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New Russian Campaign Targets Ukrainian Gas Stations; U.S. Planning Iran Strikes as soon as This Weekend; FIFA Scraps Gianni Infantino's Controversial Investment Plan; Spain's Migrant Crisis; Europe Ravaged by Wildfires. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 01, 2026 - 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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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. Let's get straight to the headlines.

Ukraine's capital is reeling this morning from a massive Russian missile assault. We have the details and the plea from the country's president.

And Donald Trump is issuing a new threat to Iran as he meets with advisers to find a resolution to the conflict. We're going to tell you what was discussed.

Plus, the head of FIFA scraps a World Cup investment plan after massive backlash from some of football's top federations. We're going to take a look at why it all broke down.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Salma Abdelaziz.

ABDELAZIZ: Ukraine's capital woke up to what the country's foreign minister calls a hell of a night. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia launched more than 20 drones and missiles, killing at least nine people and leaving 20 others wounded in the capital.

Among the buildings that were damaged was the Lithuanian embassy. At least four other regions also came under fire overnight. Now Mr. Zelenskyy says Ukraine's air defenses were overwhelmed and he pleaded for help from allies.

Earlier, a Ukrainian lawmaker was speaking with CNN's Jim Sciutto when the Russian missiles started to rain down.

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HALYNA YANCHENKO, MEMBER OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT: What we are talking about -- you can hear the explosions in the background.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Please stay safe.

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ABDELAZIZ: Victoria Rubadiri is monitoring those developments for us from Nairobi. And she joins us now live.

Good morning to you, first of all. So Ukraine struggling to intercept this Russian ballistic missile attack.

What are you learning about the damage and devastation it has caused?

VICTORIA RUBADIRI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. What we know so far is nine people confirmed dead, as you said, after this large-scale missile attack on Ukraine overnight. The attack fell most heavily on Kyiv. Fires have been reported broken out across the city. Seven districts have been affected so far.

President Zelenskyy so far saying 18 residential buildings were damaged along with the school and the Lithuanian embassy as you mentioned earlier. Dozens of people were injured. Medical teams are still working this morning.

Our team in Kyiv reporting that the explosions were already happening as the air raid sirens were just going off, leaving people very little time to reach shelter. This comes just two days after a major attack that killed four children from the same family, from the southern city of Kryvyi Rih.

Now this follows July, which is now the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began now 4.5 years ago.

In his message on X this morning, president Zelenskyy pointed directly as to why so little was shot down. He blamed it on a shortage of air defense interceptors, particularly the U.S.-made Patriot system. He appealed to Ukraine's allies to send more, saying they are needed here and now, not held in stockpiles for hypothetical scenarios.

He says the shortage itself just encourages Russia to keep launching these attacks. We'll be following this, of course, across the hours that come.

ABDELAZIZ: Victoria Rubadiri there after Ukraine was only able to strike down one of 27 ballistic missiles fired at it. This is, as you heard there, president Zelenskyy is begging for those Patriot interceptors. Thank you so much.

Kuwait says it is fending off a new wave of drone attacks. The general staff of the army told residents that any explosions heard are the results of interceptions. It is not clear what was targeted.

And the news comes as we're learning that the Trump administration is planning to launch fresh strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend. Two U.S. officials say the scope of the strikes and potential targets are not yet clear and they could still be called off. But president Trump signaled that the fighting is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Iran is doing very poorly. Just in case you read incorrect stories, they're doing very, very poorly. They're having a hard time. We'll be hitting them very hard. And, you know, at some point they're going to say, we just can't take it anymore. All they do is make me angry. I'm losing faith in them.

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ABDELAZIZ: It could be a crucial step toward achieving a lasting peace in Gaza. A senior Hamas official tells CNN the militant group has agreed to give up its weapons but only if Israel upholds its obligations under the October ceasefire agreement.

Now that includes withdrawing its forces in Gaza to the so-called yellow line. Israel says it's not going to pull its troops before Hamas disarms. Now despite all of this uncertainty, president Trump is calling the deal a breakthrough. Joining me live now is CNN's Jeremy Diamond. He is coming from Tel Aviv.

