rescuers In Southern Turkey Hearing Voices Under Rubble; Death Toll Tops 36,000 As Focus Turns To Humanitarian Aid; U.S. Shoots Down Unidentified Objects Over North America; Three Killed In Michigan State Univ. Shooting, Suspect Dead; Cyclone Gabrielle Battering New Zealand; Why Is Russia Facing Heavy Losses On The Battlefield?; Vermeer Exhibition Stuns With Scientific Revelations. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 14, 2023 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:00]

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, NATO Allies meeting in Brussels to discuss how to coordinate military aid to Ukraine. But one thing is clear, the NATO chief says sending fighter jets is not the most important issue.

Then rescue workers in Turkey say they're still finding survivors in the rubble more than a week after that devastating earthquake. We'll have the latest. And an exclusive look at the masterpieces created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, in a way you've never seen them before.

NATO Defense Ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss boosting ammunition supplies to Ukraine. The Alliance Chief says the tools come at a critical time with the first-year anniversary of Russia's invasion just days away now. But Jens Stoltenberg stress the focus must be on delivering what has already been promised. And he said the decision on whether to send fighter jets is not the most important issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Because we need to ensure that Ukraine gets the weapons it needs to be able to retake territory, liberate the lands and win this war and prevail as a sovereign independent nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, defense officials from a U.S. led group of Ukrainian allies are also meeting in Brussels today. CNN's Nic Robertson following developments. And he joins us now from Warsaw, in Poland. Obviously, a big focus in Poland on the tanks and all the training required for those rests and tanks, but also looking towards other meetings where there's a potential, even for small potential to get fighter jets to.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, and it's interesting that just a couple of days ago here, President Duda of Poland, who has been at the forefront of sort of pushing NATO allies to get tanks to Ukraine, and that curdle has finally been crossed. And we were watching Ukrainian troops for the first time getting to train on the Polish Leopard 2 tanks that German made, but the Poles is going to be donating 14 of them.

About a week of that training, we've been watching that. But the President here has said that he also doesn't feel that now is the moment for fighter jets. And we heard I think perhaps the central issue of why this view is being taken at the moment in Brussels today from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, saying, look, unity is the big thing here that we've achieved. Unity is important.

So by not trying to rush through a decision on the fighter jets that keeps the unity at NATO. As we've been hearing there from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, now's not the time for fighter jets. He said need to get the tanks, there need to get the fighting vehicles there. Because that's what's going to give Ukraine the advantage.

He says, look, it's very clear. Putin is not headed for peace. In fact, the opposite, he says. It's very clear that Putin is heading for renewed offensive. So the need is there. And we got to center that here yesterday as well at that military training exercise. Poland's defense minister saying, look, you know, when it comes to these Leopard 2 tanks German-made, here we are training up 21 Different Ukrainian tank crews. It'll be sped up, it'll happen quickly. It'll happen space of a month.

But he said the big issue now is the spare parts for the tanks. This is not -- these parts aren't held in vast numbers in inventories across NATO allies and partners that are giving the tank. So he said he'll be speaking with a German defense minister today about that to get that commitment to ramp up delivery of spare parts.

Again that fits in with Jens Stoltenberg message more ammunition, war of attrition. Russia has got a lot of ammo and equipment. NATO's got to manufacture more the spare parts the ammunition.

FOSTER: OK, Nic Robertson in Warsaw, thank you.

Now, eight days after that massive earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, rescue teams in southern Turkey say they're still hearing voices from beneath the rubble. Those crews are following the voices and managing miraculously in some cases to pull survivors from the debris. On Tuesday, two brothers 17 and 21 years old were rescued from a demolished eight storey building after being trapped for almost 200 hours. They told rescuers there was another person alive beneath them.

160 kilometers away, rescuers freed an 18-year-old man from the rubble through a tunnel but hope is beginning to fade with the death toll now at more than 36,000. In some areas, rescues shifting to recovery and many survivors completely at the mercy of humanitarian workers. [08:05:09]

SABRI AL SALAMEH, SYRIAN EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR (through translation): The needs of the displaced are known, a tent, food and water. We received food aid and many good people helped. We now only need food and water not more than that. Thank God we now took refuge in this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN reporter Nada Bashir has the latest from Istanbul.

