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Workers at Ukrainian Plant Block Access to Russians; Kremlin Says, Russian Delegation Will be In Place for Talks with Ukraine; Russian Airstrike Targets District Housing Holocaust Memorial. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 02, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:03]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are getting word that Ukrainians asking the International Atomic Energy Agency for immediate assistance to protect these nuclear sites out of concern for what might happen if they do fall into Russian hands.

Also happening right now, a Kremlin spokesperson says a Russian delegation will be in place today for a new round of talks with Ukrainian negotiators. We do not yet know if the Ukrainians will be there.

A lot going on this morning. I want to first go to CNN's Alexander Marquardt live in Kyiv near the site, Alex, of that attack on the T.V. tower we saw. Go ahead.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. Russia clearly stepping up their attacks on communications and information infrastructure, in fact, announcing that they would be targeting facilities in order to suppress what they called information attacks on Russia. They know that they are losing the narrative. They know that they're losing the information war.

So, there was a major attack here just yesterday on this T.V. tower here in Kyiv. It is about three miles from the city center, a number of rockets hitting around this area, including at least one missile that hit there. You can see right there in the middle is where that impact was. There was a blackened area, as well as windows that have been absolutely blown out, but rockets landing all over here.

I'm going to ask my cameraman, Alessandro, to point down the street. That is where we have seen some of the worst damage. There is a large street pole that has been absolutely shredded. And this is, very sadly, where a number of people died. Five people died, according to Ukraine's interior ministry. Some of that blood is still on the streets.

Now, John, last hour, we showed you that gym that was destroyed. This is just down the block. This is an auto parts store. Every single window blown in. You can see the owners and staff still cleaning up. We just spoke with Katarina (ph), who is up there on the second floor. We asked her, well, what's the name of your shop? And she said you mean what was the name of my shop? They are throwing glass, debris and insulation out of the window, doing a really good job, I might say, of cleaning up.

John, in terms of context of where we are, this is an area -- sorry, Alessandro, about to go off the step -- that is known as Babyn Yar, which has a lot of symbolism. It is where one of the worst massacres happened of Jews in 1941 during World War II. Over two days -- in 1941 rather. Over two days, more than 30,000 people were killed. There is a memorial just up the hill. That has not been damaged.

But it is incredible to see this attack by Vladimir Putin on this area. When he says he is trying to de-Nazify the country, when he is clearly trying to remove a Jewish president and that attack happening here in one of the most symbolic places for Jews in terms of Holocaust remembrance, this attack was called appalling by the U.S. secretary of state. And President Zelensky says this is evidence of history repeating itself. How can we is say never again if we allow another war like this to happen. John?

BERMAN: Alex, we're going to speak to one of the leading rabbis in Ukraine about this attack in a short bit.

You noted that there is still blood on the streets there. And I hear people going through that auto parts building behind you. But what has been happening in Kyiv to these sites when they're attacked? Can people get back in them to clean up at this point?

MARQUARDT: What they'll do essentially is when the sirens go off, many people will go down into the shelters. They will take cover. And then when the attacks pass, they will come out and do what they can to rebuild, to clean up and to try and survive in this moment. We just saw a unit of territorial defense. Those are the civilians who are being armed and joining militias. They are out here. They're defending this T.V. tower here.

One of them is a hot air balloon pilot. He just joined the territorial defenses just a couple days ago when this war started. He said that he sent his wife and child to Poland. He stayed here to fight. He felt that this was his role to defend his country, to defend his city. John, everyone here doing what they can to survive, to defend their country, many, very understandably, want to leave. We have seen hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians crossing the border into neighboring countries. We have seen thousands of everyday Ukrainians taking up arms to fight the Russians, as you showed in that video at the top of the show, going up to Russian vehicles in the streets with no weapons just to push them back.

[07:05:00]

The spirit of the Ukrainians that we're seeing on display is just something that is utterly remarkable. John?

BERMAN: Even as civilians are clearly being hit, auto parts office, a gym, where we saw ellipticals and tread mills, clearly not military targets. Alex Marquardt on the streets in Kyiv, please stay safe, thank you so much for that. Alex up here in Kyiv. So much focus this morning down here in the south, Black Sea Coast, where the Russians do appear to be making advances. The Russians are claiming they have control of this city of Kherson. The Ukrainians do deny that.

Let's get a report from the region. Our Nick Paton Walsh has been in Kherson. Now, he's in Odessa, not far, another Black Sea port. Give us a sense, Nick, of what you're seeing and hearing.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes. Look, I think, really, the situation of Kherson is symbolic, is endemic of what we are going to see over the next weeks or so. Russian forces clearly have moved in. I spoke to residents who them coming in yesterday.

