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Russian President thanks Security Forces for the aborted Weekend Rebellion; More than 80 Million under Air Quality Alerts as Canadian Wildfire worsens some of the borders; Donald Trump responds to the 2021 Recording that He Did Nothing Wrong; Ukrainian FM says Putin Plays a Nuclear Fear Game; Children fleeing to Chad faces New Dangers; Sierra Leone's President Swears In for his Second Term. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired June 28, 2023 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. You're watching "CNN Newsroom" and I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead, restoring calm inside the Kremlin, President Putin thanks his security forces for stopping what he calls a civil war as he moves to reassert control just days after Wagner's march on Moscow.
Fleeing violence in Sudan, over 100,000 children who left the war-torn country now face new dangers and a desperate situation in Chad.
And drifting smoke from Canada's wildfires is lowering air quality across the U.S. Midwest and East Coast.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church.
CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. Well, all eyes are on Vladimir Putin's efforts to keep a hold on power amid the fallout from an attempted rebellion. But in Ukraine, the Russian invasion is still very real.
(VIDEO PLAYING)
Right now rescue teams are working tirelessly to find victims caught in a deadly missile strike in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. At least eight people were killed and dozens injured in the blast that hit a crowded downtown area.
In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted the attack on civilians comes one year after a similar strike in Kremenchuk, which killed 22 people. Many are accusing Russia of deliberately targeting the city and Ukraine's president says they need to be held accountable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Every such act of terror proves again and again to us and to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a consequence of all that it has done. Defeat and a tribunal. Fair and lawful trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: The strike comes amid frontline advances for Ukrainian forces taking advantage of Russia's split focus. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more on the search for survivors in Kramatorsk.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Utter destruction. Two missiles striking Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, one slamming into the city center.
(on-camera): The strike took place at precisely 7:32 in the evening. We don't know what it was that struck, but it was clearly a very large missile by the -- given the level of damage here. Now right behind me was a very popular restaurant. And given the time of the strike, there were probably many people inside.
(voice-over): A witness inside the restaurant says it was crammed with people when the missile struck. He saw rescuers pulling... dozens of people out.
Slabs of concrete collapsing at the center of the restaurant. Medics and firefighters continuing to pull people out hours after the strike. And removing damaged cars from surrounding streets, clearing the way for more rescue work. Air raid sirens warning of another strike, pausing the search and rescue. And moving along crowds looking for loved ones. The blast knocking this woman off her feet.
UNKNOWN (through translator): I was in the middle of my apartment, then I heard a sudden explosion and was knocked off my feet by the wave. The windows were blown out on the first floor. I was very frightened.
WEDEMAN (voice-over): Kramatorsk is not far from the front lines. As the war trudges on, Russia continues striking seemingly random targets, and civilians are paying the ultimate price.
(on-camera): I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Kramatorsk.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: A report in "The New York Times" says a senior Russian general may have known in advance about Yevgeny Prigozhin's plans for a rebellion. The paper says U.S. intelligence is trying to learn whether General Sergei Surovikin may have helped in the planning.
He was the top Russian commander in Ukraine until he was replaced in January. Current and former U.S. officials tell the Times Prigozhin would not have launched his uprising unless he believed others in power would come to his aid.
[03:05:04]
Satellite imagery shows two planes linked to Prigozhin at an airbase outside of Minsk in Belarus on Tuesday. President Alexander Lukashenko says the Wagner group leader is in the country. Lukashenko is also sharing details on how he helped broker an end to the revolt. Listen to how he describes a conversation with Prigozhin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): He says, but we want justice. They want to strangle us. We will march on Moscow. And I say, halfway to Moscow, they will squash you like a bug.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing his part to move past the Wagner Group insurrection. He's praising security forces for preventing a civil war and promising to investigate the Wagner Group's financing.
CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Kremlin damage control in full swing, using the trappings of the Russian presidency to patch up Putin's battered image and to portray a deal, ending the armed Wagner rebellion here as a feat not of weakness, but of national unity.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): You have defended the constitutional order, the life, security and freedom of our citizens, saved our motherland from upheavals and actually stopped the civil war.
