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U.S. Warns: Russia Plans to Fabricate Justification for War; Kamila Valieva Falls, Finishes 4th in Figure Skating Final; New York Judge Orders Trump, Ivanka and Don Jr. to Sit for Civil Deposition. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, February 18, and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

[05:59:37]

Within the next several days. That is President Biden's blunt assessment of how long it might take before Russia invades Ukraine. U.S. officials say evidence at Ukraine's border shows that Russia is moving toward an imminent invasion and is not withdrawing troops. This afternoon, the president will speak to global allies about the Russian troop buildup and how to deter it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Overnight, new video from Russia's Defense Ministry -- remember, consider the source here -- claiming once again to show tanks and armored vehicles returning to base by rail after completing military exercises. Now, western officials dismissed as more propaganda.

And we have these images from the Ukrainian government, showing a shelled kindergarten in Eastern Ukraine. A reminder of the very real stakes for people living near the line of contact that separates Ukrainian government forces from Russian-backed separatists. We saw kids rushed to safety.

Thankfully, the shell that hit the school did not take any lives. But the threat remains, very much so.

Ukraine says there have already been 20 violations of the cease-fire in Eastern Ukraine today, so far claiming 15 of them involved weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements.

Our Alex Marquardt begins our coverage, live on the ground in Mariupol in Ukraine. Alex, give us the very latest of where things stand right now.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, you're absolutely right. There's very real concern that President Putin could use what is happening here as an excuse to invade Ukraine. Or he could create a situation, a pretext that he would feel would justify an invasion of Ukraine. As you noted, those 20 violations along that line of contact, as it's

known, between Ukrainian forces just about 15 miles, 25 kilometers away from here. And Russian-backed forces on the other side.

John, there were 60 violations yesterday. That is the highest number in almost four years.

Ukraine's defense ministry says those Russian-backed forces used artillery, mortars, grenades, heavy machine guns. And then there was that shelling of the school in Ukrainian-held territory. Luckily, no one was killed. Both sides accusing each other of carrying out that strike.

The Kremlin also ratcheting up their language about what is happening in Eastern Ukraine, this region known as the Donbas. They have accused Ukraine of starting a civil war. We've heard President Putin say that Ukraine is carrying out a genocide in the Donbas. That, of course, is not true.

We heard President Putin's spokesman, just this morning, saying that the situation here is what he called very disturbing and potentially very dangerous.

John, the people here in Mariupol in Eastern Ukraine very familiar with the fighting. They've been dealing with this for the past eight years. Some 14,000 people have died, including in this town where I am. Shelling has happened in this very town, killing people.

We went to a church this morning to try to get a sense of what people are feeling. And I spoke with someone who had come there to pray. He said that he was praying for peace. And that while things on the surface may appear calm, there's no outward panic, that when you hear all the warnings from the U.S., from NATO, from Ukrainian officials, that it is impossible, he said, to stay calm -- John.

BERMAN: And people need to know, again, what we have seen over the last 24, 48 hours is an escalation of the tension there, clear and simple.

Alex Marquardt, thank you so much for being there for us.

KEILAR: And here in just minutes, Vice President Kamala Harris will be meeting with NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg. Harris is in Munich in Germany there for an annual security conference, taking on new meaning this year, as Russia is there on the border of Ukraine.

Tomorrow, she'll be giving a keynote speech. Then she's expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Let's talk about all of this with CNN political and national security analyst, David Sanger. He is a White House and national security correspondent for "The New York Times." He is there in Munich, covering this conference at this critical time, David.

And look, I want to talk to you about the conference. But first, I want to talk to you about what's happening in Eastern Ukraine. Just explain to us the significance of this. We know that there are skirmishes sometimes in Eastern Ukraine. But this is an entirely different level that we're seeing.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It is a different level. And I think the big question that is sort of haunting everybody here at the Munich Security Conference, which is certainly the largest of the security conferences and probably the most important one held each year, is whether President Putin will use this as the pretext that the United States has been warning about.

The other big debate, though, is if he does decide to go into Ukraine, would he just try to go into this region, which has been in dispute for eight years now, and hope that an incursion that is limited to that area divides the allies, the Western allies and doesn't trigger those massive sanctions that President Biden has been talking about?

Or does he decide, well, I'm going to pay the same price whether I take this area of Donbas or I take the entire country and then just goes ahead with the full invasion. And I think that's part of the debate that's under way right now.

KEILAR: What's your read on that, David? Because it seems like that might be a pretty sound calculation on Putin's part.

