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Ukraine's Capital Kyiv Under Attack as Russians Advance; Poland Preparing for Massive Influx of Ukrainian Refugees. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 25, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

CHRIS KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: Well, that's certainly two different things.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Sure.

KREBS: Offensively, cyber operations led by cyber command and some of the intelligence community agency are very, very proficient. They are very good, very sophisticated and they have been at this game for a very long time. But I would be surprised right now to see anything that's overly offensive or aggressive against Russian capabilities in order to not escalate the situation, particularly any sort of Russia- U.S. tensions at least for now.

Now, to your other point about vulnerabilities, what we're worried about, the U.S. government has some concerns that a few things could happen, first that some sort of Russian operation in Ukraine, cyber operation in Ukraine, could kind of jump the rails. And we've seen that before in 2017, they launched a destructive attack known as NotPetya, that hit U.S. businesses and hit other global businesses, like Maersk, the shipping magnate. So, we are keeping an eye on that.

But the key here is that be prepared. Take the time to follow some of the guidance that CISA, the agency I ran, called Shields Up, that's their campaign. CISA has also been designated the lead for domestic resilience. So, we have the time to prepare.

KEILAR: All right. Well, that is good news. I really appreciate your expertise on this, Chris Krebs, thank you so much.

And CNN's special coverage continues now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, February 25th. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

The breaking news, Russian forces pushing closer to the Ukrainian capital, entering the Obolon District, which is in the northern part of Kyiv just a few miles from the city center. We have new reporting in just moments ago that U.S. intelligence fears the capital could fall within days. Ukrainian citizens are being asked to make Molotov cocktails to take down the occupier. The former president of Ukraine was on the streets talking to us just minutes ago. He was holding a Kalashnikov to fight for himself.

Overnight, Kyiv was hit by missile fire. Ukrainian's foreign minister calls it the worst attack his country has been inflicted with since the Nazis invaded in 1941. The current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, says he is Russia's number one target. Number two, he says, is his family.

KEILAR: Overnight, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down over Kyiv. Fragments from the jet believed to have hit and set fire to a home. Ukraine says that it has inflicted 800 casualties among Russian forces. CNN though cannot independently confirm that.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry says it blew up a bridge north of the capital city trying to keep Russian forces from advancing towards Kyiv. And listen to this recording of Russians ordering 13 Ukrainian guards to surrender on a strategic island in the south, but they responded with defiance.

Russian warship, go F yourself. That moment now going viral. All of those Ukrainian soldiers, by the way who were defending that island, Snake Island, were reportedly killed.

Russian forces have also seized control of the Chernobyl power plant in the Northern Ukraine, or what remains of it, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. And they are reportedly holding the staff their hostage.

Protests in support of Ukraine taking place in Israel, Paris, Berlin and London and perhaps, most importantly, in cities across Russia. Police have cracked down there. They have made hundreds of arrests in a rare show of dissent that we have seen there.

CNN has reporters covering this escalating crisis in cities all across Europe and throughout Ukraine.

Let's begin now with CNN Senior International Correspondent Matthew Chance. He is live on the ground for us in Kyiv.

And, Matthew, CNN is learning that American officials actually believe the capital could fall to Russia here within days. What can you tell us?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that timeframe seems realistic. In fact, it could be sooner than that. Because, as we speak, I can hear the rumblings of artillery fire or explosions taking place a short distance from here, just to the north of the city, where we know from our reporting that there are forces of Russia located on the outskirts of the city, that entered the city near location could Obolon, which is a suburb outside of the center of Ukraine.

[07:05:00]

And also, we did that reporting yesterday showing Russian Special Forces that have taken hold for that moment of a strategic air base in that same kind of direction as well. As that fighting takes place, they -- there has been an appeal from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, he's made one of his social media statements, and he said this. There's a fight going on not just in Kyiv but in the whole of the territory of Ukraine. And he made this direct appeal to the Russian leadership, to Vladimir Putin. He said let's sit down of the table of negotiation so that we can stop people from dying. So, that appeal from Volodymyr Zelensky, an 11th hour appeal, if you like, to come to the negotiating table for Vladimir Putin for the sake of people's lives so that more are not killed in this, you know, full-scale invasion that Russia is waging against this country.

Earlier today as well, within the last few hours, I got the opportunity to question the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. Of course, he was talking to me as we were hearing the shelling on the outskirts of the city. Take a listen to what I asked him and what he had to say about the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: I am in Kyiv right now and it is under attack, Mr. Lavrov, from Russian forces. And I'd like to know what your plan is for the leadership of this country. Do you intend to decapitate the leadership of this country? Why are the Russian forces now entering Kyiv surrounding the capital and battling with Ukrainian military? Do you intend to decapitate the Ukrainian leadership? Could you give me a simple answer, please, sir?