They are looting supermarkets. I'm sure that is essentially a reflection of their supply chains. Maybe they're running out of food. There's video of them marching away local males. And I've just seen another video too which shows a local man waving two Ukrainian flags in the middle of its central square in the face of Russian armory.

So, they're in the city, no doubt about that at all. And that answers a question we had when we were there watching the intense battles for the strategic bridge to Kherson's east. Certainly, the Russians needed that to get their forces up from Crimea. And they took it and it appears to be still intact. The question we had was did they have designs on the population center itself, a relatively sleepy city, to be honest. Nothing you might think in there that they urgently needed to gain control of.

But, nonetheless, they certainly moved in. There have been clashes. There have been talks of buildings have been set to be on fire, according to residents I spoke to, and a real sense of, frankly, horror amongst residents about what may be ahead because these Russian new occupiers are not there with the civilian infrastructure behind them.

And we have seen shells slam in to residential buildings in that area as well. This forms part, John, of a pattern of Russian progress along the south. They have been held pack, western figures say, by fierce resistance in the north. But it's in the south while we have seen Ukrainian forces pushed them back, get pushed back themselves, that they have been able to move forward more.

Another key town on their route towards me here in the third largest of Odessa is Mykolaiv. Now, we saw the violence there over the weekend ourselves, the heavy shelling, there is more, it seems, underway at the moment. That town deeply concerned about what may come next, as is Odessa itself.

I just met the mayor here. There are concerned at any moment possibly of an amphibious landing. There are pictures circulating, unverified, part of the horror here, frankly, that people feel and they don't really know what's going on, that there may be Russian ships on the horizon here, this vital for control of Ukraine's economy and deeply on edge. John? BERMAN: Nick Paton Walsh for us on the Black Sea Coast, in Odessa, thanks so much, Nick.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's revisit all of this with Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He is our CNN Military Analyst. He's a retired Army commanding general of Europe and the 7th Army.

General, let's zero in on the south, what Russia has achieved overnight and what they have not.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Brianna. What I'd like to do, Nick's presentation was excellent. He's talking about what's going on. There's confusion down there. I'm going to take a look at this from a battlefield geometry standpoint, because these maps don't tell the whole story. It is 400 miles between Mariupol and Oedessa. These are large cities, Odessa, third largest city in Ukraine, a million people, Mariupol, about 500,000, Kherson, about 300,000, Mykolaiv, about 400,000. These are big towns.

So, when you see this red and Russians saying they control cities, they don't. The 190,000 forces that Russia said they had surrounding the border, you put them all in this area and they couldn't control this spot. So, the red is Crimea. They had forces there before. But as they expand outward, it's going to get tougher and tougher.

The hardest military operation to do is an opposed landing on a beachhead, for two reasons. First of all, there's the initial assault on the beach. I won't go into the arrows and the circles of the tactical plays. But once you establish that beachhead, you have to start expanding it outward in order to get supplies in and reinforce the troops.

Nick's reporting that they are stealing food from stores tells me they don't have the food supply. If they don't have the food supply, they probably also don't have ammo and fuel. So, as this gets bigger and bigger and the red seems to emanate outward, it's going to be much tougher for the Russians to control this area.

If they say they are controlling Kherson, I would suggest they ain't controlling jack.

[07:10:04]

They've got a big fight in front of them and there's a lot of Ukrainians, if they can sustain their guerrilla operations that will fight them in this area.

KEILAR: So, look, we have been looking more broadly at Ukraine. There has been this increase in heavy weapons and targeting of civilians or certainly being indiscriminate in how those weapons are used, and they are killing civilians.

Can you just take a look at what Russia is being cost here? I mean, there are certain principles. There is a sort of formula when you're a nation going to war of things you're trying to achieve. And I found it very interesting talking to you that actually they really haven't achieved these principles.

HERTLING: Yes. You look at the strategic objectives of Russia coming into this. Mr. Putin had some end states. He wanted to subjugate Ukraine, he wanted to further divide NATO, he wanted to take advantage of what he saw as divisiveness in the United States, and he wanted to establish an economic strength by blackmailing with oil.

He has failed, in my view, in all four of those areas and he has become a pariah on the world scene and it's getting much, much worse. You've seen a divided NATO turned into a very united one even, where non-NATO states, like Sweden, are saying we are going to support this operation and the rest of NATO has come together. Germany is now saying they are going to pay their 2 percent of the NATO requirement to be a member. So, all of those things are turning around.

