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Russian Military Forces Invade Ukraine; Russian Air Force Establishes Air Superiority over Ukraine; Reports Indicate Fierce Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian Forces in Ukraine; Interview with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: But we're on the southern flank as well where Russian forces have been building up their troops in the Sea of Azov, in the Black Sea, in Crimea.

In the last -- ever since this Russian invasion started, we have heard a steady, low rumble of that artillery that some of our colleagues in other cities have also been hearing. That seems to be picking up throughout the course of the day.

We also just heard some air raid sirens going off here on one of the main streets here in Mariupol. And John, you're right, that has led to a lot of concern, a lot of fear here in this city. People have been coming out, going to ATMs all across town to get out the money that they can. A number of the banks are closed. A number of the ATMs have run out of money. We were told by a mother who showed up that she had gone to a bunch of different ones and that her kids were waiting in the car so that she could then try to get out of town.

There is some concern among people that they will not be able to leave. As we came in earlier this morning we saw a steady flow of cars heading out on the main road. Also on that main road there were gas stations with very long lines of people waiting for gas. Notably we are seeing a lot more military vehicles, Ukrainian military vehicles than we have seen over the past few weeks. Just a short time ago, a truck with a tank on its bed going rumbling by.

But John, this area is of particular concern because when President Putin announced that military operation, he said it was a special operation against Donbas. That is where we are, here in eastern Ukraine. Those two breakaway republics, as he calls them, that he recognized, he recognized not just the territory that they've held for the past eight years, but a much larger territory where this city and many others lie. So the concern now is that we could soon see those Russian peacekeepers, as they're calling them, here on Ukrainian held territory. Again, John, we are in the southeastern most part of the country facing Russian forces both to the east in Russia and to the south in the Sea of Azov. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Alex Marquardt, you and your team please stay safe. Stand by. Our breaking news coverage continues right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, February 24th. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar. And this is CNN's special live coverage of the largescale aerial assault unfolding in Ukraine by the Russians, ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And it is ongoing.

Just moments ago, live on CNN, we witnessed an incredible moment of fire coming from the Belgorod region in Russia over the border into Ukraine. We saw rockets with our very own eyes flying through the sky there. And Russian tanks, one by one, moving over the border from Russia into Ukraine right behind Frederik Pleitgen right there. You could see those tanks taking a turn right now. That turn goes one place, right into Ukraine.

Explosions have been reported in at least 16 locations from Kyiv, Mariupol, Odessa, all the way to the western city of Lviv, barely 40 miles from Ukraine's border with Poland. We have new images from the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs that shows some of the devastation caused by the bombing operation. This is near Kyiv. Some of the Kyiv's 3 million citizens, they grabbed their belongings, they fled west in their cars. CNN has obtained exclusive video from Ukrainian border guards showing Russian military vehicles, this is not unlike what we saw from Frederik Pleitgen in a different part of the country. These forces entering Russia also from Belarus.

President Putin went on Russian state TV to announce this special military operation. He claimed it was to protect the Donbas region. The goal, he said was the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. The absurdity of that, one bit of context, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish. Ukrainians have been told to stay in their homes, but we did see a small group, you can see them right there, kneeling and praying. That was going on in the streets of Kharkiv where we have heard explosions all morning long. The Ukrainian President Zelenskyy pleading for peace in a nationally televised address that happened a short time ago.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: CNN reporters and 44 million Ukrainians are in the middle of this crisis. You see these pictures from earlier this morning of CNN's Matthew Chance. He was reporting live from Kyiv when the bombardment there began. And you can see he had to rush there to protect himself, like millions and millions in that nation are now doing. There were missile strikes reported near the capital city. The U.S. embassy in Kyiv telling all Americans in the region to shelter in place.

