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CNN INTERNATIONAL: Ukraine: Battle For Bakhmut Grows "Extremely Tense"; Vladimir Putin Addresses His Federal Security Service; Belarusian Pres. Lukashenko To Begin State Visit To China; American- Israeli Man Fatally Shot In West Bank; Independent National Electoral Commission: Tinubu In Lead So Far; Voters, Politicians, Observers Complain Of Irregularities; Has A New Era Of U.K.-E.U. Relations Begun?; Fast-Growing Area In Utah Running Out Of Water. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 28, 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]

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In terms of whether and that's led to changes on the ground that really are making it very difficult for the Ukrainians to defend this key town that's been at the heart of such an intensification of Russian attempts to take it now for many days.

What we're hearing from the ground -- and this is according to Ukrainian military officials -- is the Wagner mercenaries and in particular, Max, the most highly trained Wagner units are now making a determined push to encircle the town. We'd heard from President Zelenskyy only yesterday about how challenging conditions were there.

And we understand that the situation is now extremely tense. It's been at the heart of battles, fierce battles, for so many days. And whilst Ukrainian speak of heavy losses on the Russian side, their messages about what's happening on the ground have grown increasingly desperate.

We'd heard a while ago that Ukraine has said they were going to defend it, but that they were not willing to do so at any cost. The question is, how quickly really Russia will manage to encircle this town and what that will mean for the Ukrainian troops that are left there, Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Melissa in Kyiv, thank you.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairing the annual meeting of the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. Ahead of that meeting, the Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Mr. Putin was quite or he was expected to have a, quote, serious conversation over the FSB's 2022 results and identify the priority tasks for this year. Mr. Putin has now made those remarks.

Let's bring in CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen in Moscow who was monitoring all of it. So what did we hear, Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Max. Well, he certainly sounded pretty serious. First of all, he said that the FSB plays an important role for Russia in what they call the special military operation, obviously, the war in Ukraine. And one of the things that he acknowledged there was that yes, FSB operatives are very much involved in that special military operation in the war that is, of course, ongoing.

He claimed that they were operating some of them behind enemy lines on the front lines. And he also admitted, Max, and acknowledge that there were losses among the FSB in all of that. And he obviously said that the Russian state needs to protect the interests of those who were fallen, and their families, obviously, as well. So Vladimir Putin mapping that out.

He also said that it was important for the FSB to get established in the areas that are currently under occupation by the Russians. Obviously, the Russians view all of that very differently. They view all these now as Russian territories because they say that they've annex these territories, even though they don't actually control large parts of the territories that they now claim to be part of the Russian Federation.

But he's saying that the FSB's big task for the year that is upcoming now is to get established in those areas and to start working there. He also claimed that there were attacks by the Ukrainians inside of those territories, as he calls a terrorist attack by the Ukrainian regime. He also claimed that those were being aided by Western nations as well.

And that's part of the narrative that we've been seeing from Vladimir Putin, especially over the past couple of days in the run up to the one year anniversary of the war. Also, yesterday, when he gave a speech to Special Operations Forces, he sort of tried to make this out to be Russia against the West, rather than just Russia against Ukraine. That was certainly one of the narratives that we also heard from Vladimir Putin today.

But he did indeed say that the FSB, that the intelligence service was a very important asset, as he put it in the special military operation that they need to get established there very quickly, that they need to do more of what they have been doing so far, which is obviously seeing to it that the security services are active in those new areas that are under Russian control.

But certainly what we saw today was a Russian president, who was extremely determined, definitely spoke the language also of the FSB, there it is, obviously, an organization that is very close to him, and obviously said that this organization is going to continue to play a very important role in Vladimir Putin's plans.

Even though right now, of course, we know that things for the Russians on the front lines in the war in Ukraine are still quite difficult. And it really is unclear what their strategy is going forward. There is talk, of course, Russian offensive, that could be emitted that may already have started.

But right now all of that seems to very slow, very difficult going. And that's probably one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin also is saying that he feels he needs to consolidate those areas, also, with those intelligence services, obviously, being very active, that are under Russian control right now and to make sure that Russia doesn't lose any of those territories going forward, Max.

FOSTER: Fred Pleitgen in Moscow, thank you.

China preparing to welcome a key autocratic ally of the Russian President Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is visiting Beijing at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The two leaders agreed to upgrade ties to what's described as an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership when they met in September. The visit comes amid Washington's concern that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to Russia to support Putin's war on Ukraine.

[08:05:01]

An American-Israeli citizen has been killed in the occupied West Bank in what Israeli officials call a terror attack. The latest deadly shooting happened on Monday on the highway between the city of Jericho and the Dead Sea. The U.S. State Department has condemned the violence.

His death comes a day after Israeli settlers went on a rampage on Sunday burning Palestinian homes and cars. One Palestinian man was killed. The attack followed the fatal shooting of two Israeli brothers earlier today.