CHANCE (voice-over): The Kremlin insists Putin's biggest challenge in 23 years of power is actually bringing Russia closer together.
The problem is, that's not entirely true. Images of Russians cheering Wagner forces would have sent chills through the Kremlin.
Not all Russians welcomed the mutiny, but few turned out to resist it either, despite what the Kremlin says.
And what of the man who exposed this serious crack in Kremlin authority? Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader, has now arrived in neighboring Belarus, according to its officials, after charges of insurrection against him and his fighters in Russia were dropped.
It's possible Wagner fighters could now work alongside the Belarusian military, suggests Alexander Lukashenko, the country's leader, although he said no camps for them had yet been built. The Russian Defense Ministry says the mercenary group must first
surrender its heavy weapons.
The Kremlin, which now admits fully funding Wagner, says it will investigate how more than a billion dollars recently paid for salaries and bonuses was really spent.
Back at the Kremlin, a minute's silence for the Russian pilots killed in Prigozhin's uprising. Putin may find it hard to forgive a man who shattered his image of control and who, he says, stabbed Russia in the back.
Matthew Chance, CNN Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: CNN's Clare Sebastian is following developments. She joins us live from London. Good morning to you, Clare. So Yevgeny Prigozhin is now reportedly in exile in Belarus. But what happens to all his Wagner fighters? Where are they now? And what could this mean for Russian forces on the front lines in Ukraine?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Rosemary, that is the big question. If we accept the story from Lukashenko that Prigozhin is now in Belarus, the question is how many of his fighters will follow him. According to Lukashenko and the US Pentagon, some of them, at least, are still in Ukraine. They return to their camps in Luhansk, according to Lukashenko, but we don't know how many of them will sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Prigozhin himself suggested that would be relatively few, and then how many will choose to go to Belarus and form some kind of new Wagner 2.0, perhaps. The question, though, that matters really to Ukraine is how many of these elite, brutal fighters will return to the battlefield. And this is something that CNN's Erin Burnett discussed with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: If Wagner disintegrates or falls into pieces, but part of it will move to the regular, will become part of the regular Russian army and end up on the front line fighting in exactly the same way as they did being part of Wagner, then the change will not be that visible.
[03:10:10]
But if something deeper and more damaging will happen to them, and some of them, for example, some of the veterans with excellent fighting record will decide to retire entirely, yes, that helps.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEBASTIAN: As the fact remains, of course, that in the winter offensive that we saw from Russia, Wagner was the most effective force really behind the only real advance that Russia made in taking those sort of 16 square miles of Bakhmut. This is also, though, something that countries in the region are watching, the countries on NATO's eastern flank worried about what will happen if large amounts of Wagner fighters end up in Belarus.
The Lithuanian president warning on Tuesday that if these, quote, "serial killers," as he called them, were in Belarus, that would significantly increase the chances of instability in that region.
CHURCH: And, Clare, what more are you learning about the deadly Russian strike on Kramatorsk?
SEBASTIAN: Yeah, Rosemary, this, another incident of very high casualties among civilians, Russia continuing to strike from the air, something, of course, that they don't need the Wagner forces to continue to do. We're hearing that at least eight now killed in Kramatorsk, according to the State Emergency Services, the injury toll, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, is around 63 of those killed were children, including two sisters aged 14 and a 17- year-old girl.
This is something that President Zelenskyy has called terrorism, has vowed to continue to investigate as a potential war crime. But this shows that this continues to be a tactic of Russia, this attrition, this attempt to wear down the resolve of the Ukrainian people, even as Ukraine is claiming small advances and its counter offensive.
All right, thanks to Claire Sebastian, joining us live from London.
Joining me now, Sam Greene is a professor of Russian politics at King's College London. He's also the director of the Democratic Resilience Program, the Center for European Policy Analysis. Appreciate you being with us.
SAM GREENE, PROFESSOR OF RUSSIAN POLITICS, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON: Thank you.
CHURCH: So Vladimir Putin is desperately trying to reassert control and repair the damage done to his leadership after Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged his authority by staging that short-lived rebellion. But how weakened is Putin by this and can he survive any future challenges to his authority?
