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Wagner Leader Presumed Dead; Trump to be Surrendered at the Fulton County Jail; Republican Presidential Candidates Squared Off for Their First Primary Debate. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired August 24, 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]

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, ahead on "CNN Newsroom."

Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is presumed dead in a plane crash outside of Moscow and questions are swirling over whether the crash was truly an accident.

In the coming hours, Donald Trump is expected to be booked and released from Georgia's Fulton County Jail. We'll break down this unprecedented arrest.

And later, (inaudible) wastewater from Japan's Fukushima plant is being released into the Pacific Ocean. We'll have the latest on this controversial move.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN Newsroom with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: It's 10 a.m. in Moscow where Russian authorities say they've opened a criminal investigation into the plane crash that may have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin. The controversial leader of the Wagner mercenary group is said to be one of ten people on board a private jet that went down Wednesday evening. No one survived the fiery crash.

Officials say eight bodies have been recovered so far. And Prigozhin's body hasn't been officially identified. A video posted on the social media platform Telegram appears to show the jet plunging one of its wings missing. The plane was heading from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Flight data suddenly shows it stopped transmitting around 6 p.m. local time.

Prigozhin was a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He led his mercenary forces in several key battles in the war in Ukraine but turned against Russian military leadership, staging a brief mutiny in June. US President Joe Biden suggested the plane crash may not have been an accident. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't know for a fact what happened, but I'm not surprised.

REPORTER: Do you believe that Putin is behind this, sir?

BIDEN: There's not much that happens in Russia where Putin is behind it. I don't know enough to know the answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Alright, let's go live now to London and CNN's Clare Sebastian. Clare, still a lot we don't know, but what more can you tell us at this hour?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning Kim. I can tell you that in the light of day the focus is now on the crash site itself, trying to piece together the evidence that we can glean from images that are coming out of that as to what exactly happened here.

State media are reporting that debris may have been spread over around a two kilometer radius. We're now hearing from RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, saying that a piece of the tail section has been found 3.5 kilometers away.

So there appears to be some spread when it comes to the debris. There's images showing body bags being removed from the site. It's cordoned off by police. Seems to be a pretty rural area. So the focus is on that, but also some comments that we're getting in from eyewitnesses. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VITALY STEPENOIK, EYEWITNESS (through translator): I heard an explosion or a bang. Usually if an explosion happens on the ground, then you get an echo. But it was just a bang. And I looked up and saw white smoke. One wing flew off in one direction and the fuselage went like that and then it glided down on one wing. It didn't nosedive, it was gliding. I was afraid it would fall into the village.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So all of that will have to be pieced together by the experts to try and understand what happens. We obviously cannot fully trust the Russian aviation authorities to conduct an impartial investigation here. But I think in terms of piecing together clues, we're also going to be looking at the clues that we get from how the Kremlin responds to this. They have not come out and commented on it yet.

And I think really important was that on the same day as this crash, we got news from state media that Sergei Surovikin, who was a general who briefly commanded the operation in Ukraine, then disappeared after the Wagner mutiny known to have had relatively close ties to Yevgeny Prigozhin. He was officially removed from his position as the head of the aerospace forces. He still hasn't been seen in public. So look, Yevgeny Prigozhin launched this mutiny in June complaining

that he wanted Defense Minister Shoigu and the head of the armed forces General Gerasimov removed. They still remain in place. Surovikin, the general that he admired, has been sacked and now it looks like Yevgeny Prigozhin himself may have died in this plane crash.

So on the surface, it looks like Putin may have got what he wants out of this, but I think there is a sense that he's also been weakened and been made increasingly vulnerable. And you can see from his behavior, he was in Kursk yesterday, and he came out at these commemorations for a World War II battle, greeted people, shook hands, hugged people.

[03:05:09]

It looks like an effort similar to what we saw right after the mutiny in June to reassert his authority, his popularity, and to try to appear in control of the situation. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, interesting juxtaposition there, as you say. Clare Sebastian in London, thank you so much.