You saw the president's speech last night where both Republicans and Democrats were standing up in support. You see the desire to support Mr. Zelensky in his fight and the Ukrainian people are coming together. When you see a bunch of other nations waving the Ukrainian flag, you know that Russia has lost and Putin is getting worst.

These are the principles of warfare. What I would suggest -- and I asked them to make this slide for me. What I would suggest is they have failed here, Russia, they have failed here, they have failed here, they have a terrible maneuver, they don't have command because it's separated between about six different axis. The Russian forces will increasingly lose security. They have lost surprise based on us telling the world what they are going to do next. And their plan certainly wasn't simple. So, Russia's military is violating almost all the principles of war that soldiers like me study.

KEILAR: Yes. War for war's sake should not be an objective here if you're just thinking rationally as Vladimir Putin, but that doesn't mean that he can't inflict serious pain and serious suffering and a serious cost for Ukrainians.

HERTLING: Right.

KEILAR: General, thank you so much for taking us through that.

So, we are getting some word that Ukraine is now asking for immediate help to safeguard nuclear sites, in fact, a number of them. We have seen this video. Maybe you have seen it. Well, now, we are getting an understanding of exactly what we are looking at. These are nuclear power plant employees working to block Russians.

President Biden says that vladimir putin, that he has no idea what is coming. We're going to be speaking to the White House, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: All right. Welcome back. This is video we are just seeing for the first time. This is from today. This is outside a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. What's happening here is the plant workers, you can see, filling the streets, blocking the streets in order to halt a Russian military advance. You can see them here lining up, just putting themselves between Russian military vehicles and this nuclear power plant.

This is just one example of the people of Ukraine standing up to the advance of Russian military forces here, just an amazing image there.

Obviously, there are a number of nuclear power plants around Ukraine. Everyone knows Chernobyl down here. Ukraine and the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is asking for help to defend these nuclear sites from the Russian advance.

Other major stories to tell you about today, obviously, we have seen the attack on this television tower in Kyiv yesterday, this air assault on that tower. Near this neighborhood where the tower was hit is Babyn Yar. That is the site of one of the worst massacres of the Holocaust, the murder of some 30,000 Jews in just one day in 1941, ultimately, some hundred thousand people were killed there overall. So, this attack also hit near that site.

Joining me now is Rabbi Yaakov Bleich. He is chief rabbi of Ukraine and serves on the Supervisory Board of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. Rabbi, thank you so much for being with us.

To see the images of things burning near the site of Babyn Yar was so much history, such a wound there. I wonder what that is like for you.

RABBI YAAKOV BLEICH, CHIEF RABBI OF UKRAINE: So, first of all, let me correct you. The television tower as well as the television building are built on the territory of the old Jewish cemetery of Kyiv, where the Jews were taken as they were being killed in Babyn Yar, before they were killed. That's where they were gathered. So, the attack was basically -- it's like a hit right into Babyn Yar, the territory of what we call Babyn Yar.

And what it tells me is it's frightening as ever because, for us, we understand that there is nothing more valuable than life. And we will do anything to save another life. And he who saves one life is as if he saves an entire world.

And when we saw the attacks as they began to develop from military fight against the Ukrainian Army into a fight against the people of Ukraine, to civilians, to kindergartens, to children's homes, to buses, to just plain civilians on the street, that we thought that was the worst thing that can happen.

[07:20:11]

Then suddenly a site where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered once in 1941, then their memory again murdered again by the Soviet regime, not giving them a chance for any memory from 1945 until 1991, and in 1991, when Ukraine became independent, we started to build a memorial to these people. For 30 years, we're trying to give them what they should have had, which is the proper memory. And then this fellow, who says he's coming to fight the neo-fascists in Ukraine, comes and bombs that place, which is the memorial to the Jews who were killed by the fascists. This is one of the most symbolic and terrible feelings that I've had from the beginning of this week of harrowing and frightening experiences and watching Ukraine a maniac coming to destroy the place.

One of the most frightening and harrowing things is this, because it reawakens the images of the Holocaust. I think it is symbolic, honestly, that all of the never-again talk has to become never-again action. That's what I think of this.

BERMAN: As I think you said they keep killing the victims --

BLEICH: In the words of a Holocaust survivor, I'll tell you last night, a woman in Kyiv, who said God made me live through two wars. Why did I have to go through that and now this again? She said that bomb should wake up those people, those victims of Babyn Yar that let them come out and fight against the Russians to get them out of this country.

BERMAN: It's amazing. It's searing to hear those words. And as you said, they keep killing the victims of Babyn Yar, to see the bombs falling --

BLEICH: Yes, that's what I asked. I said how many times can you kill the same people?