GREENE: Well, look, you know, we have on some level predicted the demise of Putin on numerous occasions over the last 23 years. He has survived all of them, but he's survived them by changing the way he rules, by adapting the system. And it is a challenge each time.
In this occasion I think that the challenge is a bit greater than anything certainly he's faced before, because it really cuts to the confidence of people in the system. His job, really at the top of what is a very complex state, right, is to prevent these sorts of conflicts like we saw over the last several days, to prevent them from emerging, to prevent them from getting to the stage of violence that they have taken on recently.
He was not able to do that in this case. He had to rely on Lukashenko to come in from the outside. And that will have a lot of Russia's rich and powerful wondering whether or not he really is the right man for the job.
CHURCH: Right. You mentioned Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. He isn't helping Putin's cause, is he by claiming credit for saving the Russian president, by stopping the Wagner mutiny with that deal to end the revolt. What does that signal to you? He appears to be flexing his muscles.
GREENE: Well, I mean, I think Lukashenko has a reputation for speaking off the cuff and calling it as he sees it. He has been in this political game, in fact, much longer than Putin has. But it really does, as you say, undercut a lot of the message that Putin is trying to get across.
Putin is putting across this idea to the Russian public and I think to the Russian elites as well that there was a consensus in Russia, right, that the security forces and ordinary citizens came together to stop this uprising and to restore law and order in Russia that in fact is not what appears to have happened but it is the story that he needs Russians to believe if he's going to maintain his grip on things and you're right Lukashenko's not doing him any favors in that regard.
CHURCH: And Prigozhin is now reportedly in exile in Belarus after he's aborted mutiny but how will he survive this in the days ahead do you think, given, we know how Putin deals with his enemies and those who betray him?
[03:15:05]
GREENE: Well, I mean, I think on some level exile in Belarus is not the worst option of all the ones that were available to him as this mutiny took shape. He could have ended up in prison or indeed dead. But it will not feel like a very safe place. Belarus is very permeable to the Russian security forces, and I think that's part of the reason why he's there and not somewhere further afield.
If he does get too far out of line, they can get to him. But there are a series of issues with the Kremlin as well, which is essentially what to do with all of this machinery that Prigozhin has built, both the military machinery and the propaganda disinformation machinery that has been very, very useful to the Kremlin over the years and which they might not entirely want to lose access to. So there is a balancing act here as well that the Kremlin is going to have to figure out.
CHURCH: All right. Thanks to Samuel Greene joining us there and sharing your analysis. I Appreciate it.
The death of a teenage driver is being investigated in France after shots were fired during a traffic stop. His death sparked clashes between young people and the police on Tuesday. The incident happened in a Paris suburb earlier in the day, after the 17-year-old reportedly refused to comply with a stop order. A video of the incident has emerged showing two police officers beside the car before the driver pulls away. And a warning: some viewers may find the video disturbing. (VIDEO PLAYING)
Police say the car then crashed into a pole. The local prosecutor's office says one of the police officers is currently in custody for culpable homicide.
And coming up, legal experts say the 2021 recording of Donald Trump is damaging to his case as he fights a federal indictment related to classified documents. But Trump is trying to explain it away. We will tell you how.
Plus, wildfires made worse by climate change lead to scenes like this. Skylines in cities across the U.S. smothered by smog.
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CHURCH: More than 80 million people from the U.S. Midwest to the East Coast are under air quality alerts as smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires sweeps across the border. Chicago and Detroit had the worst air quality in the world throughout the day Tuesday, according to IQ Air. Officials in the U.S. are warning of reduced visibility and closing some public spaces. Canadian authorities say more than 200 wildfires are burning out of control right now.
[03:20:09]
It's the country's worst ever fire season and has led to Canada's highest emissions on record.
Well, CNN has learned that U.S. federal investigators have interviewed former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani as the special counsel investigates efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sources familiar with the case tell CNN that prosecutors seem to be getting close to making decisions about charges.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is already facing charges in a different case, and he is responding to one of the key pieces of evidence against him. That's the audio recording from 2021. Where he appears to be handling classified documents after he left office. Trump spoke to Fox News Digital about it, and here's how he explained it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I had a whole desk full of lots of papers and mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, having to do with many, many subjects. And what was said was absolutely fine and very perfectly. We did nothing wrong.