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, eight days on since Turkey was struck by a devastating earthquake and rescue teams say they are still hearing voices from beneath the rubble. a 10-year-old girl in the early hours of Tuesday morning was pulled out and finally rescued. But the window for finding survivors is closing very, very quickly. And this is now shifting from more of a rescue effort to more of a recovery effort.

And the focus really now is on providing aid and support to those impacted by the earthquake. Thousands of people left homeless as a result. And we've been visiting some of the aid donation centers here in Istanbul, volunteers at one center working around the clock to sort through these donations including blankets, clothes, toiletries, medication and electric heaters because of course it is so cold in the southern eastern part of the country.

But the message that we're hearing from coordinators is that they need more support, more donations, more aid, not only from the Turkish government but also from the international community. But it has to be said that the aid program here in southeastern Turkey and across the country has proven far more robust than the aid entering northwest Syria.

The U.N., according to a statement has now reached an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to open a further to crossings from Turkey into northwestern Syria in order to allow aid to get across. But there is still the question of cross line a transfers, that is aid that has been sent to Damascus which is under government control being transferred onwards to the northwest rebel-held territories of Syria.

Now, the government says and claims that they will allow aid to be transferred through this route. However, that hasn't happened yet. And aid groups say they haven't been offered a timeline or any routes that they may be able to use and they are in desperate need of this aid.

More than 4 million people in northwest Syria will already heavily dependent on humanitarian assistance as a result of years and years of war at the hands of President Bashar al-Assad and now their lives have been completely devastated once again. But the message from the White Helmets who have been leading on that search and rescue effort is that this is simply too little too late.

Nada Bashir in Istanbul. FOSTER: A little more than a week after suspected Chinese spy balloon was shut down, the U.S. military says it shut down three more unidentified flying objects in North American airspace. Out of an abundance of caution, they say. It's unclear what the objects purposes were or who they belong to. According to a Pentagon memo obtained by CNN, one of the objects shot down by Canadian or in Canadian airspace was a small metallic balloon.

The White House is trying to tamp down on a flurry of conspiracy theories. The U.S. says the objects were not from outer space or alien life. CNN Senior White House Correspondent MJ Lee joins us live from Washington. It does really sort of expose, you know, how much confusion there is here when they're actually talking about the possibility that it could be aliens?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's absolutely right. You know, it has become very clear over the last few days, that the Biden administration really doesn't have a ton of answers. We saw this on full display inside the White House briefing room behind me yesterday on questions like, what do these three objects look like? Where do they come from? Who owns them? Did they definitely not have any surveillance capabilities?

These were all questions that the administration could not directly answer at this point in time. But the one thing that the White House did say definitively, clearly was that the objects that were shot down at the direction of President Biden, were not UFOs. We are told that officials have been pretty sensitive to the reality that all of this has sort of a mysterious nature to them that it is sort of right for conspiracy theories.

And that a decision was made that even if the administration can't sort of provide a ton of concrete information about those three objects, that they felt that it was important to at least rule out what these objects were not, again, that they didn't have anything to do with extraterrestrial activity.

Now, one official told CNN everyone wants answers that no one has at the moment. But again, the one thing that they did want to rule out as quickly as possible was that these objects that were down were not UFOs. I will tell you, though, we do have a new reporting this morning from a senior administration official telling us that it is very possible that the three objects that are trying to be recovered right now, that they may actually never be recovered.

[08:10:12]

That the debris ended up falling in all three instances in areas that are so remote, so challenging to search, including the bottom of a lake that is very deep, that it is very possible that the recovery efforts just may not go well. And that in that situation, we are looking at the possibility that the U.S. and Canada may never really know exactly what these objects were.

Now, we haven't heard President Biden addressing this issue directly in the last couple of days. But what we are seeing are senior administration officials trying to get as much information out there as possible. They're making themselves available to lawmakers here in Washington on Capitol Hill.

There are classified briefings, unclassified briefings, but the big question right now is how much information can they even share in the settings because they made pretty clear that as the recovery effort goes on, there are still just so many unanswered questions. And that's something that the administration really is grappling with right now.

FOSTER: OK, MJ, thank you very much indeed for joining us. So we may never know at all what were -- what those other objects were.

Another deadly mass shooting in the United States. The gunman opening fire at a university in Michigan on Monday night killing three people and critically wounding five others that happened at Michigan State University in the city of East Lansing.