[08:05:02]

After lying for weeks if not years about his intentions, Putin declared war as a U.N. Security Council meeting was taking place for the very purpose of averting war. In a phone call with Ukraine's president, President Biden promised that Russia will be held accountable for what he called an unprovoked and unjustified attack. And at noon President Biden will deliver remarks to the nation, and the whole world will be listening. BERMAN: We have CNN reporters covering this story from every angle

all over the region, from Moscow, to Lviv, to Kyiv. We do want to begin, though, with CNN's Frederik Pleitgen who is in Belgorod, in Russia. I can show people on the map here just exactly where Fred is. Fred's right here in Belgorod, just over the border inside Russia. You see the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Fred, you have had a remarkable morning and witnessed, frankly, an invasion before your eyes.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's absolutely right. We were quite surprised that that was happening. I want to show our viewers once again where exactly we are. I'm going to step out of your way for a second here. It's a little more quiet, but this is still the last checkpoint before we go into the area where essentially that invasion is taking place. So if we go further down into that direction, that's where we see a lot of the tanks go into -- or towards Ukrainian territory, but really the only place that they can go is into Ukraine around the area where Kharkiv is.

And you're absolutely right, John, it has certainly been a remarkable day that we have seen here in the past hour, hour-and-a-half or so, where we witnessed those rocket artillery fire that, of course, General Mark Hertling said was the Smerch system that the Russians have been firing, a very powerful rocket artillery system, obviously, one that can wreak a lot of havoc as well. And also seeing Russian T- 72 main battle tanks also make their way toward Ukrainian territory. And, of course, the interesting thing there was they were apparently dug in somewhere we are right now, but then were advancing towards the border of Ukraine, most probably across the border with Ukraine.

The other thing that we have been seeing, which I think is also quite important to point out, is that all of this, of course, John, is also a gigantic logistical operation. We have seen a lot of trucks go towards that area as well, fuel trucks. A large army like that seems to be going across the border right now needs a lot of gas to keep it going. So the Russians certainly have the full logistical system in place.

Whereas the situation where we are right now is certainly one that remains tense. Folks who are manning that checkpoint, obviously, they say they're very wary that we're here. They tried to stop us from filming a couple of times, especially as some of that heavy equipment came across. Of course, the Russians continue to say this is a special military operation and are calling the forces that are going into that area peacekeepers. I think the viewers can judge -- our viewers can judge for themselves whether they think that peacekeepers would have main battle tanks and howitzers going into an area. But that's certainly what we've been seeing, a lot of very, very heavy armor, a steady stream of that going past us as we have been reporting just in the past hour, hour-and-a-half that we have been on the air.

BERMAN: The equipment the likes of which you have seen, Fred, you move it in, it does not indicate that it is coming out anytime soon. Quite the opposite. It indicates they plan on staying for a while. Our Frederik Pleitgen right on the border between Russia and Ukraine. Remarkable reporting. Thank you. KEILAR: And let's go now to CNN's Matthew Chance who is live in Kyiv,

Ukraine. Matthew, I see -- Matthew, tell us where you are. We obviously see you're in a new location. What's happening there?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I left central Kyiv because what we saw over the course of the past 24 hours, 12 hours, whatever it has been, I've lost track of all time at this point, are these ferocious air strikes on locations outside of the city, particularly against air defenses and airports in particular. The Antonov Airport which in a province called, a region called Gostomel, which is about 20 miles away from the center of Kyiv.

We're about 15 miles away from the center right now. We have come across these Ukrainian forces that have dug themselves in to the forests, which line the roads on the way to Gostomel. There is fierce fighting, according to my forces, at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, at Gostomel right now with Russian troops battling Ukrainian forces for control of that airport. I'll tell you what the Ukrainian deputy defense -- deputy interior minister told me earlier.

But first of all, I just want to show you what's going on here. You've got these Ukrainian fighting vehicles that are in these defensive positions in these forests, in these woods, close to Gostomel, close to that airport. There has been, as I say, a ferocious battle. I've just got off the phone from the deputy interior minister, and he said that the National Guard of Ukraine, that was fighting those Russian forces, that moved in by helicopter in the early hours of this morning, they have been pushed back. The National Guard of Ukraine have been pushed back, and they are in full retreat.