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Nobody is going the attack the people of Ukraine. Nobody is going to somehow degrade the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We are talking about preventing neo-Nazis and those promoting genocide from ruling this country, because the current regime in Kyiv is under two external control mechanisms, first, the west and the U.S., and, second, neo-Nazi, those who are imposing their culture, and it is flourishing in Ukraine today.

As for your feelings as someone who is in Kyiv at this very moment, I will stress read what Putin said. No strikes on civilian infrastructure. There are no strikes on the personnel of the Ukrainian Army in their dormitories or other places not connected to the military facilities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, those strikes on civilian structure or on the military, given the situation we're witnessing now, I don't know how reassured we can be from the remarks of the Russian foreign minister.

I can tell you that Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, he is deeply concerned about his own security. He made a statement yesterday on social media saying that he believes the enemy, by which he means Russia, of course, has made him the number one target in the country and they've made his family the number two target. And so he is taking precautions, as are other senior Ukrainian officials, in the event that the next step of Russian forces, it's not just to surround the capital city of Ukraine, but to come in and, as I mentioned there, to topple the leadership and replace it with a pro-Moscow regime, which is the big concern here, John.

BERNA: Look, and, Matthew, just to give people a sense of where you are, you're in the city center right now, which is right here. And then yesterday, this is where you were up here, at the airport. This is where the fighting appears to be going on right now, in the on Obolon District right now.

Brianna, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

KEILAR: No. I was just going to say that was a lie. Just to be very clear, it was lie after lie that we heard from Lavrov there. And it's just verifiable. We have Matthew on the ground. We have all of our correspondents on the ground. You point out where he is, Berman. We have reporters all across the country who are able to tell us that what Lavrov is saying is just completely incorrect. That was all I was going to add to that.

And, Matthew, I also want to ask you, we have been officials are asking people to arm themselves with Molotov cocktails, weapons, a stunning number of weapons have gone out to civilians. Can you tell us about that?

CHANCE: Yes, that's right. I mean, the Ukrainian officials are calling on the citizenry of the country to pick up weapons and defend the city of Kyiv, for instance, from attack and from other cities as well, encouraging them to use petrol bombs, Molotov cocktails. There have been 18,000 weapons, according to defense officials, distributed to the civilian population to help in that defense against what is a concerted Russian advance.

[07:10:00]

I mean, the problem is, it's not clear how effective that kind of resistance in these early stages of a concerted Russian invasion is going to be. It may well stall a Russian advance. But the danger of that, of course, is that if the Russians feel that they have sent in an underpowered force to achieve their strategic aims, whatever they are, the risk is that they could redouble that force and send in an even more powerful, even more brutal army of invasion to make sure that they're victorious.

And I think that's -- judging by the remarks we have heard coming out of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin specifically but also from his officials like Sergey Lavrov, you get the sense they are not in the mood for negotiation. For instance, that call by President Zelensky here in Ukraine for negotiations with President Putin, with the Russians, to save people's lives, has gone completely unanswered. Brianna, John?

BERMAN: All right. Matthew Chance in Kyiv, thank you very much for being with us.

We're going to go to Frederik Pleitgen right now who, I do understand, is over the border in Russia. Fred, why don't you tell me where you are. FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'm in Belgorod. I'm almost at the same place that you saw me yesterday. And one of the things that has really changed so far is, you might see, it's actually started snowing. The weather has seriously deteriorated. So, that actually could be something that could make it more difficult for those Russian forces to launch some of their attacks that we saw them launch yesterday, when we were speaking, we saw the Russian forces go across the border.

However, guys, what I'm hearing here in Belgorod, which is really one of the biggest places where the Russians have forces along the border with Ukraine, is there is still a lot of missiles that are being launched. I've also heard planes overhead this morning. And I was out here at the last sort of checkpoint before you get to Ukrainian territory throughout the night last night, and we, until well into the night, saw convoy after convoy Russian forces move into Ukrainian territory. It happened until -- I think we were there until about 3:00 A.M. in the morning, that you could see some armored convoys, some also just with people carriers, move towards the territory of Ukraine.

The other thing that I also saw on the ground, by the way, is, by chance, we actually encountered some Russian Special Forces who were setting up shop there. So, certainly, they are also in the mix down there, and they would also, of course, be some of the first forces that would be sent in in any sort of -- if this invasion were to move even further into Ukrainian territory.

So, it really is going on in full force. You can feel that here in this town. You can feel that all around. One of the other things is also that our own movements are a little bit more restricted than they have been over the past couple of days. We have been held up in almost every checkpoint for an extended period of time just trying to move around here. You can feel how the Russians are not getting more nervous but certainly a lot more serious about security concerns but also of this offensive, I can tell you, is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down, guys.