You see students running for their lives, screaming for help as heavily armed police swarming. Gunfire erupted at two locations on campus sparking an hour's long manhunt. Police say it ended when the gunman apparently took his own life. They aren't sure of his motive, just saying he was a 43-year-old man not affiliated with the University. Students are still in shock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's terrifying, man. It really is. We don't know what to do at all. We're just listening to police scanners hoping for the best.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never think it's going to happen until it actually happens. You know, you think you're safe. And then we all thought we were safe on the second floor in the cafeteria, but obviously, we weren't. We were told to evacuate. We all ran out, was terrifying. It's pretty scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN's Adrienne Broaddus has that more for us now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS ROZMAN, INTERIM DEPUTY CHIEF, MSU DEPT. OF POLICE & PUBLIC SAFETY: This truly has been a nightmare that we are living tonight.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chaos and carnage at Michigan State University after police say a 43-year-old shooter opened fire at two separate locations on campus. Investigators say there was a confrontation. And then the 43-year-old ended his own life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were there locked in the rooms and the guys are telling us to run out the back door as quick as we can and run for our lives. And I sprinted out there as fast as I can into the woods.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all thought we were safe on the second floor in the cafeteria, but obviously, we weren't. We were told to evacuate. We all ran out, was terrifying. It's pretty scary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my god.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Students captured on this cell phone video running for their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to get something in front of the door?

BROADDUS (voice-over): Some students say they sheltered in place in the cafeteria, listening to police reports. Once they realized the shots were getting closer. They started barricading themselves in the room.

GABE TREUTLE, STUDENT WITNESS: The SWAT and the cops came in and they all told us to get out of the cafeteria. So we all started on the stairs.

BROADDUS (voice-over): About 1.5 mile from the university, East Lansing high schools district board meeting was interrupted and the building also on lockdown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've been advised by LPD to remain here and go into lockdown right now.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Police were on scene within minutes.

ROZMAN: We had officers in the building following their active shooter protocol and going towards the threat. While officers were in Berkey Hall, the suspect moved over to the Union. And when the incident took place there, officers quickly redeployed to the union.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Students and faculty were left sheltering for hours. Many students were evacuated but say they left confused and shaken.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was looking for my friends because like when everyone was running down the stairs like everyone got lost all over the place and it just like people are crying and scared. It's just a really bad experience. You don't take it seriously until it's happening to you.

BROADDUS (voice-over): This shooting is the 67th mass shooting in the U.S. so far this year.

TERESA K. WOODRUFF, PRESIDENT, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: Our campus grieves. We will all grieve and we will change over time. We cannot allow this to continue to happen again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now, New Zealand remains under a national state of emergency after cyclone pounded the island nation. Cyclone Gabrielle's relentless wind, rain and waves battering North Island. The declaration enables the government to provide additional resources.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [08:15:06]

CHRIS HIPKINS, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER (through translation): Cyclone Gabrielle is the most significant weather event New Zealand has seen this century. The severity and the breadth of the the damage that we are seeing has not been experienced in a generation. This morning we declared a national emergency for only the third time in our history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Meteorologists predict gale force winds impacting North and South Island will gradually taper off though by Wednesday afternoon.

Still to come, nearly a year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it's a grinding war of attrition. Moscow has the clear advantage so why isn't Russia winning?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Welcome back. Why is Russia facing such heavy losses on the battlefield? We'll take a look at this video that we've had in from nearby a Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. So the Ukrainians are up on a hill in the town, and the Russians are heading towards that town along this column.

But as you can see, the tanks are pretty much sitting ducks surrounded by minefields laid by the Ukrainians. And once the tanks have been taken out, you can see soldiers making their way on foot up towards the hill, again, very, very exposed. And what you're not seeing here is the many bodies lying on the floor in that area

Let's speak to David McKenzie. He's been looking at all of these videos. The Russians do know what they're doing, don't they? This isn't just complete chaos. This is part of a broader strategy presumably.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the broader strategy is to push through those lines, those defensive lines that the Ukrainians have had the ability, Max, to dig in over the past few months. But if you look at that specific series of battles that we've been reviewing and talking to experts about, there really does seem, according to those experts, are a lack of learning capacity by Russian forces to avoid some of the pitfalls that they saw at the beginning of this war.

