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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Biden Unveils Sanctions, Says Putin Beginning "Invasion Of Ukraine"; New Satellite Pics Shows Additional Troops, Hospitals Near Border; Ukraine Urges Its Citizens To Leave Russia Immediately; American James Berk Staying In Ukraine Despite Warnings To Leave; Sanction Punish Russian Banks, Kremlin Cronies; Taiwan Condemns Russia's Actions In Ukraine; Impact On Russia Sanctions On U.S. Economy. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 23, 2022 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:34:24]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Ukraine has a new warning for all of its citizens in Russia, leave immediately. And any Ukrainians planning a trip to Russia, don't. This as President Biden effectively cuts off the Kremlin from Western finance, imposing a new round of U.S. sanctions targeting to large banks and Russian elites.

Nick Paton Walsh is in western Ukraine for us. And those sanctions are something that the Ukrainians have honestly been begging for four weeks here. The White House giving itself room to pile on more if Russian aggression continues.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, and even this morning the foreign minister of Ukraine asking for more sanctions now to increase that sense of pressure before Russia as many Western officials have been suggesting act in a wider military fashion around Ukraine.

[05:35:13]

The sanctions we heard yesterday, the big surprise was the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, being slowed essentially or stopped by the German government. That is a huge blow to the Kremlin.

The other sanctions we heard, though, did have that feel, frankly, of something initial before wider moves come in. Cutting off access to sovereign debt will possibly be something the Kremlin had anticipated down the line. Today, inside Ukraine to continued impact of the call up of reservists that we heard from the government yesterday and Vladimir Putin himself on today, which is known as a Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia, talking about how Russia's weapons are unmatched around the world.

He talks himself yesterday too about falsely Ukraine's desire to get nuclear weapons, something Ukraine voluntarily gave up in exchange of a deal in which Russia said it would guarantee Ukraine security. Building this Russian narrative of how an invasion of Ukraine would essentially be in Russia's self-defense interests, something they wouldn't have to almost do pre-emptively. Of course, that is false because Ukraine is intending to attack Russia at the stage.

The big question now being what has changed on the ground materially since Vladimir Putin said that he would send troops into those separatists' republics after recognizing. And we do not have conclusive evidence that new Russian regulars have gone into those separatist republics. They may have done so more covertly. The U.K. Foreign Secretary says it's still ambiguous as to whether that has happened and so really clarity on that. And whatever Russia may have done quietly is what people are desperately looking for now.

ROMANS: All right, Nick Paton Walsh for us in western Ukraine. Thanks, Nick.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: OK, the State Department is urging all Americans to leave Ukraine as well, but not everybody can. James Burke is an optician from Montclair, New Jersey, living in Ukraine with his wife and baby daughter. Despite the threat of a full scale war, Burke says he's staying put.

James Berk joins us live now from Vinnytsia, Ukraine this morning. James, so nice to have you on Early Start. Really appreciate you coming on.

JAMES BERK, AMERICAN CITIZEN LIVING IN UKRAINE: Good morning.

JARRETT: So why is staying in Ukraine the right decision for your family? You obviously have a young child, you have a wife, just explained for our viewers, what is your situation?

BERK: I guess there's a few reasons but the main ones are that my wife as a Ukrainian national, she needs a visa to even enter America even as a tourist. So with the MSC close now here, that's not possible to do. We'd have to leave the country and go to Poland, I guess or maybe Moldova, but it would be too much to ask our young daughter to make that trip, so.

The other reason is, is also because my wife's family is -- my wife was from here and her family lives here and her family lives pretty close to the -- they live in Donetsk Oblast. So they're close to the action if it would heat up, and we don't really want to just pack everything up and go, basically.

ROMANS: And your baby is just a month old. So you both are in the newborn bubble at the very moment.

BERK: Yes.

ROMANS: This is happening with Vladimir Putin on a world stage, you know, threatening instability in the country where you're living. What's the feeling like where you are now? I mean, what are -- how are people feeling about what's happening? BERK: You know, Ukrainians are party people, stoke people. They don't really -- if you look at the people on the ground here, there's not really a huge change in the way people go about their daily lives. And this conflict is eight years old now. And I think people are just have fatigue about Ukraine (ph).

JARRETT: That's interesting.

BERK: So not much has changed.

JARRETT: Yes, it's interesting. It's a eight years old conflict, maybe even longer in some ways. But for many of us here in the U.S., it is certainly escalated in recent weeks.

BERK: Yes.

JARRETT: And all eyes are now on Ukraine. I'm sure you've talked about this with your wife, but can I ask if if things do escalate even further into an all-out war --

BERK: Yes.

JARRETT: -- what's your plan?

