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CNN International: Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico Assassination Attempt; Russian Forces Push Offensive in Ukraine's Northeast; Putin in China for State Visit with Xi; Israeli Defense Minister Challenges Netanyahu on Gaza's Future. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 16, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An assassination attempt in broad daylight. Many in this country of about 5.5 million people deeply shaken and shocked by the violence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This red carpet welcome and this strong display of unity for Putin, that is what he craves and he's getting it in China. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are close friends.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An island paradise in turmoil, leaving shops, cars, homes burned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.

FOSTER: Hello, a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Max Foster. It's Thursday, May the 16th, 9 a.m. here in London.

It's 10 a.m. in Slovakia, where that country's Prime Minister is now in stable but serious condition after an assassination attempt, according to his deputy. The hospital director says his surgery lasted five hours and he'll remain in ICU. Robert Fico was shot five times on Wednesday by a man in a crowd.

You can see the security team leading Fico to a car for safety and the crowds watching nearby. The gunman was quickly apprehended and no one else was hurt. Prior to the attack, Fico had been attending a government meeting in the central town of Handlova.

The Kremlin sympathizer won a third term as Prime Minister last October after running a campaign that criticized Western support for Ukraine. Slovak leaders have called the shooting an assault on democracy.

CNN's Clare Sebastian has been looking at this. You've had an update from Slovakia. CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there was a press conference by the defense minister and the hospital director where he's been treated. That was just over an hour ago. We're hearing, as you said, that his condition has been stabilized overnight. The defense minister said that but it's still really serious. There were really complicated injuries.

And of course, the hospital director went into more detail about the surgery. It was two teams involved, a surgeon team and a trauma team, several gunshot wounds, which another deputy prime minister told us on Wednesday evening were to his stomach and his joints. So I think it's to be expected that he's in a pretty serious condition, despite now apparently being stabilized. He's going to remain, they say, in the hospital's ICU unit.

Now, in terms of the investigation, the police investigation, we're waiting to hear more on that. Obviously, we know that one suspect was arrested at the scene. You can see how it all unfolded there.

And we know that the country's Security Council will be meeting later today, presumably on the situation overall. We heard from the defense and interior ministers last night that they're going to try to beef up security around all government officials. But I think this is something that within Slovakia is number one, causing alarm, and number two, raising concerns about whether this will exacerbate existing divisions, existing polarization within the country.

Take a listen to the defense minister last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT KALINAK, SLOVAK DEFENSE MINISTER: We're just talking about the level of democracy, about the ability to understand each other, to accept the other opinion. And not only one is that good one. If somebody has a different opinion, it's also, he has also his place on the earth and in the political field.

So this is the issue, what's happened. It's a political assault, it's absolutely clear. And we have to react on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: Real concerns about the divisions in society at the back of this. Lots of calls for calm, lots of mentions of sort of hatred and hate speech on social media from government officials and from the president of the country who also called for calm. I think there's a real concern, as I said here, that rather than uniting people after this violent act, that it could exacerbate these polarizations.

FOSTER: We don't know anything, do we, about the motive here. But loads of theories flying about because there are so many different communities that were so opposed to his policies.

SEBASTIAN: Right, and look, he's only been back in office. He's obviously a veteran politician. He's done two previous terms as prime minister, re-elected late last year, took office in October and has really reversed course for Slovakia.

We've seen a polar sort of switch in foreign policy. And now we're seeing in domestic policy as well. He's stopped aid, military aid to Ukraine, although he is allowing private companies to provide aid.

He's been parroting Kremlin lines on why the war started, blaming Ukrainian Nazis. And then domestically, we're starting to see pages being taken out of the Kremlin playbook, just like we saw with Georgia this week. Slovakia has its own law that it's trying to pass to require NGOs and organizations with funding from abroad to register.

They're trying to scrap the public service broadcaster and replace it with something under tighter control from the government. That has sparked protests recently. So certainly this is a very tense situation within Slovakia, very polarized.

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And there are a lot of people who have reason to, you know, be against him.

FOSTER: Just tell us a bit about Slovakia. A lot of people will know the name. They don't know much about the country.