Hadas Gold is live for us in Jerusalem. How's the situation currently, Hadas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, things are still very tense, especially after the events of the last few days. Elan Ganeles, was originally from Connecticut, born and raised there. He moved to Israel a few years ago and joined the Israeli military, and that's when he gained citizenship.

But then he actually moved back to the U.S. several years ago and had actually just graduated from Columbia University in New York last year, and he was just in town and he was just here to actually go visit for a friend's wedding. We've spoken to some of his friends and people that know him this morning and they say that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, they say.

The road on which he was shot, the area in which he was shot is a road that's often actually used even by tourists to come visit Jericho, to go visit the Dead Sea. And what we know from Israeli officials is that while Elan was driving, attacker shot at several cars as they drove by. Several cars were hit by gunfire but Elan was hit in the upper chest, in the upper body, medics said and he was killed.

The attackers then fled. They burned their vehicles in the process. And now we know that a massive manhunt is underway in the nearby Palestinian town of Jericho. We know the Israeli military has set up checkpoints for people going in and out of that city to look for the attackers. Now, as you noted, this followed a very violent day on Sunday. We saw two Israeli brothers actually killed in a similar attack while they were sitting in their cars in traffic. This was though in a near Palestinian town of Hawara, in the occupied West Bank. This is much more of a flashpoint area, compared to where Elan Ganeles was killed near Jericho.

And then after that attack in Hawara, a few hours later, is when we saw that essentially those rampages by Israeli settlers being called revenge attacks, they set fire to several homes and cars. And we know that one Palestinian man was shot and killed in the violence, several others were injured.

Now we know from Israeli authorities that they arrested several people in the wake of those attacks. But just a lot of concerns now about what happens next, all of this happening actually, soon after Israeli and Palestinian officials met in a rare summit in Jordan and occupy alongside Egyptians, Jordanians and Americans. And this whole point of the summit was to try to reach some sort of agreements to reach some sort of calm on the ground.

And the events of the last few days just further illustrating the sort of crisis moment this region is in if things don't change quickly. There's a concern that now there's sort of a tit for tat revenge attacks going on. The Israeli military sending an extra battalions into the West Bank as we speak to not only look for these attackers, but also to try to keep Israeli settlers separated from Palestinians. Max?

FOSTER: Hadas, very sensitive situation. Thank you.

Voters in Nigeria are still waiting for the results of their most consequential presidential election in decades. But early results show ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu is leading the race so far with nearly half of the votes tallied. Meanwhile, anger and frustration growing three days after voters went to the polls.

International observers have cited logistical problems, violence and long delays. And a former president is calling for a new poll in some regions claiming the process has been corrupted. CNN's Larry Madowo joins me live in Lagos. So many videos on social media showing problems with the vote here. And people calling for another counts.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We just don't know the scale of the irregularities in this poll because this was an election of superlatives in a country of superlatives. 93 million registered voters, 176,000 polling stations across the nation. And so even though social media is awash with these videos, we don't know if they rise to the level that could impact the outcome of the election.

The opposition, thinks so. The observers have pointed out some problems. But most extraordinarily, we've heard from former president Olusegun Obasanjo, who says that this process was corrupted, and that unless the Independent National Electoral Commission remedies the problems and repeats the polls in places where there's violence and voter intimidation, or officials didn't show up, it's a recipe for danger and disaster. Listen to President Obasanjo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLUSEGUN OBASANJO, FORMER NIGERIAN PRESIDENT: We have devices and servers have been manipulated or rendered inactive, such results must be declared void and inadmissible for election declaration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:10]

MADOWO: The BVAS President Obasanjo talks about is the bimodal voter accreditation system. It's an expensive system that Nigeria invested in to identify voters electronically as separate transmission system both appears to have failed in this process, and that's why there's so many concerns from observers and the opposition.

And now we're hearing some stinging criticism from the European Union observer mission here that said that this process lacked proper planning in key parts of the electoral process. But I want to read for you something that the International Republican Institute, International Democratic Institute said in their own observation report.

They said in part that, "The election fell well short of Nigerian citizens reasonable expectations. Logistical challenges, and multiple incidents of political violence overshadowed the electoral process and impeded a substantial number of votes from -- voters from participating."

So I got to point out here that the supporters of the incumbent party's candidate Bola Tinubu said this is all incitement to violence, and that the election was fine, and that Bola Tinubu is on his way to victory to be the next president of Nigeria, Max.

FOSTER: Larry, live for us in Lagos, thank you for watching.

Hong Kong scrapping its COVID mask mandate after nearly three years. Beginning tomorrow, people in Hong Kong will no longer be required to wear face coverings indoors, outdoors or on public transportation. The mandate was put in place in 2020 to help prevent the spread of COVID. People with face fines of $1,000 or more if caught without a face mask in public.