UNKNOWN: You're not concerned then with your own voice on those recordings?
TRUMP: My voice was fine. What did I say wrong in those recordings? I didn't even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you could hear the rustle of the paper.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Of course it's not the first time we've heard Donald Trump saying things that have landed him in hot water. Randi Kaye takes us back to some of the lowest moments caught on tape.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP (voice-over): You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump caught on tape saying crude things about women in 2005 during an interview with "Access Hollywood," broadcast just weeks before election day in 2016.
TRUMP (voice-over): Grab them by the (EXPLETIVE). You can do anything.
KAYE (voice-over): Days after the recording surfaced, Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, apologized. Though "The New York Times" later reported, Trump told a Republican senator that he wanted to investigate the recording because, quote, "we don't think that was my voice."
Also before the 2016 election, Trump was recorded in his office by his then lawyer, Michael Cohen. The two were discussing how they would buy the rights to former Playboy playmate Carrie McDougall's story. She claims she and Trump had an affair which ended in 2007. Trump has denied the affair, but listened to him on tape.
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David. I've spoken to Alan Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with --
TRUMP: So, what do we got to pay for this? 150?
COHEN: -- funding. Yes.
KAYE (voice-over): Before election day, Trump's friend David Pecker, whose company published "The National Enquirer," paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story, then buried it in what's known as a catch-and-kill scheme.
Months before the 2020 election, President Trump was recorded on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to a White House transcript, Trump pressured Zelenskyy by asking him to investigate Trump's 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, as well as Biden's son, Hunter, who once had business in Ukraine.
Later, Trump repeatedly referred to the call like this.
TRUMP: We had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine.
KAYE (voice-over): A whistleblower inside the White House shared details of the call with members of the intelligence community. Congress investigated. In the end, that recording led to Trump's first impeachment. Trump denied any wrongdoing.
In 2020, journalist Bob Woodward recorded interviews with Trump for his book. Those interviews later made public revealed that Trump knew for months how dangerous the coronavirus was and how it spread, but intentionally concealed that from the public.
TRUMP: I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down.
BOB WOODWARD, JOURNALIST: Yes, I --
TRUMP: Because I don't want to create a panic. It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch.
KAYE (voice-over): After the 2020 election, Trump was recorded yet again.
TRUMP: It's just not possible to have lost Georgia. It's not possible. When I heard it was close, I said, there's no way.
KAYE (voice-over): That's Trump on the phone with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump called him following his loss in the 2020 election.
TRUMP: It's pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially, Georgia.
KAYE (voice-over): That wasn't true. Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes. On the recording, he's heard asking Raffensperger to find enough votes to give Trump a win.
TRUMP: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have, because we won the state.
[03:25:00]
KAYE (voice-over): Raffensperger didn't play ball. Trump is now under investigation by Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney for his actions on the phone call in question.
Randi Kaye, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Federal prosecutors have charged five more people in connection with a human smuggling operation that left 53 migrants dead in Texas last year. All five are now in custody and accused of managing the operation that stuffed migrants into the back of a truck in sweltering heat without a working air conditioner. They were being transported from the Mexican border to San Antonio.
Still to come, the Wagner chief appears to have gotten away with little retribution after the group's rebellion in Russia. But other Putin critics have not been so lucky in the past. We will have details.
Plus Ukraine's foreign minister answers questions on that rebellion and Putin's grip on power in an exclusive interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think that Vladimir Putin is fully in command and in power in Moscow right now?
KULEBA: Well, that's a tricky question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom." I'm Rosemary Church.
Our top story this hour, Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to reassert his authority after a weekend of chaos in the country. On Tuesday he told Russian forces who faced Wagner's rebellion that they virtually stopped a civil war. Yevgeny Prigozhin is one of the few Russians to have openly defied or criticized Moscow and the war in Ukraine apparently without much consequences.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen has more on the fate of Putin's other critics in the past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A march of justice is how Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin justified it. For others, such as Russia's leader Putin himself, this was betrayal, a red line not many dare to cross.