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But he says that there is still a counteroffensive underway, they're bringing in reinforcements. Ukrainian military saying they have not given up, they have not given up the idea of retaking that airport. They're certainly not going to surrender, they say, at this point, to Russian forces coming in.

But there is a big concern, and this was expressed to me earlier by the Ukrainian deputy interior minister as well, which is that they believe, and this is what government officials are telling me now, they believe that the Russian plan is not just to encircle Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, but to take it and to topple the government inside.

And so right now the government officials are bracing themselves for some kind of, what they believe to be preparations for an assault to topple the Ukrainian government. That's coming straight to us from the deputy interior minister of Ukraine. And so that is, again, yet another ominous sign that what we have seen so far, which has been bad enough, frankly, is only the start of the bigger plan that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has put into operation. John, back to you.

KEILAR: I'll take it, Matthew. But I do wonder, you mentioned the fierce fighting there, as you say your sources saying that the National Guard of Ukraine is in full retreat. Can you tell us more about the fierce fighting? And obviously I think the expectation is those Ukrainian soldiers who were just behind you are expecting that fierce fighting to be something they are engaged in here in just a short amount of time. Can you tell me more?

CHANCE: I think so. Look, a lot of this has been captured on social media because, obviously we weren't there when this happened. But we're talking about large numbers of Russian helicopters. I think this morning earlier we caught this on camera inadvertently, large numbers of helicopters in this area, they were Russian helicopters. They were ferrying in airborne troops to that Antonov airbase, trying to establish a sort of air head, an air bridgehead, is what we have been advised by our security observers here. That would imply, what they intend to do once they've secure that airport, bring in more troops, bring in more supplies, bring in more weapons, and things like that.

Let me take you through this once more. In terms of the actual fighting, we have been warned by our interior ministry contacts not to go anywhere near it, saying the fighting is too fierce, do not go close to it if you can help it. So what we're doing, we're adopting a very secure and safe strategy, because we're about 10 miles away from it right now. And so we have stopped in this location, which is obviously a rear position of the Ukrainian troops, and bit by bit, slowly we're going to sort of see if it is safe to go a bit closer to see if we can get a bit more of a picture of exactly what is going on.

We can tell you, before we came on air, I had to come and speak to some of the Ukrainian soldiers, and they are exhausted. They are scared and very, very anxious about the coming hours, because a lot of them have actually tasted, maybe not for first time, but they've tasted what it is like to fight against this Russian invasion force. And as I say, they're covered in mud, they're exhausted. A lot of them very nervous indeed as well about what's going to happen, because, as I said, there is this broad anxiousness and anticipation that this is going to get a lot worse.

KEILAR: No doubt. All right, Matthew, we're going to let you go, see if you can get just a little bit closer. Please stay safe as you do that. As you mentioned, fierce fighting there from a report of that from your sources.

I do want to go now, let's head a little bit west to CNN's Jim Sciutto. He is in the city of Lviv there. Jim, I know you have some brand-new reporting. What can you tell us?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I want to give you a sense of the latest U.S. intelligence assessment, battle assessment, if you will, of the situation on the ground here in Ukraine as fighting began last night.

First, it is the early view, and, again, these are as they were still gathering reports, but that Russia in this short timespan has already established air superiority over Ukraine. It is very quick, what some 12 hours after those first missiles flew, but expected because Russia just has such an enormous advantage over Ukraine, both over Ukraine's air force, for what it is, but also Ukraine's air defenses. Russia's ability to neutralize that is great. It was expected they would be able to establish air superiority soon. And the early assessment is that that has already taken place.

That said, the U.S. is seeing fairly good resistance as it has been described to me, particularly around the area of Kharkiv, in the northeastern part of this country, across from where we saw Fred Pleitgen earlier and those Russian tanks rolling towards Ukraine. So resistance there, that when you hear Matthew Chance say from his sources, Ukrainian sources, that there is fierce fighting, it is the U.S. view that there is fierce fighting.