Still to come, a breakthrough deal or on post-Brexit trade rules. So it comes after often been a dispute between the U.K. and the E.U. Is this a reset in the relationship? We'll examine after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Has a new era of U.K.-E.U. relations begun? British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in Belfast, a day after reaching a deal with the European Union over trading arrangements with Northern Ireland. You can see him speaking there. The New Deal could potentially resolve the issue of border checks and imports in Northern Ireland which has always been one of the most challenging as is the U.K.'s departure from the E.U.

Under the New Windsor framework as it's called, goods will flow in green and red lanes. U.K. goods designed to stay in Northern Ireland will pass through the green lane with minimal paperwork while goods heading to the E.U. will undergo customs checks through that red line.

Mr. Sunak spoke about the economic benefits of the deal and what it could bring to Northern Ireland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Northern Ireland is in the unbelievably special position, unique position in the entire world, European continent, in having privileged access not just to the U.K. home market which is enormous fifth biggest in the world, but also the European Union single market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:15:15]

FOSTER: CNN's Bianca Nobilo live for us from London. He really was on spirited form, wasn't he today, because it does seem as though he's achieved something, which was quite extraordinary if he gets it through.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Prime Minister seemed excitable, and perhaps he does have reason to be because this issue has been a sticking point since the referendum occurred in the United Kingdom, and he had very little political capital to spare, almost no room for error.

He needed relations to be reset with the E.U., but also not to cause deeper fractures within his own Conservative Party. After all, he's got an elected prime minister. And so far, it looks like he's managed. The success of this deal that he's struck with the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been praised in the British media.

He hasn't had any open revolt or even strong verbal dissent from his own MPs. What remains the obstacle here is trying to get the Democratic Unionist Party on board with this deal, it will be able to pass without that support. But in order to keep the Conservative Party brand intact and fulfill their commitment to the Democratic Unionist Party who don't want any divergence from the rest of the United Kingdom, he needs to make sure that they're on board too. And that's probably one of the main reasons he's in Belfast today, Max.

FOSTER: The other group, he had to work with were the Brexiteers within his own party led by Boris Johnson, no great rebellion there, as we know of yet.

NOBILO: No. And that's rather remarkable in terms of the implications of this deal that's been struck. One of the greatest is potentially that it might put this issue which has engulfed and divided the Conservative Party for decades and ended the premier ships of David Cameron and Theresa May, it might put that issue to the side and resolve it for the time being.

Because if there isn't an open revolt from his own MPs, that means that for now, at least the Conservative Party are done with this. It's been managed, and they can get on with the rest of the business of governing. The other implications, of course, are the fact that relations between the E.U. and the U.K. really got to a low point under Boris Johnson, they're incredibly strange.

Now, this is a potential reset moment, as you were saying, Max, not to mention the political circumstances are so different now with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a reminder of the values that the E.U. and U.K. have in common. There could be more potential for cooperation on matters of Defense and Energy, for example, going forward if their relationship is in a better place, as well as the fact that President Biden was very committed to finding a solution to this problem.

We've got the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement coming up. The fact that there is now a solution will also likely massage (ph) relations between the U.K. and the U.S., especially when it comes to trade.

FOSTER: von der Leyen at one point said Dear Rishi, didn't she in the middle of this press conference. It felt like a very personal warmth between the two of them. Do you think though, ultimately, this could help reset U.K.-E.U. relations?

NOBILO: I think they're on a really good trajectory for that to occur. And you're right to mention, Max, the warm words that von der Leyen used to refer to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It was such a marked departure, the vocabulary which she applied, integrity, honesty, real commitment, genuine commitment to wanting to find a solution. These are things we simply did not hear the E.U. applying to Boris Johnson.

So even the fact that it's a different person at the helm, somebody who has a reputation for their attention to detail and wanting to present himself as a problem solver. This is obviously all extremely helpful in terms of resetting their relations. I think they're on a very good path to being able to do that.

And for the time being, Boris Johnson, who's always lurking pretty close by in the political shadows for Rishi Sunak has not said anything openly about this. I'm sure he wasn't happy to see some of the front covers of the British newspapers this morning. In particular, the independent which said essentially the country has got Brexit done, but it wasn't you Boris as you can see in the center of the screen there.

Rishi Sunak finally delivering the last, sort of, eradicating that last chink in the Brexit armor, if you will, of trying to make things run smoothly for the United Kingdom, something Boris Johnson was not able to achieve.

FOSTER: OK, Bianca, thank you so much.

Coming up, Utah is taking water conservation to a whole new level. I want to get to how the state is saving water as its population explodes during a record drought.

