Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Air Strike Hits Government Office Building in Kharkiv; Ukraine Set to be a Key Focus of Tonight's State of the Union. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 01, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, March 1st. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

[05:00:01]

And breaking news: Russian forces are closing in on Ukrainian capitol of Kyiv and the second largest city Kharkiv suffering a devastating aerial attack. This video came in a short time ago. A Russian strike, apparently a missile strike on Kharkiv's freedom square. The apparent target that was a government building there. At least six people have been injured including one child though the number of casualties have been yet to be confirmed.

This was a daylight attack. You can see people out on the streets there and officials in Ukraine decry this as a clear attack on civilian population. The Russian invasion is now in its sixth day as Ukraine's capital now braces for what could be the biggest Russian offensive. New satellite images show a military convoy more than 40 miles long reaching the outskirts of Kyiv. The convoy appears to include armored vehicles, tanks, towed artillery.

The Ukrainians do continue to mount fierce resistance. Residents are using their cars to block an approaching column of some 40 Russian vehicles. They eventually turned around, the Russians did, and left.

Video shows people putting barricades and metal spikes on a main access road to stop the Russian military advance.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing Russia of war crimes in its bombing of Kharkiv.

Kharkiv's mayor says at least nine civilians were killed in rocket attacks on Monday. According to the U.N., so far more than 500,000 refugees have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries during Russia's invasion. U.N. officials say they're planning for up to 4 million refugees.

President Zelenskyy making a passionate appeal to the European Union, signing an application and asking to allow Ukraine to join immediately, as Russian an Ukrainian negotiators failed to agree on a ceasefire. Zelenskyy is scheduled to speak to E.U. leaders in the next hour. We are going to take you there live.

BERMAN: Let's get right to CNN's Alex Marquardt who is live in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv -- Alex.

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John and Brianna, any hope that yesterday's talks between Russia and Ukraine in Belarus would lead to any pause or stop in the fighting has gone out the window. Now, this city has held out quite well. You'll remember some of the most dire predictions had it falling to the Russians in 24 to 48 hours.

Here we are on day six. The Ukrainians have managed to repel the Russian advance on this city, but we are watching with great concern that convoy that you mentioned coming at Kyiv from the north of the city. Initially when we first spotted it on satellite imagery it was three miles long. It has now stretched to 40 miles long or 60 kilometers, a massive Russian convoy with all kinds of vehicles and weapons 40 miles long.

This includes armored vehicles, tanks, troops, towed artillery and logistical vehicles. We have seen in the past few days Ukrainian forces having some luck against other convoys that have gotten close to the city. At least two in the past few days have been destroyed. We know that the Russian supply lines have been hit against their troops. But this is bigger than anything we have seen before coming at the city on the outskirts of the capitol Kyiv.

We should note, all of these vehicles are coming from Belarus. In the past few weeks we've seen tens of thousands of Russian troops amassing in Belarus. They claimed and no one believed it they were there for exercises.

Now those troops are coming at Kyiv from Belarus. That is a real reason that president Zelenskyy did not want to hold those talks with Russia in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. That's why he insisted on holding them on the border.

So, John and Brianna, we could see the fight for this city getting much, much fiercer in the coming hours.

BERMAN: Yeah, no doubt about. Alex Marquardt, I want people see -- this is the length of the 40 mile convoy we're dealing with right there and you can look right here. This is all that remains as a gap between the leading end of the convoy right here and the main city center and if people want to get a sense of what this video looks like from the air, this is the convoy, I'll pause it.

You can see the full length. This is just a portion of it, the full length right here. This goes on for miles and miles and miles and miles and that's what's approaching right now Kyiv right where Alex Marquardt is.

Alex, stay safe. Check back with you in a bit.

KEILAR: I want to bring in Yaroslav Trofimov. He is the chief foreign affairs correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal", and he's joining us from Kyiv.

[05:05:02]

Yaroslav, can you tell us what your concerns are here with this convoy that has amassed north of the city?

YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: So, I guess the biggest concern of everybody in Kyiv is that after President Putin initially tried a strike on the Ukrainian capitol, avoiding targets that failed, so now they're switching to the strategy of fear. Areas were shelled yesterday and people are bracing for this onslaught that will produce mass civilian casualties and demoralized the defendants of the city that so far have been able to hold off Russian advances.

KEILAR: Who is still there in Kyiv? And how are they preparing?

TROFIMOV: Well, I'm standing in the courtyard of the children's hospital in Ukraine. Let me tell you, a lot of little children with cancers, with diabetes, with other diseases that need treatment are here with their parents because they cannot leave.

There are a lot of civilians here who are facing humanitarian crisis. Everything is closed. The supply chains have been broken. This is a sophisticated economy in which it's not like people are growing their own food or baking bread. Once the supermarkets don't have the supplies, people are (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: So, they're worried as people are worried in Kharkiv with what is happening and the indiscriminate shelling.

TROFIMOV: Yes.

KEILAR: Where we've seen civilian deaths, deaths of children, that that is what is coming to Kyiv's doorstep it sounds like?