SEBASTIAN: Yes, just 31 years as a sovereign country. And as I said, Robert Fico has been a fixture of that country for a long time. Three terms. He's now in his third as Prime Minister starting in 2006, again in 2012.

As you can see, it's landlocked. And I think the geography here is really important. It borders Ukraine.

It also borders Hungary. I think its longest border to the south is with Hungary. And it's now a country in Europe where, despite having been a member of the EU since 2004 and in the Euro, where there are concerns about rising Russian influence there, democratic backsliding.

And that is something, I think, that we see with other countries like, for example, Georgia, where there are concerns around Hungary as well. So that is sort of the context here for Slovakia.

FOSTER: This is a major European leader being assassinated in public. You know, a lot of people look at that thinking, what is going on in Europe? Does it in any way speak to current geopolitics and threats?

SEBASTIAN: I think until we know more about the motive and the suspect, it's hard to understand what is going on here. But I think certainly there are concerns now that this has really exposed the divisions within this society. And then the sort of big picture, as I was saying, is that you see the democratic backsliding happening in certain countries in Europe, certain countries that have been taught over the past several decades to live in a sort of liberal Western- style democracy, and are now seeing some of that in reverse.

And this shows the dangers that arise when these kinds of world views clash literally in one country. FOSTER: Clare, thank you. Stay with us because we're going to speak to Alena Kudzko, Vice President for Policy and Programming at the GLOBSEC think tank in Bratislava. She joins us from the Slovak capital.

Thank you so much for joining us. I mean, that video is so shocking, isn't it, to see it all unfold in the way it did, a major leader, a world leader here. What has been the reaction amongst the people who have been speaking to you there?

ALENA KUDZKO, VICE PRESIDENT FOR POLICY AND PROGRAMMING, GLOBSEC: Most of the country has come together. Main opposition parties, the president of the country, but also the vast majority of the society, have rallied behind Prime Minister, wishing him well, but also saying that violence is not something that should be accepted or tolerated in our democratic societies.

But, as it was already rightly pointed out, there are quite high-level members of the government, some of the ministers, but also deputy ministers, or the deputy speaker of the parliament, who were trying openly to pinpoint the blame and say that it's the opposition, the media, who were fanning the flames of criticism towards the government, and who allegedly enabled the thinking that political violence, politically motivated violence, if it was the case, is acceptable in our societies.

So there's also very real fear among people that these attacks can become something that happens again. The security services already increased protection for the members of the government, members of the parliament, but also journalists, representatives of civil society, are worried whether there will be any acts of retaliation against them.

FOSTER: Just explain where the Prime Minister's support comes from. As I understand it, it's rural areas who, you know, have their own domestic issues, and he's been addressing them very effectively, but obviously much less popular with the liberal urbanites, if I can call them that.

KUDZKO: Prime Minister Fico has been a very polarizing figure. In many ways, it resembles the situation in the United States, but also personality and attitudes towards Donald Trump. He has a huge support base, in that he's been Prime Minister already for the fourth time, so the people who like him, who vote for him, think that he brings a good message of stability, they think that he brings a good job of economy, but he's also kind of a populist figure, who knows what the public wants, who knows how to relate to the public. He sends also strong anti-migration signals, and people like it a lot.

At the same time, another half of the country, that's mostly people who are living in urban areas, who are more oriented towards Western economies, they are very concerned specifically about some of the policies that he is introducing. There was a wave of protests against the government and against the anti-democratic reforms that the government has been introducing.

For example, the government has disbanded the Office of the Special Prosecutor, who was responsible for investigating corruption. The government has also changed the laws on the public broadcasting, trying to bring the public media directly under the governmental control.

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There's also a discussion about introducing the Foreign Agents Act, which is very similar to what's happening in Russia or Georgia, and that would say that civil society organizations that receive money from abroad are foreign agents.

FOSTER: So, I mean, it's, you know, we've covered the Georgia story a lot. It seems like a very symbolic situation for global tension, effectively. Is that how you would describe this as well? A flashpoint, really, in what is happening around the world.

KUDZKO: It definitely, in many ways, echoes the situation in other countries. That includes European countries, that includes countries in the EU, outside of the EU, like Georgia. But in some way, it's also the discussion that is happening in the United States.