Now for more on this, I'm joined now by Edward Lucas, who's a non- resident senior fellow and senior advisor at the Center for European Policy Analysis, and he joins me live from London. Thanks so much for being here with us.

So I just want to start with your reaction to this. I mean, it always seemed from the minute that Prigozhin's short-lived mutiny failed, as though he was on borrowed time, given Putin's grim track record.

EDWARD LUCAS, NON-RESIDENT SR. FELLOW AND SR. ADVISER, CENTER FOR EUROPEAN POLICY ANALYSIS: Yes, Kim, I think either Putin was on borrowed time or Prigozhin was on borrowed time. One didn't really feel that Russia or indeed the planet was a big enough place for both of them.

Putin really was a public figure. He called Prigozhin a traitor. Prigozhin had launched this mutiny and before that had insulted Putin personally using language that one couldn't use on CNN.

And so after the failure of the mutiny, this sort of temporary fix where Prigozhin was allowed to go and live in the Russian client state of Belarus and seemed to resume more or less his role in Russian public life. That always had to be temporary. And so I thought it would probably be falling out of a window that would be his end, as it is it was a plane falling out of the sky.

BRUNHUBER: Well, you wrote in the aftermath of the Prigozhin mutiny that, quote here, "the Russian leader's power rests on his reputation for competence and decisiveness." So if Prigozhin were killed on Putin's order, it would reinforce the other aspect of the president's image, which is as a vengeful strongman. I mean, what message do you think this sends to his rivals? And does this hint at a wider purge, do you think? LUCAS: Well, I think there is probably a wider purge underway. We've

seen General Surovikin, who was perhaps the most successful of the Russian generals in the Ukraine war, has been relieved of his role as an Air Force general.

And it's thought that he may have been sympathetic to Surovikin. And we've also seen some other signs of purges inside the Russian elite. And so I think the system is fundamentally unstable. It relied as I wrote a few months ago on Putin's reputation for omniscience, for knowing everything and omnipotence, being able to do everything, and for getting things right.

And clearly he's not getting things right. It's not just the war in Ukraine. But Prigozhin should never have been able to launch that mutiny in the first place. That's what you have military intelligence for.

And having launched it and having failed, he should have been behind bars or dead by the end of the day, not running around, grandstanding. So I think that it shows the fundamental weakness of the Putin regime that it's got to this stage.

And I think we also are going to see several more shoes falling here as the rouse go on about the division of the spoils who gets Prigozhin's enormously lucrative empire of dirty tricks (inaudible) operations in other countries and so on and that will be also a lot of paranoia within the Putin's circle about who may be up he lay it down what's going to happen next.

BRUNHUBER: Well, you mentioned Prigozhin's empire, there's a certain irony here, I mean, you wrote essentially that Prigozhin exemplified some of the most telling aspects of Putin's 24 year rule. Explain what you meant.

LUCAS: Well, I think the overlap between intelligence and dirty tricks, between politics, state administration and business is the hallmark of the Putin regime. It actually started back in St. Petersburg in the 1990s when Putin was a municipal bureaucrat with close ties to organized crime and business and with his own background in the intelligence service.

And that sort of kind of hybrid regime took over the whole country when Putin moved to Moscow and into the Kremlin. And Prigozhin kind of exemplifies this because everything is always kind of a bit unclear, is he really a businessman, what's he really owned, what's he really doing, who's he working for, who's he accountable for, too.

And we saw this very clearly with the Russian operations in Africa, which was selling sort of dictatorship in a box to African dictators, theoretically, superficially, as a commercial deal from the Wagner Corporation, but actually furthering the Kremlin's geopolitical interest.

We also saw it with the troll, the infamous troll (inaudible) very effective disinformation operations run out of St. Petersburg from an anonymous office block by people hired from the so-called Internet Research Agency.