TROFIMOV: Exactly. That's the fear here. That seems to be increasingly the Russian approach because after failing to break through the defenses of Kyiv in other cities, now it looks like they are going to repeat what they tried to do and did in Chechnya more than 20 years ago, when the entire neighborhoods were erased.

KEILAR: Yaroslav, thank you so much. We do hope you're safe. And as you said, you're there outside of a hospital where there are a lot of innocent children and their parents inside and we're certainly keeping our eye on what happens as this convoy advances towards the city. Thank you.

BERMAN: Well, joining us now is Steve Hall, CNN national security analyst and former CIA chief of Russia operations.

Steve, you take a look at this map, these are the routes to the Russian invasion, and now the red is beginning to fill in. This is the area of Russian control getting very near cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, you know, Mykolaiv, which we saw yesterday. What do you think the overall situation is this morning?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think, John, what's happening is we're transitioning from the initial attempt on the part of the Putin government, to do sort of a blitzkrieg operation, you know, we've heard the number of times, the idea was to get to Kyiv and some of the other key points, you know, Odessa and some of the other points in the east, obviously, to take over the eastern enclaves here as quickly possible. That didn't work out for all sorts of different reasons. I'll defer to my military colleagues on that. But what we're looking at now I think is a massive attempt,

Putin is essentially doubling down. What I'm concerned about is that we've seen this before. If you remember back to the Chechen wars, which Trofimov just alluding to, the Grozny effect where he goes in and carpet bombs everything indiscriminately because we get to the point where he says, look, I'm tired of fooling around. This is more resistance than I expected and it's perhaps guerrilla-like warfare. So, I'm just going to go and carpet the place. If you go back and look at the pictures of Grozny, the results are horrifying.

BERMAN: Look, we've been looking of video of Kharkiv right now. This is the second largest city in Ukraine. You can see the numbers of strikes.

And, guys in the control, if you have the video once again of that missile strike we've been looking at all morning on a key government building, this is an attack on a major city right now. What is the impact of that on a population? This is the aftermath we're looking at right now?

HALL: You know, the aftermath of something like this is obviously more than just physical. I mean, if you look at this, the devastation, you look at the hit right there, this is something that of course everybody in Ukraine is looking at this morning. If you're not right there on top of that, you're thinking, well, am I next? Because of course this is in Kharkiv and that is an important city, but it's still not Kyiv. So I think if you're Ukrainian you're thinking, yeah, this is what they've got for Kharkiv. It's got to be bigger, worse, more impactful in the city and I think they're right about that.

BERMAN: All right. So, the other thing everyone is looking at is this convoy, 40 miles long. It's not far. People can see. It's just this far from Kyiv at this point. Everyone knows where this is. Everyone has seen the video of this moving albeit slowly, a slow roll towards Kyiv.

So, what options exist at this point?

HALL: I've got to say, if I'm -- I'm more of a military -- intel type. [05:10:06]

If I'm the J2, if I'm the military guy associated with this convoy, one of the things that's got too concern me. It's very long and moving very slowly. This is a very good target obviously for any Ukrainian attempts to get at them before they actually get to town.

Now to the extent that they're attempting to do that, we just don't know at this point but that's one of the inherent problems, the exposure you get if you're a slow moving, heavily armed group. You can defend yourself and you can't move that fast. So, that has to be concerning to the Russians and an opportunity perhaps to the Ukrainians.

BERMAN: Again, I'll put this up so people can see where we stand this morning. The red is the area that's Russian controlled. Steve Hall, we'll talk to you again in a little bit.

So, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to speak soon with European Union leaders after making an appeal for his country's immediate membership. We're live in Brussels, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:18]

KEILAR: Moments from now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to speak with E.U. leaders, just after signing a formal request for his country to join the bloc. Currently, Ukraine is not recognized as a candidate for E.U. membership.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is live at E.U. headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, with more.

Natasha, what can you tell us about this?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. So, President Zelensky has been making an urgent plea to the European Union to please accept Ukraine's candidacy as for a membership into the European Union because that would essentially place Ukraine on equal footing, he says, with the E.U. It would send a message to Russia that they are unified with the West and they would have the same kind of privileges as the European Union and, importantly, they would also have the rights of certain kinds of defense that the E.U. provides its member states.

But it is a very complex procedure, right? So the president of the European Commission has said that Europe does consider Ukraine to be one of them and that E.U. membership is something that she can see happening but it is a complex procedure that does not happen overnight. There are a number of things that need to kind of fall into place before a country can apply for and be accepted into the E.U. Some countries have been waiting for over a decade.

So, what they're hoping is they can be placed on some kind of expedited track here. Not everyone in the European Union is really on board with that. Obviously, Ukraine is fighting a war right now. There are separatist territories in the East. So, it's very complicated.

But in the meantime, the E.U. has really stepped up its support for Ukraine amid this war. They have signed off on $500 million worth of equipment that they plan to deliver in the coming days and weeks. Certain member states within the European Union have also kind decided to send lethal weaponry to Ukraine to help them fend off this aggression.

One notable example is Germany. They agreed to send anti-tank missiles, air defense missiles to Ukraine really for the first time after being neutral, after being reluctant to do so, and sending nonlethal equipment up until now. The E.U. has closed air space and imposed sanctions. They want to ban Russian media from European air waves.