Because you have these armored mechanized units as it were moving through heavily fortified sections with the Ukrainians at a distinct advantage in terms of the scope of their battle and taking very, very heavy losses. So based on that one little slice of this vast eastern front line, it does appear that Russians are throwing a lot at this conflict, but with huge cost, and that is borne out by these images from Vladivostok, which show the colors of some of the units that are fighting in Vuhledar and the impact of this conflict.

[08:20:00] I think In other parts of the east there has been more success by Russian fighters and private military contractors. But it's certainly not the quick gains or the gains close to this anniversary that Putin would have wanted.

FOSTER: And those sorts of images don't help the campaign at home, do they, trying to convince Russians that it is a successful effort heading up to that anniversary, but presumably they're not seeing any of these images.

MCKENZIE: Well, it's a very difficult space, information space in Russia, as my colleagues have been reporting and the Kremlin will try to put a positive spin on the war, even by calling it something other than the war for many months. And people don't always get to see those images.

But there's also a separate architecture of military bloggers, online and elsewhere that have heavily criticized the Kremlin in recent days for the tactics that are being used on those frontline -- the frontline areas of the fight and the lack of progress. Max?

FOSTER: OK. David McKenzie in Kyiv, thank you.

Still ahead, up close and in astonishing detail, and exclusive look at the masterpieces created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, in a way that you've never seen them before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: The 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is known as the master of light and now his artwork has been subjected to a new kind of scrutiny. There'll be featured for the first and likely the last time an exhibit at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.

Nick Glass explains in this CNN exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK GLASS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): For a glorious 90 minutes, we had the place to ourselves. For me, his paintings, their beauty, their size, demand intimacy and quiet. And here was an opportunity to spend quality time with his most famous creation.

(on-camera): This is rare. I've been an art correspondent for something like 20 years, and to be alone with a painting like this, girl with the pearl earring, it's extraordinary. And she's not alone.

(voice-over): The Rijksmuseum has pulled off an astonishing artistic coup, the greatest familiar show of this or any other lifetime 28 of the 34, the 37 attributed works for me himself would never have seen so many of his paintings all together in one place.

TACO DIBBITS, DIRECTOR, RIJKSMUSEUM: It's very exciting. I've kind of had this dream of having all the paintings together. Obviously, there are only about 37 paintings by Vermeer, that having 28 here is something we would have never thought possible. GLASS (on-camera): The Lacemaker from the Louvre in Paris. Girl with the red hat from the National Gallery in Washington. Girl reading a letter at an open window from the Gemaldegalerie in Dresden, Germany.

Remember that I saw for the first time two paintings by Vermeer at the National Gallery London and I think I fainted a little bit. There's such a glowing light in the paintings. And since, then I feel visiting (ph) here.

[08:25:15]

GLASS (voice-over): Vermeer has been under intense scrutiny in another way in the lab, and the infrared another light, they've adapted specialist techniques, first used by NASA to map minerals on Mars and the Moon. It amounts to non-invasive Fine Art archaeology.

IGE VERSLYPE, PAINTINGS CONSERVATOR, RIJKSMUSEUM: It says if you're looking over his shoulder and see what he's doing.

GLASS (voice-over): We didn't know it. But Vermeer never stopped experimenting.

ANNA KREKELER, PAINTINGS CONSERVATOR, RIJKSMUSEUM: If you see the underlying paint layers, for example, the under paint, he really put on kind of fast and rough brush strokes to define light and shadow. For example, in the tablecloth, you have areas where he -- where there's black under paint, like here and here at the darkest shadows and then on top where the light hits the table, he used a white underpinned.

GLASS (voice-over): And behind her, the wall.

KREKELER: Here was a fire basket, a large element to dry your clothes. And then here was a joke wreck with ducks hanging on it.

GLASS (voice-over): We've known for a long time that Vermeer was a genius with paints and a brush. But only now are we beginning to understand how precisely he did it.

Nick Glass, CNN, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Amazing chance for Nick there. Now, a mysterious display on one of the Wonders of the Solar System. For the first time in years, spokes have been appearing it seems on the rings of Saturn. These pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope show them gliding along the surface of the rings.

Scientists aren't really sure what causes them. They suspect their icy particles which are levitated by variations in the planet's magnetic fields. They hope to test that theory as the Hubble Telescope collects more data though.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. World Sport with Amanda Davies is up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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