[03:10:10]

And that was actually also part of Prigozhin's empire and was also doing the Kremlin's bidding. So these kinds of blurred categories where you never quite know who anybody is or what they're doing exemplifies the Putin regime. And the fact that Prigozhin is gone now, having played his cards perhaps unwisely or rashly, doesn't I think alter the fact that this is the way the Russian system actually works.

BRUNHUBER: Finally we have pictures from Russian media showing people bringing flowers and candles to the Wagner Center. Do you think Prigozhin might be seen as a martyr here, maybe an unlikely inspiration to dissenters, maybe not, you know, popular dissenters but, you know, among the elite perhaps?

LUCAS: Well, I'm not sure when the elite, because they're very scared of change, and they would need a lot of convincing that you know, some post-Wagner figure would be the right person to replace Putin.

But I do think among the public Putin's popularity is very broad, but also very shallow and it was very striking during the coup, failed coup, how very quickly, Wagner was able to take over the important Southern Russian city of Rostov and he was pretty the streets buzz as a hero. And I think Russians will cheer for Putin while Putin is the top man but as soon as and when else comes from the chief of them instead because they are basically fed up with the stagnant economy with the wall and with all the other problems of the Putin regime and indeed Putin himself.

BRUNHUBER: Listen, I really appreciate your analysis on this important story. Edward Lucas thank you so much.

LUCAS: Thanks, Kim.

All right, up next, eight Republican rivals take the stage for the first presidential primary debate of the 2024 race. Donald Trump wasn't one of them. One of the highlights just ahead.

Plus, this is the jail in Fulton County where Donald Trump is expected to surrender later today. On the latest of the Georgia election subversion case next, stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Today, former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender to authorities here in Atlanta. The four-time indicted former president is set to leave his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club in the afternoon and fly to Atlanta to turn himself in over the Georgia election subversion case.

He's expected to be processed at the Fulton County Jail, where officials say he'll be treated like any other criminal defendant. Trump has already agreed to a $200,000 cash bond. He plans to return to New Jersey in the evening.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is one of three former attorneys with the Trump team who voluntarily surrendered to Fulton County authorities on Wednesday. We'll have more on that in a moment.

So far, nine of Trump's 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case have turned themselves in ahead of Friday's deadline.

Now, former president's expected surrender in Georgia comes one day after eight of his Republican rivals took to the stage in Milwaukee for the first presidential primary debate of the 2024 race. Each of the candidates looking for their breakout moment to show why they're a better choice than current front runner Donald Trump. Top issues included the economy, abortion and Ukraine. Several candidates traded barbs with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, including Nikki Haley, who had this fiery response when addressing the need for continued support for Ukraine. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ukraine is the first line of defense for us. And the problem that Vivek doesn't understand is, he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia. He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don't do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.

Ukraine is the front line of defense. Putin has said, if Russia, once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. That's a world war. We're trying to prevent war. Look at what Putin did today. He killed Prigozhin. When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murder over a pro-American country.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Well, last hour I spoke with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein and I asked him how he thinks the candidates perform during last night's debate. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Tim Scott kind of faded into the wallpaper. Ramaswamy was erratic, commanding a lot of attention, but also behaving in a way that probably reinforces the ceiling. Nikki Haley was compelling, for -- for most of the evening.

Ron DeSantis kind of hell-serve. But it all really kind of pales, you know, next to the big question. Did any of them do anything to change the dynamic in which Donald Trump has established a 40-point lead in national polls over all of them?

And apart from Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, the usual suspects, none of them really displayed a lot of urgency about trying to make a case to all those Republican voters who now support Trump about why they might want to reconsider that decision.

And until that happens, you know, we're arguing about who finishes a distant second or a distant third to someone who, at the moment, is in a very commanding position.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, I guess tough to find a winner or a loser in that context. But so let's turn to the issues. Anything surprising in terms of the issues discussed, the positions taken, abortion was a big topic, so it was January 6th, and as we heard in that soundbite, whether they would support Trump even if indicted.