[08:15:05]

We do know and this has been a consistent assessment by the U.S. and NATO that Ukrainian forces are far outnumbered, by multiples in terms of personnel, armor, aircraft, air defense, et cetera. But that they're not giving up without a fight certainly at this stage. And that's important.

That said, too, Russia's broader ambitions here from the beginning as we have been talking about this war plan, even going way back to November, when we first began to report it, it was the U.S. view that Russia's intentions were quite broad to take over perhaps the entire country and as this assault has begun, it remains the U.S. assessment that Russia intends at least to control the eastern two-thirds of the country, really think Kyiv going east towards those supposedly disputed regions in the East.

But we should note that for that final third, where I am in the West, there is not nearly the military resources among the Ukrainians here as there are in the east. So if Russia were to establish control over two-thirds, they would effectively have control over the entire country. That remains their ambition in the view of the U.S. military and NATO this morning.

KEILAR: Yeah, and in doing so, will, you would expect, topple the government there in Kyiv.

Jim, thank you so much. We'll see you at the top of the hour.

Berman, back to you.

BERMAN: Yeah, joining us now is Steve Hall, CNN national security analyst, former CIA chief of Russia Operations. And let me start with what Jim just reported here, the idea that he's hearing from U.S. officials that maybe what Putin is doing is trying to split off two- thirds of the nation. That would be roughly this, looking at from Kyiv all the way to the east.

We heard from Matthew Chance, and this was some remarkable reporting, I think we need more details on this coming up, there has been fierce fighting around here in Kyiv, including like an actual moment of serious combat between Russia's forces and Ukrainian forces near an air field. The Russians trying to establish some kind of air base not far from Kyiv.

The overall political goal here of Putin as you see this develop? STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think there is a

couple of things going on as we see this whole thing unfold. The point you bring out in terms of what is going on around Kyiv I think reflects one of the things Putin learned from the Georgia campaign.

So, you recall in 2018, he went in and lopped off the top of that country, but sort of left the rest alone. He could have gone all the way to Tbilisi. In this situation, we thought he would come in here and lop this part off, but the question in my mind at least was would he follow a Georgia model and say, okay, I'm good?

It doesn't look like that at this point. I think this green circle you've just shown here is a pretty conservative estimate as to what he might be thinking about. In my mind, if he's going to go ahead and do all of this, why not go ahead and take the rest of it as well, as opposed to leaving this sort of rump western portion of Ukraine?

So we'll see. But, you know, I think he has learned quite a bit. There were a lot of mistakes, military mistakes when they invaded Georgia, and I think they learned a lot from that and we're seeing a much more professional or coordinated attack on Ukraine.

BERMAN: Every step you take toward Kyiv, it makes you wonder if he's looking for some kind of political decapitation, speaking metaphorically of course there.

General Mark Hertling, retired Lt. General Mark Hertling joins us now.

General, I have up here the scope of the aerial destruction now, 16 locations, this is Kyiv, where Matthew Chance was not long ago.

You heard Jim Sciutto reporting he's hearing from U.S. officials that the Russians now have achieved aerial superiority over the entire region. Significance of that and what do you see happening now?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, John, the significance of aerial superiority is not something that we did not expect. The Russians have the quality of the aircraft. The Russians, as Jim said, does not have the high altitude air defense kind of equipment to counter that. That's going to be important in the early stages.

But aircraft don't hold ground. Aircraft don't control people. So you've got to get a military force on the ground to control those cities, and one of the things that I would comment on is, you know, since the days of Napoleon, the defenders thought to have a three to one advantage over an attacker because the defender understands the ground where they fight, they have the ability to move from one prepared position to another like Matthew Chance with that platoon and they have the ability to see and track enemy movements.