PUTIN (through translator): All those who deliberately chose the path of treachery, who prepared an armed mutiny, who chose the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will face inevitable punishment and will answer both to the law and to our people.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Just as quickly as the insurrection became reality, a deal was brokered with the Belarusian president. While the situation appears defused for now, many who dared to defy Putin paid a heavy price.
A fierce Kremlin critic, Boris Nemstov, was once one of Russia's promising opposition leaders, jailed several times for speaking out against Putin's government. But in 2015, on a Friday night just steps away from the Kremlin, Nemstov was shot and killed.
[03:30:00]
A dissident voice silenced. Five (inaudible) men were later found guilty and sentenced to over a decade in prison. Oppose Mr. Putin's rule, threaten his establishment, and life can turn into one behind bars.
Once the wealthiest man in Russia, former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky crossed the line with Putin when he began to promote reforms and accused him of corruption. Khodorkovsky was charged with tax fraud, a charge he says was politically motivated. Putin and the prime minister was asked about the case and he replied, a thief should be in prison. The maximum prison sentence was given to the Kremlin critic and he spent years behind bars.
Alexei Navalny, a staunch Russian opposition leader, critical of Putin, fell into a coma on a flight returning to Moscow three years ago.
He was later medevaced (ph) to Germany, where he recovered. Investigations later concluded he was poisoned with a nerve agent. Navalny vowed to keep fighting. An opposition threat to the Kremlin lingered, and as he landed back in Russia months later, he was arrested.
Now held in a maximum security prison, Navalny faces a term extension that could possibly see him behind bars for decades. It's a fate seen many times over when someone crosses Mr. Putin and not all can escape it, not even living in exile.
Wagner's Yevgeny Prigozhin may have found a haven in Belarus for now, but his safety seems fragile at best.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says Ukrainian officials expected an inside rebellion against Moscow but didn't know when it would happen.
CNN's Erin Burnett sat down for an exclusive interview with the minister who says Prigozhin may have been the first but certainly won't be the last to defy the Russian president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Has the rebellion in Russia, as you've seen over just these past few days, and I know it's sort of still the fog and chaos of it, but has it changed anything on the front lines? You know, I spoke to a drone operator, a Ukrainian drone operator, he's operating near Bakhmut, and he was saying on Saturday, they felt a palpable panic from the Russians, but that it then subsequently returned to what he said would be quote unquote "normal," in terms of their behavior.
DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: If this mutiny had lasted for 48 hours more, I'm pretty certain we would have felt a demoralizing impact on the Russian forces fighting in the south and east of Ukraine.
Unfortunately, Prigozhin gave up too quickly, so there was no time for this demoralizing effect to penetrate Russian trenches. But nevertheless, you know, this was not the factor that our forces were counting on. It was like a force majeure, so it doesn't change anything in our plans. And as we continue our counteroffensive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: But the foreign minister admits Vladimir Putin still has one card up his sleeve, Russia's nuclear weapons. He warns it's a game Western countries do not want to play with Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: In the context of Putin's situation right now, do you think that his decision to use nuclear forces in some way is a real possibility?
KULEBA: Frankly, I believe that the fear of nuclear weapons is the last argument Putin has in his pocket. I think it's nothing more than a fear game, because Putin loves life too much.
BURNETT: Even if his powers threaten him.
KULEBA: And people around him love life even more. And of course we are not wizards to speak about, you know, to forecast future developments.
But the West will make a big mistake if it decides to play the nuclear fear game with Putin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Our thanks to CNN's Erin Burnett for that interview.
The Israeli Prime Minister is reportedly in the early stages of planning a visit to Kyiv. Relations between Israel and Ukraine have been strange since the war began, with Ukraine accusing Israel of taking a neutral stance on the invasion.
CNN's Hadas Gold joins me now live from Jerusalem. Good to see you Hadas. So what more are you learning about these possible efforts to improve strained relations between Israel and Kyiv?
[03:35:10]
HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so I spoke yesterday actually with Ukraine's ambassador to Israel who told me that the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the early stages of planning a potential visit to Kyiv. That will likely be seen as a major help for the relations between Ukraine and Israel, which have often been tense ever since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because Israel has always sort of tiptoed this diplomatic line between Ukraine and Russia. They've supported Ukraine in the U.N. They've sent humanitarian assistance. They've condemned the invasion. But they haven't gone so far as to sanction Russia or completely cut off Russia. They often cite security concerns because of Russia's presence in Syria on Israel's northern border.