BROWNSTEIN: That was, I thought, the single most important moment of the evening where six of the eight, I mean, Christie didn't affirm it, you know, decisively raise his hand, but clearly was in the campus and he would not support Trump, but six of the eight said they would support Trump even if he is convicted of a crime before the election. I mean, you really have to let that sink in for a moment to kind of grasp the magnitude of what we are looking at. From a policy point of view, I think the disagreements over Ukraine were probably the most significant.

[03:20:08]

And, you know, I think that was, from a policy perspective, the most memorable moment of the night was when Nikki Haley said to Rameswamy, you are siding with a murderer over a pro-American country. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.

I thought that was pretty memorable was kind of interesting. You know, there is a tradition in Republican primaries of candidates who really channel in an unreserved way the id of the base and have a moment in the sun. Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman in 2012, Ben Carson in some ways in 2016. They all tend to flame out before the voting actually begins.

And I thought that while Rameswamy tonight managed to make himself the center of attention with really kind of extreme statements and sweeping denunciations of all of his rivals as being bought and paid for, he left a smaller figure, I thought, than he came onto the stage and probably reaffirmed the limits of how far he's able to go.

BRUNHUBER: Oh, interesting. OK, I would have thought maybe he might have distinguished himself with all of that political bomb going. But we'll see whether that --

BROWNSTEIN: You know, he did, but I think in a way that also reinforces that you can only go so far, I think, with that kind of messaging.

BRUNHUBER: Right. All right. So Trump loomed large even in his absence, but for the most part, the candidates avoided talking about the 40-point elephant not in the room, as the moderator said. Was he really the big winner here? BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. In the context of the Republican field, I think he

clearly was. I mean, Trump made the calculation which I think many political consultants would have supported as a whole, you know, hard- cold political assessment, that he was so far ahead, he didn't need to elevate or give oxygen to these other candidates by appearing on a stage with them.

And it was incumbent on them to make him regret and then ultimately reconsider that decision by using his absence to make a case effectively against him.

And again, apart from the one question where into the issue of his legal vulnerability. And you saw Christie and Hutchinson raise those arguments about, you know, his behavior. Really no one else over the course of the two hours, apart from Haley once on coming at him from the right on the debt really made him a target. I mean, there was nothing that happened there that would cause Trump to reconsider his choice, not even to engage with these candidates. As long as they use his absence to go after each other.

Why would he ever put himself in a position where they can, you know, challenge him directly? It looked, the people I talked to after the debate, it looked an awful lot like the strategy of the Republican candidates in 2016, where they avoided direct confrontation with Trump and the hope that eventually something somehow would cause his support to peel away and they would be in position to pick it up if they weren't viewed by his voters as too antagonistic toward him.

It didn't work then and by every indication it is not working now and you have to think that after this debate, if the candidates are really running to beat him as opposed to being his cabinet or vice president, there would be a reassessment of their approach tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: At least three people have been killed in a mass shooting in Southern California Wednesday night. It happened at a popular biker bar. At least six people were transported to the hospital, some with gunshot wounds. Police say they killed the shooter just two minutes after arriving at the scene. A law enforcement source tells CNN the shooter was a former law enforcement officer, and authorities are investigating the incident as a possible domestic dispute.

Yevgeny Prigozhin spent years inside the Russian president's inner circle until he turned into an outspoken critic. Now he's presumed dead. Take a look at the Wagner leader's legacy at home in Russia and abroad. Stay with us.

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[03:25:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

Now a recap of our top story. Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military group, is presumed dead in a plane crash. The warlord and recent adversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg on a private jet. Russian aviation officials say the aircraft plunged from the sky, killing all 10 people aboard. People gathered outside the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg, leaving flowers and candles as tribute.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh walks us through Prigozhin's rise from Putin's personal chef to rebel in his rapid fall from grace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He had always lived in the shadows until the war in Ukraine made him perhaps the most public Russian critic of how the Kremlin's war was fought.

The possibility Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead is a shockwave to an already shaken system. Putin's critics rarely survive as long as he did. And the talk in Russia and Ukraine that Putin might still have wanted to kill him, a sign the chaos in Moscow he caused was not over.