[06:05:05]

SANGER: It's hard to know. My suspicion is that the president is -- President Putin is probably concluding that he should simply take the country in bites, that doing one overall invasion is likely to cause huge trouble for him, bring in those sanctions.

Whereas if he manages to do this in pieces, he can test it each way along the way, how well it's going.

KEILAR: We've seen him take bites as each president comes through, right? It's happened under the helm of each U.S. president, pretty much.

So OK, so we talked about what's going on in Eastern Ukraine. There's also some new rhetoric that we're hearing from Russian officials, this kind of vague warning of military action. Is Russia setting the stage here for an imminent invasion, do you think?

SANGER: We don't know. And that's the really interesting question. You know, the U.S. strategy has been a fascinating one. I've never seen it before, Brianna. Which is that they are trying to reveal each piece of intelligence, sometimes on the same day that they are getting it, in an effort to box Putin in by saying, We know your plans, we're listening to your military, we're onto you.

And hoping that by blowing each of these operations by making public statements about them, he then -- they then force Putin to change course.

Now, of course, what you're hearing from the Russian foreign ministry is, The Americans are making all of this up. It's all fantasy. We have no plan to invade. This tells you how bad U.S. intelligence is.

And yesterday at the U.N., you heard the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, take the position, we'd rather be wrong, be charged with being Chicken Little here, than we would -- than to see the invasion happen.

So they're willing to take the hit that they are declaring that things are going to happen that may turn out don't, maybe because Putin changes his plans.

KEILAR: So we're going to be seeing the Ukrainian president, in the middle of his country on the edge of war, there when you are tomorrow. What do you think he hopes? What do you think really can be accomplished there at the Munich conference?

SANGER: I think the first really interesting question is, does he come? I mean, we've been reading American intelligence warnings that say that the Russians are trying to stage a coup. Wouldn't seem to be a great time for him to be leaving the capital.

But if he does, it's to continue with his case that we can carry on, that Ukraine can carry on, that the threat, while severe, is no worse than it's been over the past eight years. And of course, this would be a big moment for him to go meet with Vice President Harris.

And a big moment for her. Because this is the first time that she has been dropped into a live, current, active foreign policy crisis. And we haven't seen how she operates in that case.

Secretary Blinken is also here and will be speaking at the conference in just a few hours.

KEILAR: Yes. It will be a big test, and you will be all over it. David Sanger, thank you for being with us this morning.

SANGER: Thanks.

BERMAN: So as you just heard from David there, Secretary of State Antony Blinken laying out several steps the U.S. says it expects Russia to take in the coming days to justify starting a war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It could be a fabricated so- called terrorist bombing inside Russia; the invented discovery of a mass grave; a staged drone strike against civilians; or a fake, even a real, attack using chemical weapons. Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining me now, retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, former commanding general of Europe and the 7th Army.

That's a pretty specific list we just heard from the secretary of state.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It is. And when you look at the outline in his speech yesterday, John, the first three, what he's doing is rebuking lies. You know, all these provocations; none of this is happening.

The interesting part I saw yesterday was when he ticked off the kinds of things that Russia could do. It was more than just assumptions. They could do this; they may do this. He was saying, Hey, we're reading your intelligence. We're seeing your plans. We know you're about to do this.

So it's not like David Sanger just said, reacting to their intelligence. He's predicting what's going to happen, and I agree with him.

BERMAN All right. This, just so people see, is the overall alignment around Ukraine --

HERTLING: Right.

BERMAN: -- surrounded by three sides. The action that we saw yesterday was taking place here --

HERTLING: Yes.

BERMAN: -- in the Donbas region. Explain what's going on from the military standpoint.

[06:10:06]

HERTLING: Well, first, what I'd say with all those dots all over the map, you know, we can't get into the military mindset that they're just dots on the map. Those are real, live people; real, live forces. And there's a whole bunch more of them within Ukraine.

But I think, over the next couple of days -- and I've said this all along -- if -- if Russia is refuted throughout the country, they're going to continue to go here.

This is the Donbas that everyone has heard about. The two provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. This is where activity has been going on for the last eight years, along this line of contact, as Clarissa Ward said this morning.

Yesterday, almost 50 assaults along this line. That's tenfold what they normally experience on a daily basis. So artillery strikes, machine guns, snipers, these are things that are all outlawed by the Minsk Accords, and Russia continues to do them.

BERMAN: And this was the kindergarten that was hit there. Now, Clarissa Ward was there, and we're going to have a report from her. No one is saying the kindergarten was targeted, but that's not the point.

