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Deadly Strike on Kharkiv; Protesters March Against Netanyahu; Severe Weather Strikes U.S. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired May 26, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

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[03:00:00]

ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to all our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Anna Coren live from Hong Kong.

Ahead on CNN Newsroom, at least 12 people are dead after a Russian strike on a Kharkiv hardware store. The toll the onslaught is taking on Ukraine's second largest city.

Anti-Netanyahu protesters take to the streets across Israel. They want more to be done to bring the hostages home.

And officials say there are multiple victims from severe weather in Texas, as much of the U.S. remains in danger on a busy holiday weekend.

We begin in Kharkiv, where Russia's deadly strikes are becoming a cruel fact of life for Ukrainian civilians. On Saturday, Ukraine said two guided bombs hit a hardware store packed with shoppers. Officials say at least 12 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded. 16 people are still missing. A Ukrainian parliament member who is in Kharkiv told CNN in the past hour that Russian attacks are becoming all too familiar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIKTORIA KINZBURSKA, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: We hear a dozens of explosions every day. We can see black smoke almost from every part of the city. Our people die every day. We don't have enough air defense capabilities. And we have some limits and restrictions on using weapon we're receiving from our friends and allies. So, it means that we can attack airfields and bases, which they are using to launch missile attacks on my city. But the cost we are paid, it's a hundred of civilian lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Ukraine says Russia struck the city three more times on Saturday, causing at least 25 additional injuries in Central Kharkiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it's all signature Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: The attack on Kharkiv is yet another demonstration of Russian madness. It's not possible to call it anything else. It is only someone crazy like Putin who is capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a mean way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Russia is stepping up strikes on Kharkiv after launching a ground offensive north of the city earlier this month. Some of the heaviest fighting is happening in a town west of Vovchansk, where CNN's Nick Paton Walsh witnessed it firsthand. Just a warning, some of the images in his exclusive report are graphic.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Some towns they can never let Putin take, and this, Liptsi, is one of them. Destroyed artillery on the streets, homes aflame from an airstrike. They can only move at night.

Lights off.

It's a perilous grip they keep, but lose here and Russian artillery will be in range of Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv.

You can still smell the smoke here from an airstrike that landed just in the last hour or so.

Drone, drone, drone, drone.

This is life under the drone, with the first reporters into the heart of the town.

OK.

Only soldiers left here underground, the Khartiia 13th National Guard first tackled Russia's new offensive.

OLEKSANDR, UKRAINE'S KHARTIIA NATIONAL GUARD BRIGADE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WALSH: Do you think there were good enough fortifications here?

OLEKSANDR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WALSH: There were eight airstrikes just in the last hour, so we leaves soon, a buzzing noise near us, very close, and the only way they know whose drone this is, is if it attacks.

(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WALSH: All around Kharkiv, they don't have enough guns, and the Russians have too many drones. The 92nd Assault Brigade showed us something that isn't even theirs. Russian artillery piece that they captured in the first year of the war in the fighting in Kharkiv region, and now they use, strangely, French mortar rounds to fire from here.

[03:05:00]

It's just a sign of how little appropriate ammunition they have available to them. This wire is a protection from FPV drones.

Above, he sees a drone with two battery packs, a long range scout. It is not friendly. If you can tell, it's an attack drone, hide. This seems to be a scout, so running is better before it calls in shelling.

Another artillery unit wants to show us something not even Russian, but Soviet. Made in the 1940s, it can still fire newer Polish shells. In the autumn, it was 100 a day. Now it is ten.

Extraordinary to see something here that's three times the age of either of these two guys holding back a new Russian offensive in 2024. I'd say the metal is so old that that limits the number of times.

That sound warns another drone is incoming. And back in the bunker, they show us the online bought $30 gadget that is their best warning mechanism.

The team here embody Ukraine's exhaustion and resilience, older guys, wounded infantrymen. Artur (ph) has drone shrapnel in his arm still.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

WALSH: We just saw an Orlan Russian drone passing overhead. So, he's saying better stay inside.

On the way back into the city, we see what fuels this defense. This was a lakeside resort, football, cocktails, a beach.