There is another tenet since the time of Napoleon, if you attack everywhere, you attack nowhere. I mean, again, this country is the size of Texas. And if the Russians are going to attempt to hold this entire country, many things are going to go into the further imagine mathematics of combat. Certainly, the Russians have the quality of equipment and the size of

the force, that has a quality all its own, but they don't have the training, the leadership, the environment of the fight, the will of the soldiers, and the support of the government and the population that Ukraine does.

[08:20:10]

So I still think that Ukraine probably has an advantage in many areas, they can continue to fight and the early days will be ugly. We already have seen that. It has been bloody.

But we're already seeing the Ukrainian forces to take the fight to the enemy. The one other thing I would suggest too, John, maybe Steve can talk about this, Nick Paton Walsh was down in Odessa last night, and he reported incoming fire there. The thing that concerns me about that area is that it bumps up against Moldova, a non-NATO country, a former Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. They also have a breakaway republic inside of Moldova that most Americans don't know about called Transnistria.

I can go along with Steve saying the appetite for Mr. Putin is much bigger than that half or two-thirds of Ukraine that you just talked about. Maybe Steve can talk about Moldova as well.

BERMAN: We're going to talk about that in just a little bit.

Steve, General, stand by for one moment.

I want to go back to Brianna in Washington.

KEILAR: All right. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. He is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Chairman, I thank you so much for joining us at this moment as we're watching this attack broadly on Ukraine.

What is your assessment now looking at how big this is, of what the goal is? Is the goal to topple the Ukrainian government?

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Brianna, I think it goes beyond toppling the Ukrainian government. I think Putin has an insatiable appetite. That he wants to reconstitute a -- the former Soviet Union in many ways.

And the -- we should point out that the American intelligence, along with our NATO allies, has been 100 percent spot on. We have notified the world that Putin would use a false flag operation. And I don't think anyone believes that this is started by anyone other than the Russians. The intelligence has said they are not -- the Russians are not just going to strike in east, but they would strike all across the country, they're doing that.

I wish and we urge the Ukrainians to mobilize their forces much earlier, they -- President Zelensky actually only mobilized all of the reserves in the last 48 hours, that has been unfortunately too late. But what we will -- we do know as well is even if the Ukrainian military are overcome, we have seen images for weeks on end of Ukrainian citizens training on the weekends to fight an insurgency against Russian occupiers.

The Russian military may be able to defeat the Ukrainian military, but I don't think they'll be able to defeat the Ukrainian people, should they try to occupy major population centers for some time to come.

I want to raise one other issue I'm gravely concerned about, both in the immediate 24 hours and over the next 72 hours. Russia has not fully unleashed all of its cyber capabilities. Russia is fighting a hybrid war both kinetic and using cyber tools to attack Russian -- Ukrainian government operations.

If the Russians launch a more massive cyberattack, for example, try to shut down all the power in Ukraine, you can't control once you unleash cyber weapons, malware, by geographic locations. That cyberattack could bleed into Eastern Poland where there are American troops, could shut down a Polish hospital.

That kind of incursion could move us into what could be potentially viewed as an Article 5 attack against Poland. That, by definition, means if you attack one NATO nation, you attack all of them. It might be not geared at Poland, but because these networks in our connected communities and connected societies, once you unleash those tools doesn't know any geographic boundaries.

On a 72-hour basis, I think you will see America and the West launch massive sanctions against Russia. And Putin again has already forewarned that he will strike back against the West on an economic basis. And that could mean cyberattacks against NATO countries, potentially against American critical infrastructure as well.

So, we are in a very, very dicey unchartered territory, both on the ground, in Ukraine, potentially, with our adjacent NATO allies where American troops are, for example, in Poland, and then over the coming days, potentially for the type of cyber warfare, hybrid warfare directly against the West that we have talked about a lot, but never seen in reality.

KEILAR: Yeah, that's right. What are we expecting there?

I am sitting here with David Sanger from "The New York Times." I know he has a question for you, Chairman.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Senator, good to see you.