He led the most brazen affront to Putin's rule in his 23 years at the helm, taking an armed rebellion into the southern stronghold of Rostov-on-Don, marching on Moscow and then abruptly turning around. The apparent reason? A deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

[03:30:00]

Putin saved here by a neighboring ruler he usually treated with contempt. The deal was opaque, perhaps involving the fighters of the group Prigozhin-led Wagner, moving to Belarus.

It's unclear how much that happened. And then Prigozhin appeared, already surviving a long time for a Putin challenger, popping up in Africa this week, saying he would expand Russia's influence there. It would have been another turn in his remarkable and sordid career.

Initially Putin chef, he became a military contractor supplying food, then expanded into influence operations in the United States, trying to meddle in key elections, all deniable, all damaging to Putin's enemies. His Wagner Group expanded too from 2014.

CNN has tracked their mercenaries operating in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Mali and Syria, as well as Ukraine, with an army of tens of thousands battle-hardened.

And in Ukraine, always savage, fighting hardest around Bakhmut and always expanding, recruiting convicts from Russian prisons to be used as apparent cannon fodder on the front lines, executing alleged traitors, apparently with a sledgehammer.

It may never be definitively known who died in this wreckage. Even transparent investigators would struggle to find the right DNA. Instead, we will have Russian state investigators and media's word. The very people whose boss Prigozhin enraged.

Nick Paton-Walsh, CNN, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Well for more on Prigozhin's legacy of conflict in Africa, I want to turn now to senior international correspondent David McKenzie in Johannesburg. So David, take us through Wagner's role in some African countries.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it came long before Wagner became a worldwide name because of its involvement in the Ukraine War. The military group was working across the African continent and the Middle East.

If you look at this map, here are some of the areas that in the past and currently Wagner has been operating. Now, their operations have been a combination of direct military involvement, such as Mozambique and at the moment in Central African Republic and in the West African country of Mali.

But they've also been involved critically in so-called psyops, in trying to persuade citizens and leaders to shift their allegiance away from the West towards Russia. This is something that CNN has reported on extensively over the years. And it's notable that the most recent video of Prigozhin alive appeared to be from the African continent, where he said he was ready to expand their operations there. Wagner has been making a play to get involved in Niger, the country that recently had a coup.

The group is roundly condemned for human rights abuses in their operations on the continent, including as Nick was reporting, their executions and wholesale attacks on groups that included civilians.

The U.K. Parliamentary Investigation Group recently said that it was a significant failure of the U.K. and one can expand that to other countries of not paying enough attention to Wagner's operations on the continent and the impact that it's had. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: If it has had this big impact on its role looked to be expanded, as you say, what now might this mean for Wagner in Africa?

MCKENZIE: I think it's a very open question with Prigozhin presumed dead in that fiery crash. The big question is how much influence did he have on the day-to-day operations on Wagner, given his outsized personality, you can believe it was pretty substantial.

And let's not forget there may have been other key Wagner officials on that plane that crashed. So if the operations headquarters in terms of manpower has been taken out as it were, or has died, then it could have a significant impact.

The places to watch, I think, are in Central African Republic and in Mali in particular, where the governments there and the junta have been dependent on Wagner in providing security. And Wagner, for its part, has been dependent on those countries for getting monetary assistance and directly mining precious minerals to help support their operations across the world. Now, if their leadership structure collapses now, that could have a very significant impact in the short term on Wagner's operation and in the long term on those countries' security status. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: All right, well we'll see. Thank you so much, David McKenzie in Johannesburg.

[03:34:55]

Now, this just in to CNN, a Moscow court has extended the pre-trial detention of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months. That's according to Russian state media. Gershkovich's detention had initially been set to expire on August 30th. He's facing up to 20 years in prison on espionage charges, which he and his employer deny. The U.S. considers him wrongfully detained. Gershkovich is the first U.S. journalist detained on allegations of spying in Russia since the Cold War.