BERK: Right. Well, you know, all this was was already going on when she was pregnant, including the late pregnancy and all of the, you know, the complications that happen there. So this has been something we've been thinking about. Two weeks ago, I rented a car here, and we talked about what we wanted to bring with us. If we had to go west, and if things do get worse, then we'll continue going west to the Polish border.

But it's complicated because we'd have to leave the car in the Lviv where your colleague is and find our way across the border either via rail or, I don't know, ask pay somebody to take us across the border. And then get another car there and all of this with, you know, a crib and all those stuff you need to keep a newborn happy and healthy.

[05:40:13]

ROMANS: So this little beautiful daughter is not even sleeping through the night, and (INAUDIBLE).

JARRETT: And neither you.

ROMANS: Which means neither are you and your wife. Are you hopeful that you can stay where -- stay put where you are, and you won't have to do that worst case, you know, crossing border scenario?

BERK: Yes, I mean, we love Kyiv. It's a great city. We want to be back there as soon as things are back to normal. And it's a lot nicer for our daughter to be there because we have everything she needs. As it is now, we're kind of, you know, living on minimalist mode. So --

ROMANS: Yes.

BERK: -- we don't really want to keep moving because her health is our primary concern.

ROMANS: James Berk, so nice to meet you. Keep us --

JARRETT: Keep us posted, please.

ROMANS: Yes, keep us posted and especially your wife's family. I mean, we hope everything works out and we can --

BERK: Thank you.

ROMANS: -- find a peaceful solution to all of these. James Berk, thank you.

JARRETT: A possible war, thousands of miles away in Ukraine raising global economic uncertainty and oil prices along with it. What that means for you? That's a head on Early Start.

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[05:45:26]

ROMANS: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron attacking Russia's recognition of breakaway Ukraine regions as a gross violation of international law. CNN's Scott McLean live in Paris for us now. The E.U. and the U.K., Scott, are slapping on new sanctions. What is Europe doing to deter Putin's obsession with Ukraine?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Christine, look, the U.S., the U.K. and the E.U., the sanctions packages that they've announced all look remarkably similar, and that is by design. So the U.K. is going after a handful of banks and very wealthy individuals. Along with the 351 members of Russia's lower House of Parliament, the E.U. is doing the same.

It also has a larger list of banks and people that it's going after to sanction and it's also cutting off the Russian government's ability to finance its debt with European sources. Now, the French finance minister said that Europe still has an infinite amount of sanctions or infinitely more punitive sanctions that it can put in place if Russia were to go further. But the question is, why didn't they do it already? Why haven't they gone further?

And the answer is, you have to get 27 E.U. member nations all to unanimously agree and E.U. officials will tell you that it is no secret that not everyone sees IDI (ph) all the time. For instance, Hungary is much more reluctant to go further and has closer ties with Moscow. Baltic States, on the other hand, hold a much different view.

In fact, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister yesterday said that he has doubts that the E.U. sanctions, as they have been announced will do much to deter Vladimir Putin. The one thing that might have an impact is something not determined by the E.U., but actually by Germany on its own. And that is the pausing of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

ROMANS: Yes. MCLEAN: Something that would have brought in billions of dollars for the Russian company that owns it. Christine?

ROMANS: Yes, it sends a very big message about unity in Europe. No question. Scott McLean, thank you so much for that. Laura?

JARRETT: Taiwan is also joining the chorus of nations condemning Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and Taiwan's president, pointing to the Ukrainian crisis to highlight the potential threat to his country's national security.

Let's go live to CNN's Will Ripley live in Taipei for us. Will, how is Taiwan's leader reacting given their situation with China?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what she's telling, you know, her people is that Taiwan needs to increase its surveillance and alertness of Chinese military movements in the region, because there is a nervous energy here in Taiwan that Beijing could try to take advantage of the crisis in Ukraine. To, you know, put more pressure on this self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own territory, and they have since the end of China's Civil War.

President Tsai said that Taiwan has empathy with the Ukraine for the military threat that they face from China. And even though Taiwan acknowledges that, you know, the situation here and the situation in Ukraine are fundamentally different, there are some parallels. For example, China's government said that this action that we're seeing in Ukraine is actually a consequence of the U.S. and its allies, pushing power to the brink.

Now, what is China say about Taiwan, they blame the United States for pushing the red line closer and closer when they sell billions of dollars and weapons or have lawmakers fly on military planes. And so, China, some analysts say could theoretically use similar rationale eventually try to move in on Taiwan, just like we're seeing Russia move in on Ukraine, once again, they still have sanctions in place going back to 2014 and Crimea.

But Laura, what is -- it's not going to happen anytime soon is what pretty much the unilateral consensus is simply there isn't any military activity unusual happening in this region right now.

JARRETT: All right. Will, thank you so much. Appreciate your reporting.