Extraordinary devastation. I think they had to collect the bodies.

A seven-month pregnant woman was among the seven dead here. Another body found later, just fragments in the mulch. Russia's advance looms over whatever life persists here, belching out over homes.

The dark is little salvation. This may be a drone being hit. But they kill two when they crash in failure. Flares breach the enforced blackout. Moscow is getting nearer again. And there are always too many blasts before dawn.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kharkiv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well, G7 countries are closer to a deal on using proceeds from frozen Russian assets to back loans for Ukraine. Italy's finance minister says they made progress at a meeting hosted by his country, but more work needs to be done. Close to $300 billion in Russian assets is sitting in western financial institutions after being frozen at the start of the war.

G7 countries are considering giving Ukraine up to $50 billion in loans, using future windfall profits from the Russian assets as collateral. Well, Moscow says if that happens, it will respond in kind.

Ceasefire and hostage release talks involving Israel and Hamas are scheduled to resume on Tuesday, and an Israeli official tells CNN that just hours from now, Israel's war cabinet will meet. Well, meanwhile, a deadly Israeli drone strike near Jabalia in Northern Gaza has killed at least ten people. We have video from after the strike and have to warn you that it is graphic. A number of the victims were children.

The drone hit a school that people were using for shelter. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment, but has not yet heard back.

In Rafah, the Israeli military is continuing its offensive. On Friday, the United Nations International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its operations in the Southern Gaza city.

Anti-government protesters in Israel are demanding that the government do more to bring the hostages home. Journalist Elliott Gotkine has more on that in the upcoming round of ceasefire talks.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Thousands of Israelis again took to the streets of Tel Aviv and cities across Israel to keep up the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to do a deal that would bring the hostages home after almost eight months in captivity.

Now, at the same time as that was happening, we got word at CNN from an Egyptian official familiar with the matter, telling us that hostage talks were actually set to resume this coming Tuesday in Cairo. An Israeli official familiar with the matter similarly telling CNN that hostage talks were set to resume as early as this week.

Now, this all stems from discussions that were presided over by CIA Director Bill Burns in Paris with his counterpart from the Mossad in Israel and the Qatari Prime Minister.

[03:10:00]

The Egyptians weren't there, but they were kept in the loop. They said that progress was made in those discussions, and that has now led to a resumption of these hostage talks being about to take place in Cairo this week. And that will give some of those people protesting on the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel renewed hope, cautious hope, that a deal to bring their loved ones home.

More than 120 Israelis still being held hostage about a quarter of whom are believed to be dead by Hamas after the October the 7th massacres and kidnappings were carried out. It will give them renewed hope that a deal could be done to see their loved ones brought back home to Israel. At the same time, it would lead to a temporary ceasefire and the freeing of a number of Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.

Now, as all that is going on, of course, Israel still reeling from another torrid week on the diplomatic front, where we had the ruling from the International Court of Justice effectively telling Israel to call off its operation in Rafah, where Israel says it has to go in to destroy the last remaining battalions of Hamas to prevent the militant group from ever carrying out another atrocity on the scale of October the 7th.

Now, the ICJ's rulings are legally binding, but it doesn't actually have the power to enforce them. Now, in theory, members of the U.N. Security Council could table resolutions to carry out action against Israel if it fails to abide by the ICJ ruling. But, invariably, any resolution against Israel would, no doubt, be vetoed by the United States.

On top of that, Israel says that it never has, nor would it ever in the future carry out actions, which, to use the words of the ICJ ruling, would bring about the physical destruction in whole or in part of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. So, perhaps no practical implication in terms of Israel's military operations in Rafah and the Gaza Strip, but certainly, diplomatically, this will just merely add to the growing pressure on Israel.

Of course, we also had prior to this ICJ ruling the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. We've also seen countries, such as Norway and Spain, saying they intend to recognize Palestinian statehood. All of this, as I say, adding to the diplomatic pressure on Israel and adding to Israel's isolation.

Elliott Gotkine, CNN, Tel Aviv.