BERMAN: Frederik Pleitgen for us, again, he is over the Russian border here in Belgorod region yesterday. And overnight, he was seeing troop movement with tanks into Ukraine, toward Kharkiv. Fred, thanks so much for being with us.

The concern over the last few minutes has largely been in capital city of Kyiv, where there are reports now that the Russians are moving into the northern outskirts of the city. U.S. intelligence tells CNN there are fears that city, the capital city, could fall within the next one to four days.

The civilians, the population of that city has been told to take to the streets to defend themselves with Molotov cocktails. Just a few minutes ago, we spoke to the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, who is now standing on the streets with a civilian defense force, armed himself. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We shall deal with Putin like the man with the lost reason. And he's just simply mad. He's just simply crazy. He's just simply evil to come here to kill Ukrainian, Ukrainian who is -- we lost now about 130 Ukrainian soldiers.

That's exactly why we shall secure Ukraine today and to support Ukraine and (INAUDIBLE) tomorrow.

I have a feeling that I am specific target of the Russians for already eight years. And this is me is just a symbol. We are not afraid of them. And just now, while we are here, we have a report for our civil defense that in five minutes, we will have a Russian bomb in the center of Kyiv. And we have a bomb shelter 100 meters from here. But I am not going to interrupt our interview because the information war which Putin make against Ukraine is part of the hybrid war he do against us for the eight years.

[07:15:00]

And I try to do my best that the world should know the truth about the situation in Ukraine. We Ukrainian are not standing in line for the bread, for the cash from the bank machine. We are standing in line for the weapons. We are standing in line to give our blood to our soldiers. And with this situation, definitely, we demonstrate a unique quality that we can stand against Russian aggression, we can stand against Russian occupation. We are united together with the whole world.

My assistants here, this is the Kalashnikov. We have just -- let me see, maybe four and low, and the 300 members of the battalion of the territorial defense. And we have two machine guns. And we have -- more or less that's it. We don't have any heavy artilleries. We don't have tanks. We don't have an armed personnel carrier because we launched this process just a couple of days ago. And we create that for the two days. This is the long life of the people who want enlisted in the battalion but we don't have enough arms for that. And this is their only limits why they are single defense. They are normal, ordinary people, sometimes never been in the army, standing in line now to join us.

This is extremely touchable and extremely great demonstration how Ukrainian people hate Putin and how we are against Russian aggression. This is very clear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. That is the Russian president -- sorry, excuse me, the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, there, the interview just was cut off there, obviously.

What was remarkable to me, Brianna, to hear from the former Ukrainian president, was just to see him on the streets as part of the territorial defense force. He was there with other Ukrainians who have now gone out to defend themselves from a Russian invasion. KEILAR: Yes. Look, I think another recent reference point that we have is when we watched Afghan President Ashraf Ghani just take off, right? And when I think you see Zelensky and the former president making clear is they're not going anywhere. And that's going to be very important for in spearing the resistance.

And you see, it was just incredible, that moment, in that interview, as you asked him, Berman, and he showed you that he was holding this Kalashnikov. He was thanking the Brits. He was thanking America for the Javelins. Those are anti-tank missiles. And he was talking about taking out tanks that I think -- I don't know if it was part of his territorial defense forces, if he was part of their -- or if it was the security forces, but he was talking about how they had taken out so many Russian tanks with them.

BERMAN: Yes, these are the Javelins right there. They do have Javelins. It is one of the weapons that the United States have provided. Obviously, the Ukrainians have been asking for more over the years.

This morning, the fighting is underway in Kyiv and in other cities across the country. CNN's live special coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: Obviously, as the Russian troops move into Ukraine from all directions, as you can see here, there are concerns that there will be an exodus of the population west, to safety in Ukraine and potentially maybe even over the border into Poland.

Let's go there right now on the polish side. That's where we have CNN's Scott McLean. He is just over from Lviv, right there in Poland. Scott, what can you tell us?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hey, John. We have new numbers from Polish authorities who say that 29,000 Ukrainians have now crossed into the border or crossed into Poland since all of this started. Where we are is about 30 minutes inside of Poland. We're at a train station. The town is called (INAUDIBLE), excuse me.

And what's happening here is a train arrived here about 20 minutes ago from Odessa. It was delayed by about four hours because we are seeing huge delays right now on the Ukrainian side when people need to get that exit stamp to leave. This is also being used as a reception center for people who have arrived. So, you can see just inside this room, they have cots set up for people to sleep. Obviously, hotel rooms right now are at a premium.