As Donald Trump plans his surrender to Fulton County authorities later today, three of his top election lawyers have already surrendered at an Atlanta jail. Have a look, this was the elite strike force as they called themselves back in November 2020. Sidney Powell on the left, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. This was them on Thursday. Three mugshots for three criminal defendants, each accused of scheming to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

And perhaps the most jarring to see, of course, is Giuliani, the former top prosecutor himself, former New York mayor, 9-11 hero, and at the time in the 2008 election, a Republican frontrunner for president. Despite reaching a $150,000 bond agreement, adding to his mounting financial woes and a sobering trip to a 2nd Chance Bail Bonds in Atlanta, Giuliani appeared defiant. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: I am very, very honored to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life. This indictment is a travesty. If this can happen to me, who is probably the most prolific prosecutor, maybe in American history, and the most effective mayor for sure, it can happen to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Well last hour I spoke with Areva Martin, a civil rights attorney and legal affairs commentator, and she says Fulton County authorities are treating the co-defendants in the Georgia election case like any other criminal defendant issues. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: They don't deserve any special treatment. They should not be given any privilege that any other defendant is not afforded. And that's what we saw today. That's what we'll see presumably tomorrow. And as the others turn themselves in to meet the Friday deadline set by Fani Willis.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, tomorrow. I mean, Donald Trump is supposed to surrender. What are you expecting there?

MARTIN: Well, we know he's already negotiated with the prosecutors in terms of what his bail amount will be. We know that's $200,000. We know there are conditions that are attached to his bail regarding his, you know, the judge admonishing him not to intimidate witnesses, not to make threats against individuals, against the community, against property in that state or in that county.

So I expect it's going to be in some ways pretty anti-climatic, but in other ways, Kim is historic because we're going to see a twice- impeached and four times indicted president, ex-president have to turn himself in at a local jail, a county jail in a state. And this has never happened in this country. We've never had a former president face the kind of legal jeopardy that Donald Trump faces.

And it's going to be unprecedented, but also, I think, a sad day for the country to see him turn himself in while he still is leading the Republican Party as the nominee for the 2024 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Alright, still ahead, treated radioactive race water from Japan's Fukushima nuclear site is now being released into the ocean. It's a controversial move that's drawn protests in the region. We'll have the latest in a live report that's coming up. Please stay with us.

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[03:40:00]

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BRUNHUBER: North Korea says its second attempt to launch a spy satellite into orbit has failed. State media report the rocket carrying the satellite suffered a malfunction after liftoff on Thursday. Japan says it broke apart with pieces scattering from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

An alarm briefly prompted an evacuation order for residents of Japan's Okinawa region. Still, North Korea says it will try to launch a spy satellite again in October. Thursday's launch comes as the U.S. and South Korea have been holding joint military drills.

China says it firmly opposes and strongly condemns Japan's release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear site into the ocean. Japan began the release just a few hours ago. It's part of a controversial government plan that's been in the works for years but has nonetheless sparked anxiety and health concerns in the region. CNN's Marc Stewart is in Tokyo. So Mark, take us through what's

happening right now, how long it might take, and then the reaction we're seeing to this.

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Kim, so much anticipation and now we are seeing the actual execution of this plan to basically dispose of this treated radioactive waste water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

This is certainly a Herculean task. When we look at the volume of water, it's enough to fill about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It has now underway, this process has now underway, it's been taking place for the last three hours or so. A very small effort underway for the next two weeks or so considering the volume of water.

Once that is complete, it is a task that will take years, perhaps even a decade to complete.

[03:45:03]

Despite reassurances from the Japanese government, from the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the radioactive levels in this water are safe for release in such a manner, there is skepticism. Just recently, Hong Kong announced it will no longer accept imports of Japanese fish and seafood.