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[08:21:24]

FOSTER: For years now, several western states in the U.S. have been facing record drought. CNN is taking a closer look at Utah, which has one of the fastest growing populations in America. Bill Weir shows us how the state is managing its limited water supply as more people move in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: (voice-over): In a bright red county, in a state allergic to government regulations, it is against the law to plant new grass around your business. Only about 8 percent of a home's landscaping can include lawn. And if you want to start an endeavor that guzzles a lot of water, you are free to look somewhere else.

ZACH RENSTROM, GENERAL MANAGER, WASHINGTON COUNTY CONSERVANCY DISTRICT: If somebody wanted to come and build a golf course today, I don't know where they would get the water from. And I'm telling you, I know where every drop of water is.

WEIR (voice-over): Zach Renstrom is in charge of the water of Washington County, Utah, which holds the fastest growing metro area in the nation in a region that's suffering the worst mega drought in 1,200 years.

RENSTROM: We like our independence. We like our freedoms. We do not like government regulation.

WEIR (voice-over): But that combo of a lot more people and a lot less water has forced some of the toughest water laws in the nation.

RENSTROM: We're developing plans that basically say during a drought situation that there can be absolutely no outside watering for any type of -- anything, even for, like, trees. We also talked about cutting off our construction water, and I know that's like, oh, well, what's the big deal with construction water? But if we stop construction water, that act alone would lay off about 20 percent of our county.

WEIR (voice-over): So, like a lot of folks around here, he's counting on Utah to build an estimated $2.2 billion pipeline to pump water from Lake Powell across 140 miles of desert and into this Washington County reservoir, a hugely controversial idea passed by state lawmakers 17 years ago.

But when the Trump administration tried to fast track the environmental review, the six other states that depend on the Colorado River system took a rare step of banding together to stop it.

MATT RICE, SOUTHWEST REGIONAL DIRECTOR, AMERICAN RIVERS: The system is crashing. To be honest, it's kind of uncomprehendable to think of a diversion of that size that would serve 200,000 people in one county in southern Utah at this moment in time. There's just not the water.

WEIR (voice-over): For environmental advocates like Matt Rice of American Rivers, developing with a pipeline mentality makes less sense now than ever.

RICE: We're in a place where everybody across the board, lower basin, upper basin, agriculture, municipalities, we have to be laser focused on doing more with less water, because that's our future. That is our reality.

MAYOR CHRIS HART, IVINS, UTAH: One of the most beautiful places on the face of the Earth is how I describe it. It's like living in a national park.

WEIR (voice-over): Chris Hart is the mayor of Ivins, a town of 10- grand that's growing just as fast as the rest of Washington County.

HART: As you look at our new City Hall, the landscaping around this building requires no water.

WEIR (on-camera): It's beautiful, too.

HART: We don't hear --

WEIR (on-camera): And it fits, it fits the landscape, right?

HART: Yes. I mean, it's exactly what a desert landscape ought to look like.

WEIR (on-camera): You got some attention in just a community meeting, calling it the Lake Powell Pipedream.

HART: Shame on me.

WEIR (on-camera): No, but I guess it felt like a candid moment there.

HART: I actually use that word (INAUDIBLE), because the serious side of it is that it is an essential part of our plan. I think, from our perspective, from the state of Utah, is we're entitled to that, to our share. When the acknowledgment of what's happening with climate change and the reduction of flow, whatever that translates into, we'll live within that.

We're looking at a situation here that resembles on a much smaller scale what happened in California and Arizona and in Las Vegas. They've had their enormous growth spurts through the years, and the water has been made available for them to do that. And now here we are, Utah, little old Utah.

[08:25:18]

WEIR (voice-over): But in the meantime, thanks to the new Infrastructure Bill and Inflation Reduction Act, there are billions of federal dollars for towns like Ivins to take water reclamation to the next level, and like Las Vegas, capture, treat, and recycle every drop possible. HART: So the few drops of rain that we get, if we can use them four or five times --

WEIR (on-camera): Yes.

HART: -- that's a whole different thing than the drop of rain comes, you use it, and off it goes down the river.

WEIR (voice-over): But he knows better than most living through climate change in the west means living with a culture change around water.

Bill Weir, CNN, St. George, Utah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now before you reach that morning cup of coffee, you may want to hear this next story, a new study found the popular artificial sweetener, erythritol, has been linked to a higher rate of heart attack strokes and even death. The findings in the journal Nature Medicine indicate people with pre-existing factors for heart disease or those with the highest level of erythritol in their blood are most at risk but researchers caution more study is needed.

Mexico's President has posted a photo on his Twitter accounts of what he claims is an allouche (ph), some mythical spirit ghost in those similar to an elf that belongs to Mayan folklore. In the nighttime picture, you can spot a creature sitting in a tree, its head is facing the camera and his eyes are shining. In this tweet Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says that the photo was taken by an engineer adding that everything is, quote, mystical.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. "WORLD SPORT" with Amanda up next.

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