Good morning to you, Jeremy.

Are we already at an impasse here?

Because Hamas says we're not going to lay down arms until Israel withdraws. Israel says we're not going to withdraw until Hamas disarms.

Can this deal even be implemented?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, as significant as it is that these two sides were able to reach a deal in the first place, it is equally significant the number of challenges that we've already seen emerge in the hours since Hamas reached this deal with the board of peace.

And, frankly, U.S. and board of peace officials are quite clear eyed, it seems, about the challenges that lay ahead.

Even as they were touting this as a significant milestone, Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza in the board of peace, made clear that what comes ahead is even more important than the months of negotiations that led us to this place.

Where Hamas has agreed to hand over its weapons to a Palestinian transitional government under the auspices of the board of peace and with the support of the international stabilization force.

And a lot of that stems from the fact that this is a sequenced agreement and that, just as Hamas is making clear that Israel must uphold certain commitments before it begins the process of disarming, we've also heard from U.S. and board of peace officials that there are commitments that Israel needs to uphold here in order for to unlock Hamas. The first steps of Hamas' disarmament -- and that would include a

range of things. First of all, an actual ceasefire in Gaza rather than the near-daily Israeli strikes that we have seen there that have killed more than 1,200 people in the nearly 10 months since that ceasefire went into effect.

And then, yes, there is this issue of withdrawing troops from parts of the Gaza Strip. As you know, Salma, over the last several months, Israeli troops have been seizing more and more control of Gaza's territory beyond the yellow line that was agreed to back in October.

And Hamas is saying that Israel must pull those troops back to the yellow line as it was agreed to in order for any of this process to begin. And already we have seen that, while the Israeli government hasn't publicly commented on this yet, an Israeli official has told us that there will be no withdrawal of troops away from the current yellow line.

Meaning the yellow line as Israel has now drawn it through its encroachment upon additional square kilometers of Gaza's territory. And it just shows you just how difficult this process is going to be.

Now U.S. officials, including the president, have been asked whether or not they expect Israel to adhere to this agreement. All of them, including the president, have expressed some confidence that Israel will stick to the terms of this deal.

One U.S. official did warn, though, that president Trump would be very, very disappointed if Israel does not. Perhaps a warning to the Israeli government, should it consider not abiding by this deal.

But you look at the political reaction in Israel, really across the political spectrum, opposition to this agreement shows you just what a difficult political position the Israeli prime minister is in.

On the one hand, the U.S. government pressuring him to abide by this deal. On the other hand, the Israeli public, a public that's going to be voting in elections in less than three months, by and large, quite adamantly opposed to this new agreement.

ABDELAZIZ: Jeremy Diamond there, as both sides, both warring factions, dig their heels in after another Trump deal. Thank you so much.

An open revolt by soccer federations around the world has forced the sport's governing body, FIFA, to abandon a very controversial $20 billion investment plan.

President Gianni Infantino had pitched the proposal. It would have split off rights to future World Cup tournaments into a new subsidiary partly funded by private investors. Now soccer confederations worldwide were outraged. They said that the very soul of the sport was at risk and some threatened to boycott future World Cups.

[04:10:00] The plan also led to the resignation in protest of Infantino's senior advisor. Infantino said he heard the reaction and, as a result, the plan will not proceed. For more, I want to bring in Tracey Holmes. She is an industry professor of sport and the media at the University of Queensland and host of "The Sports Ambassador" podcast.

Good afternoon to you. Thank you so much for coming on because this is just such a stunning about-face from the FIFA boss, Infantino. He had seemed to double down in the initial hours. But now he's turned around.

Why did he have to back down and could it still cost him his job?

TRACEY HOLMES, INDUSTRY PROFESSOR OF SPORT AND THE MEDIA, OFFICE OF 2032 GAMES ENGAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND: Look, it could still cost him his job.

But at the moment he remains adamant that he's going to stay in the job and bring all of the member federations together after this period of turmoil, which all happened like a tornado.