COREN: Some heartbreaking news out of India. At least six newborn babies died after a fire broke out at a children's hospital in New Delhi on Saturday. Officials say around 12 newborns were rescued from the hospital, but six of them died. They say one of the rescued babies is in a serious condition, while the others are receiving medical care.

The fires believed to have started in a neighboring building, but its exact cause is yet to be determined.

Well, coming up, Myanmar's Rohingya minority have already suffered atrocities at the hands of the country's military, and now they're caught up in an increasingly violent civil war, that's next.

Plus, overnight, severe weather continues to threaten millions across the U.S. We'll bring you the details of this powerful storm system after the break.

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[03:15:00] COREN: A desperate reality in Myanmar with civil war raging between the ruling military junta, which seized power in 2021, and several armed groups and resistance forces who are pushing back, Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority is once again being targeted with violence. Last week, the Arakan army, a powerful armed group, claimed to have seized a predominantly Rohingya town in Rakhine State. Residents and activists reported soldiers from that group forced some 200,000 Rohingyas from their homes, burning houses down and threatening to kill those who try to contact their relatives abroad. Human rights groups have condemned the violence, including the United Nations.

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ELIZABETH THROSSELL, SPOKESPERSON, U.N. OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: In this appalling situation, civilians are once more victimized, killed, their properties destroyed and looted, their demands for safety and security ignored, and they are again forced to flee their homes in a recurring nightmare of suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Well, Nay San Lwin is a Rohingya activist and the co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, he joins me from Frankfurt, Germany. Thank you for joining us.

The Rohingya in Rakhine State, are they caught up in the, in the middle of this civil war, or are they specifically being targeted like they were back in 2017, which amounted to genocide?

NAY SAN LWIN, CO-FOUNDER, FREE ROHINGYA COALITION: Well, the current situation is similar to the 2017. So, it is not they are caught between the fighting between the military and the Arakan army. We can see that the Arakan army is also targeting the Rohingya. Previously, we have the military was only the sole perpetrator. Now, the Arakan army became the additional one.

If you look at the, this arson attack last week on May 17th, there were the Hindu houses in the town. Those houses were not targeted. They were not forced to leave from their houses. Only the Rohingya Muslim are being targeted. Their houses were burned down by the Arakan army forces. And then they were just, you know, forced to leave from their town.

Now, the humanitarian situation is really dire. This humanitarian intervention is necessary. Not only this, but also before (INAUDIBLE) to the ground, the people were forced to leave from their houses and then they loot the market. They looted their property and then the villages were burned to the ground, so now more than 200,000 in (INAUDIBLE).

COREN: Why is the Arakan Army targeting the Rohingya?

LWIN: Well, you know, there are the problem with the Rakhine people between the Rohingya -- with the Rohingya. If you look at the 2012 the, the communal violence between the two groups and also prior to that also, there are some problem with them. The military is always divided and rule these two groups. And from the Rakhine side, they have supported the Rohingya genocide, if you research about the 2017, the Rakhine civilian and the politician mainly involved in the Rohingya genocide. So, although they are fighting each other, they have the common strategy to wipe out the Rohingya population, that is we can see clearly.

COREN: Yes. Nay, we've got reports of beheadings, killings, these arson attacks. What more are you learning about this escalating violence?

LWIN: Well, beside this arson attack, there were the significant massacre happened across the township since the last week of March. We know about all of this, and some of the eyewitnesses are now fled from the town, and they are in the different area. Now they can talk to the United Nations and the (INAUDIBLE) Organization.

I think in a few days, or in the coming week, there will be more report from the United Nations and the Human Rights Group.

So, beheading, these are the -- you know, they're killing the people. This obviously the terrorism, you know, it is not just simply targeting the people.

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COREN: Now, Rakhine is home to something like 600,000 Rohingya. As we've just reported, tens of thousands have fled towards Bangladesh. The U.N. rights chief, Volker Turk, is calling on Bangladesh to allow them in, give them safety, security, but as we know, Bangladesh has already allowed more than a million Rohingya refugees into the country after those attacks back in 2017. I mean, there is stiff resistance. So, now, the Rohingya are very much stranded.