Indeed, it's very telling that in many European countries, there's more exposure and more polarization of societies. There are more extreme voices who are saying that we need to go much further down the road in trying to oppress the opposition. And as in other countries, Slovaks are worried that this incident will be used as an argument to suppress rights of the freedom of expression, to suppress the freedom of assembly in the country.

FOSTER: Can I just ask a quick question about Slovakia and the culture there? Because as I understand it, people do have guns, but it's regarded as a very safe country, and gun crime is very low. So, to see this happen would have been a real shock to people when they saw the video.

KUDZKO: Indeed, gun crimes are very rare, including the criminal acts of violence. They're all very rare. There were several high-profile shootings in the country over the past several years, though, and some of them were clearly politically motivated.

A couple of years ago, there were two men, representatives of the LGBT community, who were killed in the streets by a person who openly said that he opposes the rights of the LGBT community.

Six years ago, a journalist who was investigating corruption and his fiancee were shot. And actually, this killing of the journalist and his fiancee was what caused the demise of the previous government, of the Robert Fico.

But otherwise, gun crimes are not that common, so the reaction of the society is that of shock. We do know, though, that the person possessed the gun legally. He used to work for private security services, so there are also other people in the country who have the right to bear arms, but it's not used very frequently for violence.

FOSTER: OK, Alena, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Clare, so clearly the nation's shocked, you would be, when your prime

minister's been -- it's been an assassination attempt, but they're not shocked, it appears, at the idea that, you know, there's anger towards him. Because this has been bubbling up for a while.

SEBASTIAN: Yes, I mean, as I said, you know, it's highly polarized, highly divisive. And I want to highlight one comment as well that we got from the interior minister yesterday who said that the suspect made the decision to do it shortly after the presidential election. So we've had two elections, really, in the last six to eight months since Ludovit Odor, the prime minister, elected late last year, and then a new president was elected in April.

He is an ally, the head of a coalition party of Robert Fico, and the outgoing president is a very staunch pro-Western voice, seen as a sort of restraining force on some of these more illiberal policies that we see coming in in Slovakia. So, you know, I think that is something that may come to the fore as well, that this restraining force is now going to be leaving office next month.

FOSTER: OK, Clare, thank you so much for your analysis.

Ukraine's presence as the country's defense forces have partially stabilized the situation in the Kharkiv region against an ongoing Russian offensive.

This was a scene in Ukraine's north-east on Wednesday as troops fired at Russian positions outside Kharkiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cancelled all of his upcoming international travel to deal with the Russian offensive. Heavy fighting has gripped the areas near the border since Friday when Russia launched a surprise cross-border assault.

Mr. Zelenskyy says the fighting is ongoing and will not lead to defensive gaps elsewhere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): In the Kharkiv region, the areas near the border, our defensive actions are continuing. The occupier is being destroyed by all means. Artillery, drones and our infantry are working quite accurately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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FOSTER: Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his visit to Kyiv. He announced the U.S. will provide an additional $2 billion in military financing for Ukraine and says weapons are being moved quickly to the battlefield.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're rushing ammunition, armored vehicles, missiles, air defenses, rushing them to get to the front lines, to protect soldiers, to protect civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in north-eastern Ukraine with more on the latest fighting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a deeply grave situation north of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, and it's getting worse, frankly, day by day. We're now five or six days on from when the Russians first crossed the border again in what some dubbed a third invasion, heading from their territory into parts of Ukraine. They'd been kicked out nearly two years ago now and, in fact, it's depressing to be here, not far from Vovchansk.

And just remember how two years ago this was a front-line area and then we saw the Russians pushed out because their supply lines essentially had crumbled. Now they have their act together, it seems, and have en masse crossed over. We're talking double digits.

Vovchansk, the key town north of Kharkiv on the border, that's really the focus of the fighting. Ukraine's military making an admission that they've had to -- I'm paraphrasing here -- execute some kind of tactical withdrawal but saying they put their forces in better positions around it, essentially suggesting the Russians have pushed them back a little. And a police chief inside the town has been reporting today, hearing extensive sounds of gunfire in and around the town there.

So a lot's moving around Vovchansk. Russia clearly coming at this with extensive resources. Ukraine struggling to respond in kind.