You said before that the intelligence was excellent and all the evidence we have is that it was.

[08:25:06]

So, I'm wondering how you diagnose why it is that the threat of the sanctions didn't serve to deter Putin, whether he just didn't think it was that serious, and whether you think that the threat of invoking Article 5, if the cyber operations do bleed into NATO countries is something that Putin would calculate differently? WARNER: David, as we have discussed, I mean, Putin is so isolated. We're not 100 percent sure how much inputs he's getting other than some of his top officials. This is not a guy that's watching international news or looking at the images of Ukrainians training in the streets.

I think he was -- the economic ministers conveyed to him that taking this route could end up with a hit on Russia's GDP of 15 to 20 percent. That would be huge. That would set back Russia potentially years if not decades.

But as you know, David, this is a guy, 69 years old, who has got an obsession about re-creating a greater Russia. And we have been concerned for some time that kind of normal rules of the road would not constrain him, and I think that's what's playing out so far.

And I'm not sure -- I don't believe that preemptive sanctions would have changed anything. Matter of fact, preemptive sanctions may have split apart the NATO alliance.

I think actually on this one, Biden has played it exactly right, as you know, 48 hours ago or so, the German government went ahead and shut down Nord Stream 2, that was then followed by the kind of crippling sanctions on Nord Stream 2 that my Republican friends have been asking for for some time.

So, I think we've been laying this out in a united way. But, again, I don't think sanctions alone were ever going to deter Putin.

KEILAR: Chairman, you mentioned cyber ramifications here, domestically in the U.S. the way Russia has operated, we've seen it, they're in, right? They -- they have put themselves into systems, whether it is companies, or it is within agency infrastructure, within the U.S. government, almost like a ticking time bomb, maybe waiting for this moment to go off.

Do you feel like you have a good handle on how in they are into those systems?

WARNER: We have known for some time that Russia has been very aggressive about prepositioning malware, bugs, cyber tools, on critical infrastructure, not only in the United States, but across the West.

What we don't know is how many of those tools, how many of those cyber weapons will they activate. As David knows, he's written about this, probably as much as anybody in the world, a number of years ago, Russia launched with a single cyber weapon an attack against Ukraine. It was called in cyber parlance "NotPetya".

It shut down a lot of the Ukrainian economy. But because these cyber weapons, once they're unleashed, know no geographic boundary, it literally cost the West, including the United States, billions of dollars as those network malware spread across whole networks, rebounded back against the Russian economy itself. That was one cyber weapon. What happens if Russia unleashes 10, 100, 1,000 of their cyber weapons

simultaneously? We are in the land of unprecedented type of cyber domain. And, frankly, how we counter that, we have cyber weapons, but we have been very concerned for a long period of time about cyber escalation.

One of the reasons why America and the West always said, if we're attacked on our cyber basis, we may respond in a different modality because cyber escalation, which David could talk a lot about, is unprecedented territory.

KEILAR: All right. Senator, I want to thank you so much. Mark Warner for being with us. We do appreciate it.

Berman, over to you.

BERMAN: Yeah. I want to get right to Kharkiv now. That's where Clarissa Ward is.

I understand, Clarissa, you're inside a subway station, where people are trying to take shelter. What are you seeing, Clarissa?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, it is just absolutely surreal. Yesterday this would have been full of commuters making their way back and forth to work. Today, it has become an impromptu bomb shelter.

It is just full. We arrived here about 15, 20 minutes ago. We were outside, and then we heard a series of thuds, and saw people start to pour in here and I think you can get a sense of just how many people are taking shelter here right now.

These people are frightened. They're confused. They are desperate about what they're supposed to do, how long they can take shelter here, where they go from here.

There are a lot of children in here. There are a lot of animals, dogs, pets, we have seen students who are studying here in Ukraine from outside the country. I talked to a woman upstairs, who was crying because of just her sense of panic, fear and desperation not knowing where they can go, and what they can do.