It blew in and now it's blown out. But whether some of the fallout from that will stick will become evident in the coming days and weeks, first of all, to see if anybody is going to challenge him at the next election. He was due to be the only challenger and be elected almost unanimously if the polls were right ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

But that will no doubt change now and we'll hear if other candidates will come to the fore.

I think it's important also to stress the fact that all of this happened because of, you could call it the leadership or the power, the authority of UEFA, the European confederation, who led this outrage from the start when the story was leaked to the press that this is what Gianni Infantino was considering.

And hadn't even yet had the time to brief the federations around the world as to what his plans were to raise this kind of capital investment.

ABDELAZIZ: And UEFA said the soul of the game is under threat. This is -- this is a message that I think resonated with a lot of football fans.

Why did this provoke such an intense backlash when football is such a commercialized sport?

HOLMES: It's a very good question and it's one I think you need to put to the people to hear what their response is, because, even if you look at UEFA, who led this charge so vociferously and, as you mentioned in your introduction, even then was holding FIFA to ransom.

Effectively by saying, if you go ahead with this -- or in other words, unless you scrap it and we never hear of this proposal again -- we will not be sending any of our teams to any of your events, which is men's and women's World Cups, the Club World Cup and other tournaments for, you know, junior and youth age groups.

But UEFA itself, about one-third of the top leagues in Europe are propped up by private investment. So when they turn around and say to FIFA, you'd be selling the soul of football if you went ahead with this and yet they do it to such a degree, it's quite interesting that nobody looked at that angle.

Instead going with that very emotional pull of selling the soul. And you have to realize also that, because UEFA is the traditional powerhouse -- a lot of football money is there. They like to control the international calendars for their leagues.

And they don't want other events or an expansion of events from FIFA interfering in the portion that they control.

ABDELAZIZ: That's very interesting that you're pointing out what I think you're touching upon is some hypocrisy here. So let me throw the counterpoint to you.

Why is it that though FIFA cannot monetize the World Cup like, for example, the NFL, which is their argument, and have that money feed into the member associations, why not make it more profitable?

HOLMES: It's another very good question. There is a sense also in parts of Europe, that there comes a point where there is enough money already in the bank and on the table at FIFA and anything more would be greed. There is that perception.

On the other hand, it's also a culture clash between the way sport is done in Europe and the way sport is done in the U.S., where this kind of model is run of the mill. You have NFL, you have NBA, you have all sorts of leagues that use private investment for capital funding.

You also have a management system where there's a commissioner who has, you know, unilateral rights to be able to decide in the best interests of the game. But it's much more of a pyramid model in Europe.

And again, it's where this clash has happened. And I think on top of that, any sort of a system, given the perspectives around the world at the moment and the geopolitical tensions that, whenever anyone is mentioned with having any sort of an alliance with the U.S. president, Donald Trump.

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Or indeed even the Kushners because of their relationship to him, it just adds another element of negativity as it is viewed by some of those from overseas.

ABDELAZIZ: Tracey Holmes on that massive backlash and controversy and, of course, the backdown from Infantino. Thank you so much for joining us on that.

Tens of thousands of migrants charged across Spain's border with Morocco. Ahead, we're going to talk to a migration expert about what led to scenes like the ones you see on your screen in the city of Ceuta.

Also, experts say extreme heat is making wildfires in Europe fiercer and harder to contain. In a moment, the latest on some of the blazes firefighters are struggling to put out.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I am going back. There's nothing to do here. Locals of Ceuta have treated us badly. We are hungry. Shops are closed. There was nothing.

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ABDELAZIZ: Broken hopes and shattered dreams following a massive flood of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

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Spain now says most of the 50,000 people who stormed across that border since Thursday have returned to Morocco. At least 57 died in the process, most by drowning.

Spain has deployed troops to Ceuta and it says it will try to expel migrants who are still there as quickly as possible.

The country's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, blames the incident on misinformation on social media about a recent supreme court ruling for the flood of migrants. The decision makes it harder to return migrants who arrive in Spain by sea. But experts say they can still be sent back within days.