Remember, that delay of the $61 billion of US aid for about six months has already had an impact across the front lines in the east and now we're seeing it more acutely where they're being, frankly, outgunned by Moscow. Without the artillery, they can't stop advancing forces. Desperate need, too, for F-16s in the air here as well.

The situation's so grave that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has cancelled forthcoming trip abroad. There were hints he was going to Europe. Remember, so much of his job still is going around his allies, shopping for the aid, making the case for continued and better support for Ukraine.

That is now not going to happen for the days ahead because things are so acutely bad here. Clearly, Russia hasn't its sights. The second biggest city, Kharkiv, is still pretty far out, but its guns might soon be in range.

And remember, too, all of this distracts forces from front lines that have already seen Russian advances over the past days or weeks, in some cases, too. A new phase of the war here, utterly desperate, and one, frankly, that the slowdown in U.S. military aid is significantly to blame for.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Staryi Saltiv, just north of Kharkiv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Beijing for a two-day state visit. He was greeted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping a short while ago. The two have already had their first talks and signed a joint declaration. They're hoping to show the world that China and Russia are very close.

I want to go closer as well. Kristie joins us.

So this is Putin's first big visit since the presidential election. Are you looking more at the images they're sending out or actually what they're saying?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A little bit of both. But if you look at the optics, wow, it is a robust display of friendship for Putin and China, despite the strong international pressure that is out there. Putin is back in China for a state visit, his second visit in a year.

And earlier today in Beijing, Putin and Xi, they held talks in the Great Hall of the People. There was also, shortly after, a signing ceremony. And up next, there's going to be a reception and a state gala to mark 75 years of the relationship.

And Xi Jinping used very colorful language earlier to hail the relationship. And let's just show you what the Chinese leader said.

He said: The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it. He goes on to say that: China is willing to jointly achieve the development and rejuvenation of our respective countries, unquote.

And Xi also added, this was interesting, he added that he personally met with Vladimir Putin more than 40 times.

Now, Putin, on his part, he also, of course, hailed ties, telling state-run Xinhua that the relationship has reached the highest level ever and relations have grown stronger, especially as the U.S. and its allies have sanctioned both countries, especially Russia, after its invasion of Ukraine.

And you can also see the strength of the relationship in the trade numbers. Let's show you the data. Trade between Russia and China has surged. In fact, last year reached an all-time high of $240 billion as China is buying Russian energy and Russia is buying up Chinese products, like vehicles, like vehicle parts, like semiconductors, machinery, the list goes on.

And that is why China's been under pressure from the West to make sure that its products are not dual-use, that they're not supporting Russia's war against Ukraine.

[04:20:00] We heard from Blinken last month when he was in China. He warned Chinese officials that the U.S. and other countries would act if Beijing doesn't move to curb this flow.

And China's economy doesn't want to be rocked right now. It's very wobbly, cannot afford to rupture ties with the West. So this visit, despite the pomp, despite the show of the friendship, it is a test of the no-limits alliance between China and Russia -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Kristie in Hong Kong, thank you so much for that.

Weather conditions temporarily turning in favor of firefighters in Canada, at last, who are battling more than 100 wildfires across the country. But there's still a long road ahead.

First responders in the province of Manitoba are struggling to put out one of the country's largest wildfires, which is burning out of control. In Alberta, thousands of people were caught in a traffic jam. On Tuesday, they were trying to escape another huge out-of-control fire, which was close to Fort McMurray. However, officials say weaker winds and cooler temperatures will improve conditions for firefighters. But some 6,600 people have been ordered to get out.

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JUSTIN PAYNE, EVACUEE: When we woke up, we woke up around six o'clock in the morning and there was just a good steady smoke in there and the smell of burning, you could smell it, and you could see the orange glow in the sky. And we knew it was coming, so we started packing up then and preparing for the notice, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, still to come, Palestinians are leaving Rafah in droves as Israel intensifies military operations in the southern Gaza City, a live report for you next.

Plus, a manhunt of unprecedented scale in France after a fugitive known as "The Fly" busted out of a prison convoy in a deadly ambush. We'll have the latest on the search.

