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CNN International: Austin Addresses NATO Meeting in Brussels; Committee: Boris Johnson Deliberately Misled Parliament; Europe's Migration Crisis; Some Survivors Reportedly Claim Boat Captain Abandoned the Vessel after First Distress Call; Ukrainians Special Ops Troops Playing Critical Role. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 15, 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]

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MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Hello, welcome to CNN "Newsroom", I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, heavy combat in Ukraine, as the Ukrainian Military makes some advances a live report from Kyiv in a moment. 78 people are dead and hundreds more could be missing.

The devastating tragedy of the Greek Coast where a boat carrying migrants sank, we are live at a rescue center. And a damning report finds that Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament more on what the consequences will be coming up.

In Ukraine fierce fighting is taking place along the southern and eastern front lines with Kyiv claiming advances near the embattled City of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, we're getting a look at some extraordinary video from the Wall Street Journal showing a Russian soldier surrendering to a Ukrainian drone.

The journal interviewed the soldier in the presence of Ukrainian guards CNN doesn't know whether he was speaking under duress. We haven't seen the raw video ourselves. That video was edited and produced with music. CNN Sam Kiley joins us now live in Kyiv with more on the intense battles taking place on the ground. And that video it really is, in many ways becoming a drone war or the war where drones have been used the most.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, join use there, Max, to propaganda effect, small correction it's not exclusive to the Wall Street Journal. It's been out on social media for more than a month, the Daily Mail used it back on May the 12th.

But what it shows is a Russian soldier giving up, and trying to give him-self up to Ukrainian force is very risky indeed, because of course, he risked being shot by his own side in surrendering. But this is all part of an ongoing campaign that the Ukrainians have to try to win the war in cyberspace and in the minds of Russian soldiers.

And on the ground of course, this has been backed up by Special Forces attacks, targeting commanders on the Russian front line very carefully singling out senior officers and the Russian officers on the Russian front, particularly ahead of what is now the early stages of the counter offensive.

And if you add all that up, and then combine it with a very aggressive new campaign coming, particularly in the south of the country, and in near Zaporizhzhia between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, Max, but also south of Bakhmut, where the Ukrainians have enjoyed a degree of the initiative after several months of being on the back foot.

They're now getting very much more on the front foot South of Bakhmut making claims about a significant gains there and incremental small games on that very heavily defended Russian front in the south, which of course, ultimately, strategically, the Ukrainians would like to break through their separate the Russian front from the Russians eastern front and drive towards the Crimean peninsula as the ultimate prize.

But this is very much the early stages. And Ukrainians here admit privately, Max, senior officers here will admit that they're anticipating some pretty heavy casualties, and that they will be using a lot of that NATO equipment that they've been recently supplied with. They are very delighted that the United States and others are re upping their pledges for more equipment.

Particularly for things like Bradley's Stryker fighting vehicles, and other personnel carriers from the United States but also ammunition from other NATO partners because this stuff gets used up more and more rapidly as this counter offensive, builds in and accelerates, Max.

FOSTER: Sam Kiley in Kyiv, Thank you. The U.S. making clear it'll support Ukraine for as long as it takes and is calling on Western allies to do the same. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted a meeting of the Ukraine contact group at NATO headquarters in Brussels earlier where he once again emphasizes America's commitment to Kyiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Ukraine's fight is a marathon and not a sprint. So we will continue to provide Ukraine with the urgent capabilities that it needs to meet this moment. As well as what it needs to keep itself secure for the long term from Russian aggression. And make no mistake we will stand with Ukraine for the long haul.

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FOSTER: Long Haul, I mean, government's changed it maybe they can't necessarily promise in the extremely long term, but that's what some of them are talking about years and years of support.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I think what's important to note is that there's no timeline as well when it comes to the battlefield to how long this is going to take what Secretary of Defense Floyd Austin also promised is urgent capabilities. That's part of what the Ukraine contact group does is it stays in touch with Kyiv gets its needs on the ground in that moment.

[08:05:00] And then tries to meet those needs as quickly as it can but already, Max, billions of dollars have been poured into Ukraine's fight and all we know is the counter offensive really in its early stages. So all of these Defense Ministers, yes, committed to the fight. Yes, very much aware of the importance of battling Russian aggression on those Ukrainian Front Lines.