ROMANS: So President Biden laying out what he called the first tranche of U.S. sanctions against Russia, and acknowledging the potential impact on Americans.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Defending freedom will have cost for us as well and here at home. I'm going to take robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at a Russian economy, not ours. We're closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. We're executing the plan in coordination with major oil producing consumers and producers toward a collective investment to secure stability and global energy supplies.

This will be -- this will blunt gas prices. I want to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.

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[05:50:00]

ROMANS: Let's bring in Josh Rogin, CNN Political Analyst and Washington Post Columnist. The President well aware that punishing Russia could feed into that global inflation story. It's a big challenge, it's going to take the White House working with its allies. It's going to take unity if he's really wants to blunt those high gas prices.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's exactly right, because the President of the United States has to worry about his domestic poles heading into a new election season and leaders in Europe have their own domestic political constraints as well. And what that ends up doing Christine is it ends up limiting the range of responses, the range of action that the allies can put into place in response to Putin's aggression. And, of course, Putin knows that. So, you know, that's a reality of democracies. But it's an advantage for Putin that he's shorter exploit.

JARRETT: Josh, your op-ed in The Washington Post says the West has a united but failing strategy concerning Ukraine. Why is it failing?

ROGIN: Well, it'll -- Laura, it alludes to what we were just talking about is that if you want to keep 27 European countries in the United States together, well, there's only a few things that they're together on some banking, sanctions, you know, some oligarch, punishment, et cetera. None of that is ever going to be enough to deter Putin from doing what he said he wants to do, which is to resurrect the old Soviet empire.

And so we're -- what the Ukrainians told me in my recent trip to the Munich Security Conference was very clear. They're like your unity is going to cost us our lives. And they would much rather have America helping them more than keeping it unity with the Europeans, but they don't really have a choice. And, you know, that face, unity is good, diplomacy is good. But if it doesn't solve the problem, which is to stop Putin, then really what good is it? That's what I argue.

ROMANS: Let me ask you about, you mentioned that there's not a lot of choices because of elections, midterms here and elections in Europe, in terms of blunting high gas prices and, you know, trying to -- but couldn't they do strategic petroleum reserve push, you know, coordinated around the world or gas tax holidays? Aren't there levers that these leaders could pull, at least in the near term?

ROGIN: Yes. We have levers. Putin has levers. And when we're all done pulling all of our levers, we're back to square one. So, you know, the Russians ability to manipulate the energy markets will always be greater than the Europeans ability to mitigate those manipulations. And it's less of a problem for us than it is for the Europeans. That sort of gets us back to where we started to see, which is like, you know, if you're only going to do the things that we can say won't hurt us, then we're not going to do much at all.

ROMANS: Right.

ROGIN: And for the Ukrainians, it's an existential problem for them. They have to do everything because they're about to get slaughtered. So for them, our calculations about energy prices and inflation seem pretty ridiculous, frankly.

ROMANS: Right.

ROGIN: Because they're about to have their country taken off (INAUDIBLE).

ROMANS: Right.

JARRETT: It's different when it's life and death for you. Josh Rogin, appreciate it.

ROGIN: Exactly.

JARRETT: Thank you.

ROMANS: Thanks, Josh.

All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this morning looking at markets around the world. Asian shares actually stabilized here and European shares have opened higher bouncing back after a pretty tough day yesterday on Wall Street. Stock index futures also bouncing a little bit. You know, Wall Street returned from holiday weekend to these escalating Russia-Ukraine tensions.

The S&P reacted appropriately down 1 percent, entering the correction mode 10 percent drop from recent high. The Dow recovered from session lows but was still down 1.4 percent. The Nasdaq shut 1.2 percent. Several countries announced Russian sanctions after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine.

President Biden essentially cut off Russia from Western finance. Germany halted certification of that Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Global oil prices rose above $97 per barrel after flirting with 100 bucks. Russia, of course, is one of the largest producers of oil and natural gas. Any supply disruption from fighting or sanctions will raise global energy prices. That means higher prices the pump, already more than 350 a gallon in the U.S. of 20 cents in the past month.

Spiking energy prices also a huge driver for the highest inflation in 40 years. That could mean even higher prices and more aggressive actions from the Federal Reserve to contain them.

All right, this just into CNN, the Biden administration set to announce a $450 million fund aimed at untangling those supply chain bottlenecks. How? It's a grant program that'll pay for expanding capacity and modernizing USC ports that should help get products from ships to shelves faster. White House promises this will reduce costs for the American people.

These grant awards are funded through last year's infrastructure bill and will begin this fall. Still trying to untangle --

JARRETT: Still.

ROMANS: -- that COVID supply chain nightmare.

All right, thanks for joining us, everybody this Wednesday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. New Day is next.

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