And later, if there was an Olympics for laziness, this would be it. Hundreds of competitors battling boredom to see who's the champion of spacing out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Israel is ramping up military operations in southern Gaza, the city of Rafah, despite U.S. warnings to hold off to avoid mass civilian casualties. The Israel Defense Forces say they targeted a Hamas training compound in the eastern part of the city.

According to the U.N., about 600,000 Palestinians, a quarter of Gaza's population, have fled Rafah after the Israeli military ordered them to evacuate the city last week. The IDF says they're also engaged in intense battles in parts of

northern Gaza, including the Jabalia camp and Gaza City, where it had previously claimed to have dismantled Hamas.

The renewed fighting in northern Gaza is raising questions about Israel's long-term strategy in Gaza.

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Israel's Defense Minister, Yair Galant, is voicing his frustration at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's failure to address the issue of a post-war plan for the enclave and warns that he opposes Israeli rule there.

CNN's Paul Hancocks is following all of these developments for us. She's live in Abu Dhabi.

I mean, the images coming out of Rafah are pretty stark, but they're clearly taking heed of Israel's word.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. As you say, more than 600,000 have left now. The areas that they're going to, al-Mawasi, for example, has been deemed by humanitarian aid groups as not suitable for habitation.

Some are then moving to Khan Younis, which is an area we know the Israeli military has been operating in, and it is a city largely in ruins at this point.

But what we're seeing within the political scene, really, is this pressure to look beyond the military strategy, beyond what Israel is doing today, and really calling on the Israeli prime minister to have a political plan, a day-after plan as well.

Now, we've heard from the defense minister himself. He's already voiced in the past that he doesn't think that Israel should have this overall control, security or otherwise, after the war of Gaza.

But this is really the most direct attack so far, saying that Israel shouldn't have any part in this, that there should be some kind of Palestinian entity that is going to be able to govern after Hamas is taken out, or at least after the war ends.

Now, the Israeli prime minister has said that he doesn't agree with that. He believes those entities could only really be Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, and neither are appropriate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Until it's clear that Hamas does not control Gaza militarily, nobody will be prepared to take upon himself the civil management of Gaza, out of fear for their lives. Therefore, all the talk about the day after, while Hamas remains intact, will remain mere words devoid of content.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HANCOCKS: Now, you also have Benny Gantz, who's part of the war cabinet, agreeing with Gallant, saying that this shouldn't be the case. And then you have the more right-wing elements of the cabinet saying that Gallant should be fired for insubordination and for suggesting this. So you can see the massive split within the Israeli political sphere at this point.

But it goes beyond that. It is in a wider sense. You've heard the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, saying there needs to be a political plan. There needs to be a day-after plan. Otherwise, you are going to have a vacuum which Hamas will then move into.

And we have seen it just in recent days. We've seen it in parts of northern Gaza, in parts of central Gaza, where the Israeli military has now moved back to those areas which they say they had cleared of Hamas, because with a political vacuum, then Hamas, they say, is able to regroup and reassemble.

So military experts within Israel as well are saying this will continue to happen time and time again in different parts of Gaza if there is not this political plan, this day-after plan. So immense amount of pressure on the Israeli prime minister, even from those who are considered his allies at this point, to start to look a little further forward -- Max.

FOSTER: We were just looking at images there of Gaza from Israel. So it still looks intense every day, of course. Take us to Jabalia and this incident. It's been called Friendly Fire.

HANCOCKS: Yes, so this is one of the areas where Israel said they had cleared the area of Hamas and then had to move back in as they were regrouping. So while they were there, we understand from the Israeli military that five Israeli soldiers were killed in the so-called Friendly Fire incident. They were part of the paragliders' battalion.

We understand that there was a tank in the area as well which fired upon this battalion, not realizing they were on the same side. We understand there are also injuries at this point. But this really goes again and speaks to the fact that Israel is having to return to areas where it claims it had already cleared the area of Hamas. And then you see these kinds of incidents happening -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Paula in Abu Dhabi, thank you.

Still to come, another day of unrest in New Caledonia with dozens arrested amid deadly anti-government protests in the French territory. How the French government is cracking down on the violence.

Plus, the stage is set for a face-to-face rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump. Debate details coming up.

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