But they also have their own home base to answer to. So they need to see those games that Sam, our colleague, Sam Kiley was speaking about. They want to see that shift on the front lines. It's looked like a stalemate for months now. They're hoping that all this help will turn into Ukrainian forces being able to pierce through those Russian lines, potentially cut off that land bridge to Crimea make a major shift on the ground, basically.

FOSTER: OK, Salma, thank you very much indeed. The authorities in Southern Greece are racing to find survivors after a boat reportedly carrying hundreds of migrants sank off the coast early on Wednesday. At least 78 people have been confirmed dead and just over 100 have been rescued so far, and brought to the City of Kalamata.

The Greek Coast Guard provided these aerial photos of the overcrowded vessel on Tuesday, before it sank. The boats believed to have been carrying 400 to 750 people, and the Coast Guard says it most likely capsized because of a sudden shift in weight. It's one of Greece's worst maritime tragedies in years.

We'll have much more on this story later in the show. New developments coming into CNN North Korea has fired two short range ballistic missiles nearest capital into waters east of the Korean Peninsula. This according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Japan has also confirmed a launch. Paula Hancocks joins us from Seoul with more, Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Max, to short range missiles fired off the east coast. And this comes just after North Korea criticized through its state run media, what it claimed to be probably -- .

FOSTER: Yes, we're having problems obviously with the audio there. We'll try to get back to Paula. Once we fix that. Now America's top diplomat has to China this weekend to reset relations between the world's largest economies. Ahead of his trip Antony Blinken spoke to the Chinese Foreign Minister who used the call to stress that the U.S. needs to respect Beijing and stop interfering in its internal affairs.

It's the first visit by U.S. Secretary of State to China since President Joe Biden took office. Blinken called off a planned trip in February when that suspected Chinese spy balloon was found floating over the U.S. Now thousands of people are expected to turn out in a few hours for a vigil to honor the victims of this week's horrific attacks in Nottingham, England.

Police say three people were killed and three others injured in a series of attacks. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a 31 year old man is in custody on suspicion of murder. Two of the victims were students at the University of Nottingham. Their father spoke to that community on Wednesday.

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SANJOY KUMAR, FATHER OF GRACE O'MALLEY KUMAR: The love that we have out here which is -- everywhere. So, look after each other is the big thing.

DAVID WEBBER, FATHER OF BARNABY WEBBER: I'm lost words. I've lost my baby boy and I can't even comprehend how I'm going to do deal with it.

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FOSTER: A long awaited report is finding out on Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the party gate scandal the U.K. Parliament's Privileges Committee found that Johnson knowingly misled lawmakers when asked about Downing Street gatherings held during the COVID lockdown.

Johnson called the report a charade and said it's a dreadful day for democracy. Scott McLean joins us now with the details. I mean, they're effectively suggesting that he undermined democracy or the systems in parliament in this.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Correct, because they say that look, this goes to the heart of British democracy because it depends on ministers telling the truth in order for people to have faith in Parliament and in lawmakers. Of course, there has already been a report into these lockdown parties and whether they breach rules.

There have already been fines given out to Boris Johnson and the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. This one though, looked at in particular whether or not Boris Johnson misled Parliament when he said things like this in December 21 in the House of Commons, or sorry, December 2021, excuse me, in the House of Commons, listen.

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KEIR STARMER, LABOR PARTY LEADER: As millions of people were locked down last year, was a Christmas party thrown in Downing Street for dozens of people on December the 18th.

BORIS JOHNSON, THEN-BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Speaker, what I could tell the Right Honorable gentleman is that all guidance was followed completely during November 10.

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MCLEAN: So the committee which by the way was made up mostly of members of Boris Johnson's own party, the Conservative Party looked at six gatherings in particular, most of them were leaving drinks, gatherings. One of them was Johnson's birthday party one of them had 200 odd people invited to it where attendees were told to bring their own booze. And ultimately, the committee found the Boris Johnson did deliberately mislead Parliament because of the unsustainable interpretations, they say of the rules that he himself helped to write. For instance, he insisted that and continues to insist that some of these going away drinks were in fact essential work functions.

So the committee wrote this as part of its conclusion. He said we came to the view that some of Mr. Johnson's denials and explanations were so disingenuous that they were by their very nature deliberate attempts to mislead the Committee and the House, while others demonstrated deliberation because of the frequency with which he closed his mind to the truth.