HERTLING: Yes, the point is that when you use artillery, dumb artillery, as we call it, as opposed to the smart ones that have a laser beam that they go to, you fire an artillery round. You don't know where it's going other than a general vicinity. It's called an area fire weapon.

Russia is firing those all the time in civilian population. That's actually a war crime. They're -- they may say, Hey, we didn't mean to kill civilians, but they're firing them into towns where civilians live and where children play.

BERMAN: So you have -- you've seen both militaries up close, the Russian and the Ukrainian.

HERTLING: That's right.

BERMAN: Because the Ukrainians had troops in Iraq when you were there. What do we need to know about the Ukrainian military?

HERTLING: Well, this is an outline of -- of what Rand would say the comparison of forces. This doesn't tell the whole story.

When we had Ukrainians working for us in Iraq in 2004 as one of our battalions, they were a terrible force. Corrupt, undisciplined, unmotivated, bad leaders, because they still had the leaders that were actually trained in Russia.

Today, 20 years later, they're a pretty professional force. They've gone away from prescription, using a noncommissioned officer corps. but the equipment stays the same. There is a qualitative difference in terms of equipment.

But what I think is one of the things you calculate in combat is the will of the soldiers. They've got the will. I'm not sure the Russian soldiers do.

BERMAN: One last question for you, Mark. Yesterday we saw this bridge that had been put up in one day, about four miles from the Belarus/Ukrainian border. This is now gone. This is now gone.

You told us that it's likely they would take this down soon and that it might just all be for show. What happened, do you think?

HERTLING: Well, first of all, I got lucky.

Secondly, these things are easy to emplace and take down. They could have certainly been using this for training. But I think it was just to draw our attention to the north.

Now they've got to -- the Russians have to reposition their forces to their main avenue of attacks. And I think that's what they're doing.

They were trying to hold the Ukrainians forces in the north of Ukraine so they could go elsewhere. Now they're trying to dissolve that and perhaps take it down.

BERMAN: General Mark Hertling, an education. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

HERTLING: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: So she fell, picked herself back up, tumbled and faltered again. After a crushing Olympic end, what is next for Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva?

And a New York judge ruled that Donald Trump and his two eldest children must testify about the Trump Organization's business practices, but will they comply?

KEILAR: Plus, the U.S. government is investigating Tesla cars after reports of unexpected braking while using autopilot. Our CNN report is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:51]

KEILAR: Just a disastrous finish for the Russian figure skater who has been at the center of a doping scandal. If you saw this yesterday, you know it was hard to watch.

Fifteen-year-old Kamila Valieva falling several times in the free skate final, tumbling to fourth place. And afterward, the president of the International Olympic Committee had harsh words for the team surrounding Valieva.

CNN's Selina Wang is live for us in Beijing. It was -- I mean, I winced while watching this performance yesterday, Selina.

SELINA WANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was heartbreaking to watch, Brianna. There in the arena, you could actually hear people gasping in the stadium, to see this 15-year-old fall apart on the ice in front of our eyes.

She was supposed to walk away from these games with a medal in her hand, the first woman in history to land a quad at the games. But instead, for many, she's become a symbol of a tainted Olympics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WANG (voice-over): With a quick, frustrated wave, Kamila Valieva ends her final competition in Beijing with stunning disappointment. The 15- year-old Olympian from Russia burying a tearful face in her hands as she walks off the ice.

After a performance riddled with stumbles and falls, one of the world's best figure skaters placing fourth in the women's singles skate. It is a crushing end to a week marred by scandal for Valieva, after it was discovered she tested positive for a banned drug less than two months ago.

Speaking the morning after, even the president of the International Olympic Committee appeared distressed by what happened on the ice.

THOMAS BACH, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: I was very, very disturbed yesterday when I watched the competition on TV. This pressure is beyond my imagination.

WANG: Her two teammates taking the podium for gold and silver instead and Japan winning bronze.

ANNA SHERBAKOVA, LADIES SINGLE FIGURE SKATING GOLD MEDALIST (through translator): I saw from her first jump how difficult it was. What a burden it was for her.

WANG: Had Valieva been among the top three, medals wouldn't have been awarded until the doping investigation around her concluded. Her first-place win in the team competition already delaying that event's medals.

[06:20:00]

MADISON HUBBELL, TEAM EVENT FIGURE SKATING SILVER MEDALIST: I don't think that it's fair to any of the athletes who medaled that we have to, you know, forego that Olympic moment.

WANG: As the scandal overshadows the Olympics and exposes the dark under world of Russian figure skating. The World Anti-Doping Agency's investigating Valieva's entourage, including her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, known as a powerhouse behind Russian figure skating with a reputation for brutal training regimens.