But the tensions between Ukraine and Israel have really ratcheted up in the past week or so. And that's because the Ukrainian Embassy here in Israel issued a blistering and lengthy statement about Israel and its stance in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying that in reality, and this is a quote from their statement, on the ground the so-called quote "neutrality" of the Israeli government is considered as a clear pro-Russian position.
Now the embassy cited recent diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Russia about Russia's diplomatic presence here in Jerusalem, and they also cited an interview that Benjamin Netanyahu conducted with the "Jerusalem Post" in the last few weeks where he specifically talked about concerns that any weapons systems that Israel would give to Ukraine would be used against Israel because it could fall into Iranian hands and be used against us. Netanyahu asserted that such a scenario had actually happened. He said that Western anti-tank weapons were now found at Israel's borders. And when I spoke to the Ukrainian ambassador, he took particular issue with those statements, saying that he expects a full explanation from Israel about those statements. Now, as a result of that statement from the Ukrainian embassy, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the Ukrainian ambassador for a meeting but it's next week and I asked the ambassador about this he sort of chuckled and saying listen it's clear that they're not in any sort of hurry because they're having me come in next week and that he thinks by then that the tensions should calm down a little bit and he did say that a potential visit by Netanyahu to Kyiv will be a very good sign saying that there's always room for repairing the damages. Now the Prime Minister's office told me that no decision has been made on such a trip but Israeli media is also reporting that Israel's foreign minister has also said that there are early stages, discussions for such a trip.
And what's interesting is what the Ukrainian ambassador told me. He said, you know, Netanyahu has been waiting for an invitation to the White House now for quite some time, and he believes that the fastest way to the White House is through Kyiv. Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right, Hadas Gold, joining us live from Jerusalem. Many thanks.
And still to come, hundreds of thousands have fled the violence in Sudan, and now some of those refugees face new dangers in neighboring Chad. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:40:00]
CHURCH: Four people died and three are missing after landslides hit southwest China on Tuesday. State media say the landslides were triggered by sudden rainstorms and flash floods in the area. Nearly a thousand people have been evacuated and hundreds of search and rescue workers deployed. But the threat is not over yet. The local meteorological department says 21 counties could see heavy rain and landslides today.
In Egypt, at least five people have died, including a child and four others injured after a 14-story building collapsed in Alexandria on Monday. State media say prosecutors have issued an order to detain two people in connection with the deadly building collapse. There are dozens of old inhabited buildings in Alexandria at risk of collapse, state media says, quoting a lawmaker there.
In Sudan, yet another ceasefire between the two warring sides seems to have been shattered. Activists and human rights groups reported truce violations Tuesday after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced a one-day unilateral ceasefire. A pro-democracy activist group says despite declaring the truce, the RSF fighters terrorized some local businesses, even beating staff and civilians. Another rights group reported renewed fighting in the state of southern Darfur.
Well hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes due to the violence. The U.N. refugee agency says that number is likely to surpass 1 million. The rainy season is making it harder for officials to reach refugees and move them away from the border into safer camps.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAOUF MAZOU, UNHCR ASSISTANT HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR OPERATIONS: Tragically on track, meaning that we've actually had, we're talking about a million, but talking about Chad, we've had to revise our figure. We're talking about 100,000 people in six months in Chad. And now the colleagues in Chad have revised their figures to 245,000, because unfortunately, looking at the trends, looking at the situation in Darfur, we're likely to go beyond one million.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: UNICEF says more than 100,000 children have fled Sudan and now face new dangers in neighboring Chad. Access to water, shelter, health, and education is extremely limited, and communities are having to share very scarce resources.
Well, joining me now is Jacques Boyer. He is the UNICEF representative in Chad. Thank you so much for being with us.
JACQUES BOYER, UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE IN CHAD: My pleasure.
CHURCH: So as this UNICEF report points out, more than 100,000 children who fled the conflict in Sudan now face these new dangers in Chad. How desperate is the humanitarian crisis there, where essential services are already scarce?