Johnson released his own scathing response writing in part, the committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events. This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts.

So ultimately, Max, the committee suggested the punishment here is Johnson be suspended as a sitting MP, where he's a backbencher for 90 days, anything more than 10 could potentially trigger a by election, but all of this still needs to be voted on by the House of Commons on Monday. And of course, it may be moot because Boris Johnson has already resigned as an MP in advance of this report being released, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Scott, thank you. Let's get back to Seoul now, Paula Hancock's reporting on those latest movements that we were talking about bit earlier on, Paula.

HANCOCKS: Yes, Max, to short range ballistic missiles, North Korea has fired off the east coast and it comes just after they have slammed the U.S. and South Korea for joint military drills that we have been seeing over the past month. Now, these are billed as the largest live fire drills ever held between the U.S. and South Korea.

There were five separate days of them today. President Yoon Suk Yeol went along to view them as well, some 2500 soldiers from the U.S. and South Korea. 610 pieces of artillery and equipment we're being told, I went along with the team to one of those days earlier in the month and it certainly was one of the biggest that I have seen in many years.

So this is what North Korea says that they are reacting against they call them "provocative acts" of the enemies. And they say this is the reason that they felt the need to carry out a missile launch or in fact a rocket launch to try and put a satellite into space earlier this month.

Now that failed, but they have already said that they will try again as soon as they can. And they have said that this time around. They won't warn anybody when it is coming. So certainly that's something that we are waiting for as well. But when it comes to these live fire drills, we are seeing them far bigger this year. Because the military say that they are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korean Alliance so we can expect to see more significant live fire drills, significant engagements between the U.S. and South Korea throughout this year. And inevitably that is going to irritate Pyongyang and likely come up with some kind of response, Max.

FOSTER: Paula Hancocks thank you. Could one superstar's concept or impact inflation? Well, the Chief Economist for a Swedish bank seems to think Beyonce concert in May explains why the rate was higher than expected. He says her two concerts sparked a demand for hotels and restaurants.

Tens of thousands of fans flocked to Sweden in May to catch your first solo tour in 70 years. One of the world's most prestigious medical schools is at the center of a bizarre and macabre scandal. That now fired manager of Harvard Medical School's morgue now faces federal charges accusing him in trafficking in stolen human body parts.

According to the indictment, Cedric lodge took the parts from cadavers donated to the school that indictment also names lodges, wife and others. The reaction at Harvard has been outraged. The deans of the medical school said the reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and most importantly, each of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their bodies to HMS through the Anatomical Gift program to advance medical education and research.

Still to come, people looking for a better life and better life ends in tragedy, another tragedy that is. We'll take a look at the staggering numbers of Europe's migration crisis.

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FOSTER: A Wednesdays shipwreck off Greece could become one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea in years. But sadly such disasters aren't unusual in the region. Only this year, the United Nations reported that 441 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea between January and March, making it the deadliest maritime crossing in the world.

And the U.N. warns that the death toll is likely to be even higher than we know. And with the number of crossings on the rise such disasters are likely to increase each year since 2020. The number of migrants arriving by sea in the Mediterranean region of Europe has grown in 2022.

More than 34,000 people reached Europe by sea, while between January and the May this year, more than 64,000 approached Europe's shores. Greece is one of the countries at the heart of the European migration crisis. But Wednesday's shipwreck was the deadliest of its coast in years.

Those who've been rescued so far have been taken to the City of Kalamata. CNN's Melissa Bell is there joins me now and many of the people there saying that there could be hundreds more still missing.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a desperate picture that's emerging of it exactly what unfolded about 50 miles off this coast here. The pinnacle is in Greece, just behind me that hangar, Max, were the 104 survivors so far. Most of them are being looked after those most badly wounded have been taken to the hospitals.

And what we're hearing from the young men inside and they are all young men, is how deeply traumatizing the events were but also more about who was on the ship. What we understand from these eyewitness accounts is that there were about 750 people. And perhaps most tragically, women and children about 100 children say the survivors who were down in the hole of the ship.

So that when it would have capsized, they would have had very little hope of getting out. It's now been more than 36 hours, Max, since the boat went down. The rescue operation continues the Greek Coast Guard saying that they will carry on until they find every survivor.