LWIN: Well, you know, I want to support or encourage to people to flee to Bangladesh. Already more than a million in Bangladesh, their repatriation is uncertain. We don't know when they can come back. But at least the pregnant women and that those people with the -- those people who wanted, they should be allowed to cross the border and get the medical attention.

And the most important is to stop the atrocity by the Arakan army and the Myanmar military. That is the most important accountability as well. There are the numerous sanctions against the Myanmar military. But the Arakan army, if they are just left alone without any proper action by the Arakan army, I think this all this kind of atrocity will continue and the people will be forced to flee to Bangladesh.

To stop this, the -- I mean, the serious action against the Arakan army is very much necessary. In a few days, they are going to the murder (ph). So, the problem will be bigger than now. If the international community fail, the situation will be more worse than the 2017.

COREN: Yes, that is a frightening thought. This is a civil war that is receiving little international attention. And now the Rohingya people, this persecuted minority, is once again suffering.

LWIN: Yes.

COREN: Nay San Lwin, we thank you for your time.

LWIN: Thank you so much.

COREN: Relentless severe storms continue to threaten millions across the U.S. this Memorial Day weekend. Several states are under tornado and severe thunderstorm watches right now, with tornado sightings a short time ago in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. We're getting reports of major damage and multiple victims, including people trapped in Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas. There are reports of 18 wheelers overturned and several homes damaged. A Denton County official says it's not clear how many people are injured. And this is what's left of a gas station in Valley View, Texas. That's just a bit north of Denton.

In Oklahoma, police say the town of Claremore is shut down to avoid the area. There too, reports of extensive damage to homes as well as downed trees and power lines. And the threat is far from over. More than a hundred million people are at risk of severe storms today, especially those from Missouri to Kentucky. And that could threaten the running of the Indianapolis 500.

The scorching heat is also making its mark in South Asia, in India, where the world's biggest democratic election is underway. At least six people have died from a heat wave in one state in Northwestern India. Temperatures have approached 50 degrees Celsius in many areas.

In neighboring Pakistan, extra measures are being taken to protect school children, including closing school for the summer holiday a week early amid the oppressive heat wave. This comes on the heels of UNICEF's warning earlier this week that the soaring temperatures in the region can put millions of children's health at risk.

The residents of Puebla, Mexico, are cleaning up after Friday's unexpected hailstorm. Streets were filled with a thick layer of ice that buried cars and paralyzed the community. People worked to clear the hail with buckets and shovels. Fallen trees also blocked roads and damaged homes and buildings. The surprise storm came amid Mexico's third heat wave.

Temperatures are expected to exceed 45 degrees Celsius or 113 degrees Fahrenheit across about a third of the country.

Well, still to come, the F.A. Cup ended with an upset surprise at Wembley. And in the Women's Champions League, history was made. The biggest stories in football just ahead.

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[03:25:00]

COREN: Manchester United took home the F.A. Cup in a stunning win over rivals Manchester City. United won 2-1 after losing six of their last seven matches against City. City had just won the Premier League last weekend and were hoping to make history with the first ever title ever back-to-back league and cup doubles. But United scored two goals in the first half thanks to two teenage players, the first time that had ever happened in a men's F.A. Cup final. It's also the first time United has won the F.A. Cup since 2016.

Well, turning now to International Women's Football, Barcelona has retained the Women's Champions League title, beating out Lyon with a 2-0 win at the final in Bilbao, Spain. This is Barcelona's third Women's Champion League title, and it caps off a historic quadruple win this season. The team has already captured the Liga F Copa de la Reina and Supercopa de Espana trophies, securing their status as one of the best club teams in the sport. Well done, girls.

The Cannes Film Festival is celebrating the legendary U.S. filmmaker, George Lucas, the mastermind behind such cultural juggernauts, Star Wars and Indiana Jones, received an honorary Palme d'Or. The director has never actually sought a prize at Cannes, but several of his films have been screened there out of competition. Lucas' friend, the renowned filmmaker, Francis Ford Coppola, presented at the prize and called Lucas his, quote, kid brother.

Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong. Marketplace Africa is next and then I'll be back with more of CNN Newsroom in about 30 minutes time. See you then.

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