If you were on one of these trains as well, you are undoubtedly one of the lucky ones, because we've seen -- we were on the actual border last night, at a pedestrian crossing not far from here in a town called Medyka. And there, we were hearing from people that were waiting 10, 12 hours just to cross the border outside. And remember, part of the delay as well is what the Ukrainian president announced, and that's that men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not being allowed to leave the country. And so on the trains, at the border, they are pulling men out and telling them, sorry, you have to stay inside the country.

Let me just take you inside the station here, and you can see the huge influx of people. These are folks who would have arrived on this Odessa train. And now, they're trying to figure out where exactly they can go from here, trying to get help with any paperwork that they might need, trying to figure out where they might stay and try to figure out how long they might be here as well.

Remember, John, a lot of the Ukrainians that we had spoken to simply did not believe that any kind of attack was actually likely to take place. And so they undoubtedly caught off guard. They were packing a bag as quickly as they could and then heading toward the border, whether it'd be on a train, on foot or on car, where we are also hearing that it is taking many, many hours in order to get across the border.

[07:25:06]

And so it is undoubtedly a chaotic situation here inside Poland where people just simply don't know how long they're going to be here, when they might be able to go back.

BERMAN: Obviously, the unknown here, thousands of refugees may be headed to that border. The concern is it could hit millions in the coming weeks. Scott McLean over the Polish border, thank you so much for being with us.

KEILAR: Our breaking news, Ukrainian capital of Kyiv under siege as Russian forces are closing in. People there are being told to fight, even to make Molotov cocktails.

And joining us now is CNN National Security Analyst James Clapper. He's the former director of National Intelligence.

And we were really struck by something that Nina Kusheva (ph) just said here on the program. She said --- and this is someone who, by the way, has studied Ukraine, she's studied Vladimir Putin, kind of, in general, gotten inside of his mind a little bit. She said she never would have imagined that he would be crazy enough to do what he has done to go for all of Ukraine. What do you think?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think there's some question about his mental state, frankly

KEILAR: Really?

CLAPPER: He's been in a bubble, a bureaucratic bubble for 20, 22 years, and a physical one for two. And it's very obvious from his performance at these meetings that there's nobody pushing back. He is the ultimate decision-maker and he's certainly not getting bad news from his intelligence services. So, I wonder about that. And I was very concerned what I thought was the chilling warning he issued about the consequences for people who help Ukrainians. That was pretty chilling. And on the heels of a theatrically staged nuclear exercise, involving drilling their triad, the three arms of their strategic nuclear arsenal. And I really wonder about his mental state.

KEILAR: So, his warning was basically to say, if you intervene in this, you're going to get consequences like you have never seen before, something unprecedented.

CLAPPER: Right.

KEILAR: So, to you, that's a nuke?

CLAPPER: well, I think in his mind it could be. Now, the more likely probability is if, for example, sanctions get painful in Russia, and it's going to take a while for them to take effect and gain traction. But if they do, then I would expect perhaps cyberattacks against our financial sector, tit for tat in a financial context, or an attack against our infrastructure, some part of it, a shot over the bow.

And, frankly, that was always a concern in the Obama administration is if we take an action, what will the counter-retaliation be? And I'm sure that same calculus is going on right now.

KEILAR: Yes. Cyber would be unprecedented and the rules of engagement are a little more unclear when it comes to sort of cyber engagement.

CLAPPER: To say the least.

KEILAR: Yes, to say the least.

Do you worry, if he's gone this far going for the entirety of Ukraine, do you worry about the Baltic States that are part of NATO?

CLAPPER: I do. And one of the reason is because of the presence of Russian speakers in the Baltics. And one of them, I'm not sure which one, has a very heavy Russian-speaking population. If I were in Moldova right now, I would be pretty nervous.

And so -- and I'm going on his own rhetoric because what he wants is to turn the clock back to about 1991 and undo the eastward march of NATO. So, I am concerned that once the dog catches the car, meaning Ukraine, that he's not done yet.

KEILAR: Christiane Amanpour was pointing earlier that upcoming in Belarus, there's going to be a vote on what she put in air quotes, a referendum, sort of seeding, in a way -- seeding sovereignty in a way to Russia.

So now you look at Russia's borders expanding the sphere of influence, maybe not nominally, but through Belarus, through Ukraine, so you think Moldova is most susceptible?

CLAPPER: Well, I think in the first instance that what the model, I would assess, that Putin has in mind is another vassal state like Belarus, and they are just a little further along, a compliant, obedient leadership in Ukraine. And, you know, you just look at the map and you can see why this is a big deal to Putin.

[07:30:02]

And then you look south to Moldova, that seems to be an obvious focus.