BOYER: Yeah, exactly. The situation of the children, the Sudanese children, as well as the children from the Chadian returnees that were living in Sudan, is very serious.
As you can imagine, these children, while they were still in Sudan, faced very strong trauma, seeing their family members being killed in front of them, having to work or run from their villages to the border. And also some of them were injured and needed immediate treatment.
Also, as far as the psychological trauma is concerned, we are meeting children that are still separated from their families. Either they came with people they knew like neighbors or they came unaccompanied at all. So this is an additional trauma that they are facing.
CHURCH: And what are many of these refugees telling you about the violence they experienced in Sudan?
BOYER: Most of them are sharing very tragic experiences where they face death of their family members. And these kids that are the most affected have their own biological parents being killed in front of them. So, for instance, my colleagues were telling me that they met a lady. A woman, a mother of seven children, that was only able to escape with one of her children.
[03:45:09]
And on the way to Chad, they made five siblings that were without their parents, without any others, and she decided to look after these five kids in addition to their own child. And they crossed the border together and until now they are still together on the sites that the government and UNHCR have put in place for Sudanese refugees.
CHURCH: Yeah, both heroic and heartbreaking that story. And you have said that you're running out of resources to provide assistance to children and families arriving in Chad, what do you need right now to help limit the effects of this humanitarian disaster?
BOYER: Okay, we have estimated our needs at about $25 million and out of which we're able to mobilize so far 10 percent. So we need more than $22.5 to provide (inaudible) to these children. With what we have got so far, we were able to put in place what we call child- friendly spaces. These are places where children can receive psychological support through recreational activities and other to just exteriorize the trauma they went through, but also it's a means for us to identify the separated and unaccompanied children.
So far, we were able to identify a little less than 250 children that were either separated or unaccompanied. And for unaccompanied children in the most recent entry point for the refugees, which is a place of a town called Adre in Chad, we have put in place a space together with the support of the red, the Italian Red Cross, and accompanied children are located. And we are disseminating messages to the refugee community and to the parents that are looking after their lost children to come to this place and see if their children are not in this place.
And so far we were able to reunite six children with their biological parents. And we are hoping that in the coming days we will be able to reunify or reunite more kids with their own families. So that's for the protection part. But of course these children are in need of more support in terms of health, in terms of fight against severe acute malnutrition, and in terms of access to safe drinking water, not only for the kids but also for the adults that have crossed the border.
CHURCH: Right.
BOYER: And as you probably know, the school year will start in September and there will be huge needs in terms of education to bring these children back to school. CHURCH: All right. And hopefully by shining a light on these needs,
more support will come in. We thank you for your great work here. Jacques Boyer, many thanks for joining us.
Sierra Leone's president didn't waste any time. Maada Bio was sworn into a second term just hours after the country's electoral authority certified his victory at the polls. But his main opponent is rejecting the results.
CNN's Stephanie Busari has more.
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STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN SR. EDITOR, AFRICA: Sierra Leone's president, Maada Bio, has been declared winner. of the presidential elections. According to the Electoral Commission, he secured more than 56 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff against his rival, Samura Kamara.
Just hours after the results were announced, Bio was already sworn in at the state house where he gave a speech saying he was, quote, "extremely humbled and immensely thankful to the people of Sierra Leone."
However, Samura has rejected the results saying that they are not credible and that he would be challenging them.
It was a fiercely contested election between the two men and international observers such as Carter Centre reported that the tabulation process lacked quote "adequate levels of transparency." Carter Centre observers also said they observed instances of broken seals and ballot boxes that were open in some tally centers.
[03:50:00]
The Electoral Commission described the weekend poll as relatively peaceful, but acknowledged pockets of violence. And on Sunday, Kamara's APC party accused the country's security forces of laying siege to its head office in a capital Free Town and firing live rounds, which Kamara described as an assassination attempt, although the police denied firing live rounds.
The vote on June 24 was the fifth since the end of civil war in 2002, and was held amid high unemployment and inflation, as well as growing divisions in the country. President Bio made great inroads in his first term with gender equality and education, but was marred by worsening hardship for its citizens. Although he has promised to tackle these problems by feeding the nation and creating a half a billion jobs for young people.