When Valieva came off the ice crying, Tutberidze asked her, quote, "Why did you let it go? Tell me."

BACH: How she was received by her closest entourage with such a -- what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, you -- it was chilling.

WANG: As the probe continues, Valieva's participation stirring outrage worldwide. The weight of the scandal, it seems, too much for the 15- year-old skating star to bear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WANG: And, Brianna, I spoke to one of the figure skaters who competed against Valieva last night. And she used to skate for Russia. And she told me just how painful it was to see Valieva fall. She intimately understands how hard they've worked, how difficult the Russian system is, and the intense pressure that they're all under -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Selina, just sobering words from the International Olympic Committee president there on Valieva. What else did he say?

WANG: yes, he went into great detail about how distressing it was to watch her, the traumatic experience this must have been for a 15-year- old.

So I pressed IOC head Thomas Bach. I pressed him on, so what is the accountability here? The IOC is considering her a, quote, "protected person" because she's a minor. But what have they done to actually protect her?

He essentially deflected the question, saying that there's not much they can do and they have to wait for this investigation to play out and to hold the adults around her accountable.

But actually, many would argue that the IOC is part of the problem. In fact, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says it is the IOC-run systems and the Russian systems that have failed Valieva. The argument goes that the IOC and the other systems around them could have given greater punishment to Russia in regards to those doping violations in the past, and it could have actually incentivized Russia to change so Valieva may never have been in this position.

Now, because she did not place in the top three, the other athletes were not robbed of this moment to have a medal ceremony. But many of them still feel like they were robbed a chance of knowing they were competing on a fair playing field -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Well, it's disgraceful for Valieva, for all of the people competing against her who have been embroiled in all this drama. And it's incredibly disgraceful what her coach said to her, Selina. I'm so glad that you highlighted that.

Selina Wang, live for us in Beijing. Thanks.

So ahead, three weeks. That is how long a judge ruled former President Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have before they must appear for a deposition as part of this probe into the Trump Organization's business practices. Are they going to show up?

BERMAN: Plus, an extraordinary move from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy. Why he just snubbed Congresswoman Liz Cheney again, trying to push her out of Congress completely.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:34]

BERMAN: A New York judge ordering former President Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., to answer questions under oath for the state's civil fraud investigation into their business practices.

The Trumps now have 21 days to sit for depositions. CNN's Kara Scannell joins me now.

This was a big decision and also sort of an energetic decision from the New York judge.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. And it followed an energetic two-hour hearing, where at one point the judge threw his hands up and said, "I will have a decision for you guys at 3: p.m."

And he came out with that decision sharply at 3.

You know, Trump's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't have to sit for a deposition, because Letitia James, the New York attorney general, was part of a criminal investigation, a parallel investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Now, in this back and forth during the hearing, the judge said, Well, why couldn't they just, you know, invoke the Fifth Amendment and

not answer questions? Because that's what Eric Trump did 500 times.

BERMAN: Five hundred times.

SCANNELL: Two years ago. Now, Trump's lawyers say, well, things have changed. Now there's a criminal investigation which didn't exist then.

But, you know, the judge also was just taking issue with some of the other statements from the Trumps. They had -- after Mazars, their accounting firm, had resigned and said that you shouldn't rely on nearly a decade's worth of financials, the Trumps said, you know, well they didn't find that there were any material discrepancies. Like, they didn't find fraud. So this investigation is moot. It doesn't mean anything.

Well, the judge said that is as audacious as it is preposterous. He also said it's, you know, like Orwellian and alternative facts.

Now, the Trumps said they're going to appeal this. It's a big question of will the appeals court take it up? Will they grant a stay, you know, kind of buying them time so they don't have to testify in these 21 days?

But that's what we're waiting to see what will happen. They haven't filed that appeal yet.

It is the latest setback for Trump. You know, the January 6th Committee has gotten visitor logs. They've gotten lots of documents from the Archives.

And Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer, was just told by a judge in D.C. this week that he will have to provide testimony as part of an investigation into the inauguration.

BERMAN: I have to say, it was a very bad legal day for the Trump, based on the discussion now. We will find out very quickly, within the next 21 days, whether it gets worse or whether it hits pause for a while.

Kara Scannell, terrific reporting. Thank you very much.

So Tesla facing a new investigation. This time after a barrage of drivers have complained about unexpected braking while using the autopilot.

Plus, California Governor Gavin Newsom rolling out his state's new plan to shift to an endemic approach to coronavirus. What's his strategy, and will other states follow?

KEILAR: And ahead, he found out his wife went into labor just moments after winning the super Bowl.