So they are taking all of these steps to try to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, including financially. And in the meantime, Zelensky who is going to address the European parliament here in a couple of hours is urging them to expedite Ukraine's membership into the bloc. However, it remains to see how fast it could actually happen, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. We know you'll be tracking that, Natasha. Thank you for the report.

Russia's unrelenting assault on Ukraine. Now, they just blew up a government building. Six people injured in this, including one child. We're going to take you live to the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:39]

BERMAN: This is CNN special live coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, day six.

That right there, this is a devastating video of a direct hit. A Russian air attack on a Ukrainian government building in Kharkiv. This is the second largest city in Ukraine. That building, an historic, beautiful building, people out on the streets in broad daylight. Clearly there will be civilian casualties in this attack. Just devastating.

To give you a better sense of where that is on the map, that's up in the northeast part of the country, the city of Kharkiv, predominantly Russian speaking city just over the border from Russia in Belgorod. That's where we're finding CNN's Frederik Pleitgen.

Fred, what are you seeing this morning?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

Yeah, certainly devastating footage we're seeing from Kharkiv. Several people wounded including a child in the city center of Kharkiv. I've been there to Kharkiv, and it is really certainly an impressive town, if you will, and that square, also, very large, with those historic buildings. So, certainly, it's a devastating hit that town has taken.

But, one of the things we've seen in the past day and we've had this on our program, we have seen the Russian military move more multiple rocket launchers towards the front line of Kharkiv. The front line is only a couple of miles down the road that way. I'm standing near the last checkpoint towards the front line of Kharkiv.

So, any artillery fire that's outgoing from here or for the forward would go towards the Kharkiv area. Now, of course, the Russian military has said that it's not taking civilian areas under fire. But, of course, some of the weapons that we saw, like for instance, the Urugan multiple rocket launcher. Urugan means hurricane in English.

The missiles that the weapon shoots out are unguided. So, it is a weapon that's very powerful. Not necessarily one that is very accurate. Certainly there is the possibility that mistakes can happen and that rockets can hit, for instance, in civilian areas.

Unclear whether that's something that happened here, but certainly the Ukrainian government is already denouncing all of this, calling it a crime and from what we're seeing here, what we have seen over the past day, day and a half, there has been increased artillery rocket fire going out from positions both here but also closer to the front line as well, one multiple occasion.

[05:25:02]

You can see salvos being fired up towards the Ukrainian territory and, of course, any of the salvos that could be fired from this position where we are right now would be heading most probably towards the Kharkiv area, especially since the fighting you're seeing would be centered around the city. Obviously, a day and a half ago Russian forces managed to reach one of the rings of defense in Kharkiv and there is fighting going on in that city.

So, certainly, it would see as though artillery fire, if it were coming from here, from rocket and howitzers as well would obviously be directed more closely to the city. We can't say any of this with 100 percent certainty. But certainly, the fact that we've seen the artillery rocket launchers move closer to the front line, that has been something that has stood out as we've been observing the city here from the last checkpoint before the front line in Kharkiv, John.

BERMAN: That was a direct hit on a government building in broad daylight when civilians would clearly be around it. Everyone can see it with their own eyes.

Frederik Pleitgen over the border in Russia right now, giving us the very latest -- Fred, thank you very much.

KEILAR: This invasion by Ukraine of Russia is expected to be a key focus of President Biden's State of the Union Address tonight.

And CNN's Jeremy Diamond is joining us now in Washington on this.

Perhaps not what he expected, right? Maybe not what he wanted to or intended to focus on, but there's no way around it.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, no doubt about it. Listen, when President Biden and his team started writing this speech late last year, there were Russian troops amassing on the border, but certainly not an active invasion of Ukraine underway.

And at the time, President Biden and his team envisioned this as a political and economic reset for the president. An opportunity to say, look how far we've come in the last year as it relates to COVID, as it relates to the economy despite ongoing struggles with inflation. Now with the war in Ukraine, that will be the focal point of the president's speech, a moment of crisis for the president to address the nation and the world really, to talk about the actions he's taken to build this global coalition, the sanctions against Russia, and also the efforts to try to mitigate the impact of those sanctions on American and European consumers.

And it will be the biggest ought audience for him to talk about democracies versus autocracies. He will talk about inflation. He'll address it head on. He'll unveil new proposals according to the White House, economic proposals to lower costs for American families. And he'll also talk about the coronavirus and the progress made there as his team has been spending the last several weeks, I'm told, working on a new strategy for the country to address COVID.

But the political implications in a mid-term year will be hard to miss. Look at the latest polling, 40 percent of Americans approve of President Biden's job performance according to the latest CNN polls compared to 57 percent disapproving. That is a low point for President Biden in his presidency and certainly, it seems, they're still hoping that they can get something out of the speech to pull these numbers back up.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching with you, Jeremy. Thank you so much for that.

So, more than half a million Ukrainian refugees pouring into other countries desperately fleeing to safety, doing whatever they can to cross on bus, car, even on foot. We'll have a live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)