But clearly with every hour that passes that becomes more and more unlikely. Answer to the question of exactly what happened in the early hours of Wednesday morning very different accounts from the Greek Coast Guard and NGOs who explain that this boat had been seen by Frontex who are the Border Services the European Union that patrol the Mediterranean on Tuesday afternoon.

That help had been brought to the boat by other ships that had brought food and water that the distress of the boat had been made clear to both Greek and Italian authorities by the NGOs. But that not enough had been done. The Greek Coast Guard explained that their attempts to try and help the boat were rebuffed.

[08:20:00]

These were migrants were told that were desperate to get to Italy. What we do know is that the ship went down just in the early hours of Wednesday morning with what we now know to be 78 confirmed dead and what we're hearing from the UNHCR and the others who've gathered here to try and help is that in incidents like these, Max.

It's very unlikely that we will ever get either a full figure of the number of people who are actually onboard the ship, and of course, their identities, desperate searches by family members to try and figure out if their loved ones were on there, Max.

FOSTER: What are the solutions? I know that's an enormous question. But is there sort of progress in the thinking around how to solve this?

BELL: We've been speaking to a lot of NGOs out here today, the UNHCR. People speaking to us off the record, really, about what they've seen people who are at the front line of these efforts over the course of the last few years, to try and help those people who continue to leave, of course, the northern coast of Libya in search of a better life for refugees or asylum in Europe. And European governments that have over the course of the last few years. In many cases, and specifically those most on the front line, Greece and Italy, become more conservative, won elections on policies that were more that were tougher on immigration in Europe, why?

Even now the European Union is heading towards finally some kind of compromise with regard to its migration policy, but it is a migration policy, Max, that will make it harder for people to get to the shores of Europe and claim asylum and the question for the NGOs and those who try and help the refugees.

The migrants that find themselves in trouble in the water are what will be done to help them. As these policies become harder, who is going to help them and I think those are the questions that surround this particular latest catastrophe. Why didn't officials, why didn't coast guard getting involve sooner, Max?

FOSTER: Absolutely, Melissa Bell in Kalamata, thank you. Coming up, there were important parts of Kyiv's defense soon after the Russian invasion. Now Ukraine special Ops team has evolved into a critical component and its current strategy to retake territory, our CNN exclusive just ahead.

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FOSTER: Small hastily organized groups of Ukrainian fighters were instrumental in blunting the original Russian invasion to seize Kyiv. Now those soldiers have evolved into a critical component of Ukraine strategy to push the Russians out of the country. CNN's Sam Kiley spoke exclusively with the Ukrainian special Ops team in Bakhmut on their efforts to tame Russian troops. Here's his report.

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KILEY (voice over): A Special Forces night operation the objective to bring a special kind of misery to Russian troops. As they arrived alongside Ukrainian regulars, the Russians attacked, a night vision recording of a routine assault that the Special Forces needed to shrug off.

KILEY (on camera): How long did you spend under fire like this before you could move?

BARBUS, UKRAINIAN SPECIAL OPS: The attack lasted about half an hour. After that, we took up an observation position and we watched them, we got to work.

KILEY (voice over): Electronic surveillance pinpointed their victims.

[08:25:00]

First they kill two paratroopers approaching on their left flank to get to the group's main targets Russian commanders near Bakhmut, a sterile record of an all two gritty event in March. First one officer is shot, then another down. He says radio intercepts revealed that the Russians lost two officers and five others to their sniper team that night.

BARBUS: The result of our operation was the demoralization of the Russian airborne unit because they lost their top leader.

KILEY (voice over): Formed when Russia invaded Ukraine last year, this team of experienced Veterans works in a secret realm under the intelligence services. They tasked with tactical work seeking strategic effect as Ukraine's counter offensive takes shape. Here using a modified heavy machine gun in a hidden bunker last month close to Bakhmut. Drone operators more than a mile away are directing Barbus onto Russian troops.

KILEY (on camera): How many Russians have you killed in this war?

BARBUS: A lots of, for example here a lot Russians.

KILEY (on camera): This is when you're on -- how many more or less there?

BARBUS: I don't know. We didn't calculate -- .

KILEY (voice over): It's the Russians they want to do the counting, because Ukraine's best hope is that Russian troops run rather than fight. Sam Kiley, CNN in Eastern Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Thanks for joining me here on CNN "Newsroom", I'm Max Foster in London. "World Sport" with Amanda Davis is up next.

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