Stephanie Busari, CNN, Lagos.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Still ahead, North Korea's most famous football star has not been seen in years. More on his last known whereabouts next.
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CHURCH: British actor Julian Sands has been confirmed dead after going missing while hiking in the mountains in Southern California in January. He was 65 years old. Weather conditions had hindered search efforts in the weeks following his disappearance, but officials announced a renewed push to locate Sands earlier this month, and just last week human remains were found in the area.
His family released a statement saying, we continue to hold Julian in our hearts with bright memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of the natural world and the arts, and as an original and collaborative performer.
The trial of American actor Kevin Spacey on sexual assault charges is set to begin today in London. The 63-year-old is facing a dozen charges, which include several counts of sexual assault and indecent assault. Prosecutors say these incidents occurred between 2001 and 2013. The two-time Oscar winner has pleaded not guilty and has denied any wrongdoing. The trial is expected to last up to four weeks.
North Korea's most famous football star has not been seen in years. Han Kwang-song made his last public appearance in August 2020, winning the Qatar Stars League trophy for Al Duhail. Since then, his whereabouts have been unknown.
CNN's Paula Hancocks reports.
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PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He became known as the little North Korean. Bursting into the soccer world in 2017, Pyongyang-born striker Han Kwang-Song impressed teammates and coaches. Rising to the heady heights of Italian giant Juventus, age just 21, then he vanished, his whereabouts still unknown.
MAX CANZI, FORMER CALIGARI U-19 COACH: He's losing the best years of his career.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Max Canzi, then the under-19 coach for Italian club Caligari was asked to assess Han at the start of his career.
CANZI: He was very fast and he took very fast decisions and he was very, very good in controlling the ball, shooting with both feet, and he was a very good talent, very good talent.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Signing him was a challenge, navigating U.N. sanctions, ordering member states to repatriate all North Korean workers, following a North Korean nuclear test in 2017.
[03:55:04]
Han joined Caligari as an academy player. Just two months later, he was playing in Serie A, the top division of the Italian Soccer League.
HAN KWANG-SONG, NORTH KOREAN FORWARD (translated): The strongest emotion I have had to be honest is my first Serie A goal. Everyone is nice to me and here people are very welcoming. I live far away from my family but I feel at home here.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): A blockbuster $3.7 million transfer to Juventus followed, then a $4.6 million contract to Al Duhail in Qatar, his last sporting move.
Winning the Qatar Stars League trophy in August 2020, this was the last time he was seen in public. Months later, a U.N. document showed Han had been deported in line with sanctions, boarding a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Rome in January 2021. It is here that the trail goes cold. North Korea's borders are still shut due to COVID-19, making
repatriation impossible.
(on-camera); The former coach of the North Korean team, Yorn Anderson, tells CNN he believes that Han is still in Italy, but cannot play football. An official close to the issue says that Han is last believed to have been living in an unspecified North Korean embassy. Now, we have reached out to Italian authorities asking for clarification on his whereabouts, but have yet to hear back.
(voice-over): For Han, one of his former teammates says the tragedy is a promising career cut short.
NICHOLAS PENNINGTON, FORMER TEAMMATE: You're dedicating your whole life, your whole life to that and it gets taken away from you because of political reasons.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Pennington says Han was well liked and fit in easily but was always accompanied by an Italian man he called security. More likely he was his minder, a common way Pyongyang monitors its own when overseas. Anytime Pennington asked about North Korea, he says the conversation ended abruptly.
PENNINGTON: He would just say, yeah, good, and that's it, nothing else.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Han was once a success story of North Korea's sporting aspirations. Only 24 years old, the young striker could now be a victim of its nuclear ambitions.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And finally, a chimpanzee named Vanilla had quite the reaction when she saw blue skies for the very first time in her life.
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It is enough to make you squint. She looked at the sky with amazement. The other chimps at this Florida chimpanzee sanctuary seem to want to share her joy and excitement. Save the chimps, says Vanilla, spent much of her life inside a small cage at a now-defunct research lab in New York. Now the sky's the limit for dear old Vanilla. Good on her.
And thanks so much for your company. I'm Rose Marie Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day. "CNN Newsroom" with Max Foster, is coming up next.
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