For more, I want to head over to Sicily, where we're joined by Sara Prestianni. She's a migration expert and the director of advocacy at EuroMed Rights.

Good morning to you. Thank you so much for joining us. I just want to start with the root causes behind those very dramatic images. We saw yesterday of tens of thousands of people rushing the border, effectively causing it to collapse.

What happened?

What was behind this?

SARA PRESTIANNI, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, EUROMED RIGHTS: Yes, good morning. We have been hearing a lot of theory about the main reason for why those people have been crossing.

You also mentioned the fact that the main pull factor could be the decision of the supreme court. I think that we should be refocusing and changing the questions. If there are thousands of people -- among them, minors, risking their life -- because, 57 people, persons have been lost their life during this journey, to reach Ceuta.

The main reason is the lack of legal pathway. if someone risked their life, that could be in central but also in South Malaya or in Canary Islands has been, as we have been seeing, is because the real problem in Europe is the lack of legal pathways.

So people has to risk their life to join Europe and in this case. The second question and I'm really sorry to not hear about questioning for why, again, people have to risk their life as those young person, and among the 60,000.

So the socioeconomical situation in Morocco and why there is this systematic attempt to cross the border. And also we should questioning the pillar of migration and asylum policy in Europe in the last years that is externalization. So dealing with North African and Middle East country to try to prevent the culture.

I'm working on migration --

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ABDELAZIZ: OK. I'm so sorry. Sara Prestianni there in Sicily, a migration expert. We have lost her signal. I want to thank her very much, though, for her insight.

A wildfire in southern France has forced the evacuation of an additional 2,000 people. Now wildfires have ravaged parts of Europe during record-breaking heat waves this summer. At least 220,000 people across France have left their homes to escape the fires. CNN's Melissa Bell reports firefighters are making progress in some places.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in Southwestern France, the Gironde fire appears after more than a week of raging to have been brought under control.

And whilst there are still flare ups and firefighters continue to battle with them, overall, the situation does now appear to be stabilized. Similar situation across the border in Spain where the national emergency has been lifted but again, there are flare ups and fears that these wildfires may pick up again.

Overall, when you look at the European continent and remember that this is the fastest warming continent in the world, what we've seen over the last couple of weeks are worst fears realized and that spread all the way to Greece where there are currently 70 wildfires raging, two of the worst to the west of Athens, another on the island of Crete.

And fears there that the winds and temperatures could worsen the situation for firefighters. It has been such a hot summer on the European continent. There has been heat wave after heat wave and especially, in the land of the southern parts of the European continent, the conditions are just so dry that the fears are that these kind of wildfires we've seen not only will be the new normal but that this might not be the end of the summer.

Remember that this is the hottest month, the month of August that we're now entering into.

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And fears, that these wildfires could continue to be a major problem going forward.

There are also now concerns here in France but elsewhere, where there have been or continue to be wildfires about the health implications of CO2 emissions, the fact that these small particles that are released into the air may now cause difficulties in terms of the health of local populations.

So it is crises that are being managed even as their consequences are being considered and this across the European continent -- Melissa Bell, CNN, in Bordeaux.

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ABDELAZIZ: Hasty and botched: that is how the U.S. Justice Department is now describing the $14 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And the criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn is being dropped. He had been charged with vandalizing the landmark.

The admission is an embarrassing reversal for the White House. President Trump has insisted publicly for weeks that vandals were responsible for the severely damaged pool lining, chronic algae blooms and green-hued water.

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TRUMP: We caught some people vandalizing our beautiful reflecting pool. They tried to destroy it.

They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it. And it's in great shape now. They're terrible. They're vandals.

And these people went in and cut it up and they got caught.

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ABDELAZIZ: Before we go, scientists have detected a so-called super Earth planet. It is 49 light years away. That could potentially sustain life. They say the planet could have an atmosphere and it's about five times the mass of Earth. It orbits a star at a distance that could allow liquid water to exist.

Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered more than 6,000 exoplanets. One scientist says this planet is a prime candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Thank you so much for watching. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. "CNN CREATORS" is up next and I'll be back at the top of the hour with more CNN NEWSROOM.