We are also hearing from China, which is raising a lot of eyebrows about some of the scientific analysis that we have been hearing in recent weeks. In fact, as the topic that came up for conversation at a recent Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefing, let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG WENBIN, CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): It is unjustified, unreasonable, and unnecessary for Japan to push through the ocean discharge plan. We urge Japan not to shift the risk of nuclear pollution onto the rest of humanity in pursuit of its selfish interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: So Japan is moving forward with this release. It is interesting that the way it is taking place is underground. This is not something that you can necessarily see with your own eyes. A special tunnel has been built under the water to release this treated wastewater.

We should also point out that there is gonna be constant monitoring taking place. We have learned from the Tokyo Electric Power Company that there will be a boat there in the water to make sure this is going according to plan. There will also be regular tests to make sure that the water can is being released at these acceptable levels that scientists have deemed to be acceptable as part of this bigger project to deal with this water that has really accumulated for close to a decade.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, so plenty of opposition there. Marc Stewart in Tokyo, thanks so much.

Still to come, winds are fanning the flame for deadly wildfires across Greece, seeing residents to look on as their homes go up in smoke. Live in Athens with the latest.

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[03:50:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Extreme heat is forcing public schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to close for a second day Thursday. Officials say all after- school and athletic programs are also canceled. High temperatures also caused 17 schools in Denver, Colorado to close early on Wednesday. Dozens of schools there have no air conditioning. More than 75 million people are currently under excessive heat warnings across the midsection of the U.S.

Well, right now to Greece where firefighters are racing to contain more than 200 wildfires are broken out since Monday including nearly 100 in the last 24 hours.

We're live now to Athens and CNN's Eleni Giokos. Eleni, i see the winds i see the smoke behind you there how are things looking right now?

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, last night was really difficult. Firefighters tell me that it was like a nightmare. The wind started picking up and of course as you can see the wind is what's fanning the flames literally as you can see they just put this out. It's now started to burn again and the risk is that it just burns more and more of the forest that you see behind me.

Firefighters worked relentlessly overnight. You know, that's the point where there are no helicopters and any assistance from the air, helicopters have been flying above us every few minutes. Right now there are 260 firefighters on the ground, 13 pedestrian divisions, 77 vehicles, 6 airplanes, 9 helicopters and one of these helicopters can contain 11 tons of water.

Now when I drove past this area yesterday in Parnitha, which is known as the lungs of Athens, it was green. This burnt overnight. We witnessed houses being burnt. We witnessed enormous pain and emotion from the people that we met in the streets, the locals trying to do what they can to take matters into their own hands.

The fire department tells us that this side of the mountain seems to be under control but there are other front lines on the other side of the mountain and as you say hundreds of fires have erupted in Greece in just this week. We've seen tragic incidents like the one we saw in Alexandropoulos in northeastern Greece where they found 18 charred bodies and the fight continues Kim. This is a fight that will continue for a few days to come according to authorities.

BRUNHUBER: Alright, we'll stay on top of it and you please do stay safe and try and stay out of the smoke if you can. Eleni Giokos in Athens, thanks so much.

More than 100 municipalities in Portugal are under the country's maximum fire risk alert, according to officials. The announcement came on Tuesday. Mid-sweltering temperatures, as more than half of the country surpassed 40 degrees Celsius, hundreds of firefighters have been deployed to bring local fires under control. Officials say the alerts will last until Sunday.

In Hawaii, crews have searched 92 percent of areas burned by wildfires in Maui. Still, authorities say more than a thousand people are still unaccounted for after the disastrous outbreak. At least 115 people were killed in the flames that engulfed the historic city of Lahaina more than two weeks ago. Governor Josh Green says he's working on providing transitional housing for people who may need it. Thousands are currently staying in hotels or Airbnb locations.

Hours after an Indian spacecraft successfully landed on the moon, it deployed a rover which is now exploring the lunar surface.

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The historic landing of the Chandrayaan III spacecraft on the moon Wednesday makes India the fourth country to land on the lunar surface behind the U.S., China, and the former Soviet Union. India is also the first country to land on the moon's south pole, which has been largely unexplored.

Thanks so much for watching. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "CNN Newsroom" continues next with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo in a moment.

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