BERMAN: You hear the lies from Vladimir Putin, the idea he wants to de-Nazify Ukraine, he claims. What do you feel when you hear those words?

BLEICH: You know what I feel, and I'll tell you the truth, it reminds me of World War II. It reminds me of a dictator who is saying, I want to save my people and, therefore, I'll kill them. It reminds me of a person who says, I want to save my people and, therefore, I'll kill others whom I think maybe want to do something bad to my people.

I lived in Ukraine for 32 years. Believe you me, the Ukrainians, the Jewish community in Ukraine has blossomed in the last 30 years since the independence. We have Jewish schools. We have synagogues. The government is there for us. We're there for them. We're part of the society.

The de-Nazification should be taking place in Russia, not in Ukraine. And the Nazi that should be de-Nazified, his name is Vladimir Putin. And as far as I'm concerned, what he has been last week, the first day, okay, they were attacking military objects. Okay. From Friday, it went from a war against the Ukrainian Army to against the people.

I'm not going to can call it a genocide because he is just killing everybody indiscriminately and he doesn't care about what their genetics are and where they're coming from. He is killing those people that he said he wants to protect. He is bombing Kharkiv, which has many Russian-speaking people. Wasn't he coming to save the Russian- speaking people? He is bombing cities that have people who want to make the choice themselves and not have him help to make their choices. All of that stuff he said about the democracy, the people of choice, de-Nazification, it's all the same propaganda. And as a good friend of mine said, how do you know when Vladimir Putin is lying? When his lips on moving.

BERMAN: Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, I appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you so much for your words. Never again.

BLEICH: I want one last thing to say. I want one last thing to say. And that is enough with words. And I want to call out from here to the entire world, let's get up and do something. We can still stop him. We couldn't stop Hitler in World War II. Well, maybe we could have but we didn't. But now we could stop him. The world can stop him. NATO can stop him. The United States can stop him. And we can save millions of lives just by destroying his echelon, 37-mile long tanks and armored vehicles where he is going to destroy the capital of Ukraine and the people that live there. It's time for the world to do something.

BERMAN: Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, I appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much.

BLEICH: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: So, President Biden spent the first 12 minutes of his first state of the union address talking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Putin's latest attack on Ukraine was premeditated and totally unprovoked. He rejected repeated, repeated efforts at diplomacy.

[07:25:03]

He thought the west and NATO wouldn't respond. He thought he could divide us at home, in this chamber, in this nation. He thought he could divide us in Europe as well. But Putin was wrong. We are ready. We are united and that's what we did. We stayed united.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining me now, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Jen, thank you for being with us.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning.

BERMAN: The president also said of Putin, he has no idea what's coming. What did that mean?

PSAKI: Well, I think you have seen, John, and the world has seen over the last couple of days the work that the president has been working on for months that he talked about last night, to build a coalition that has already been holding President Putin accountable. We have taken steps, sanction steps to crush the financial system, the Russian economy, to hold President Putin accountable, the oligarchs around him. We're going to go after their yachts. We're going to go after their assets. And that is having an enormous impact.

I mean, the ruble has plummeted. They have kept the stock market closed because it has been so devastating. And we are seeing the impacts already.

In addition to that, the president also approved a massive package of military and security assistance over the weekend, and a number of European countries that have never taken that step before in modern history followed suit.

There is more to come. As you've seen, we have been making announcements basically every day to continue to squeeze Putin, to continue keep unified with the west and hold him accountable.

BERMAN: I think that's what I'm asking, more to come. What more could there be? Will you target the fuel exports, the life blood of the Russian economy?

PSAKI: Well, John, this is how we look at this. This is how the president looks at this. He wants to maximize the impact on President Putin and the team around President Putin, his oligarchs, his buddies, his cronies who have been benefiting so much from the corruption in Russia and squeeze the Russian economy. And we are seeing a huge and devastating impact on the Russian economy.

What he does not want to do is topple the global oil markets, or the global marketplace or impact the American people more with higher energy and gas prices. And, obviously, the announcement that was made yesterday, to tap the strategic petroleum reserve here and do it in a united way and a coordinated way with the global community as an effort to address that and mitigate the impact, but that's something we heavily weigh.

It is still on the table. It's not off the table. But, again, that's how the president looks at this as we're announcing and pursuing additional steps.

BERMAN: I'm still a little bit stirred. I don't know if you have heard it, but I was speaking to the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, moments ago, and he got emotional at the end there. And he said he wants more than words, he wants actions. And he specifically referred to this 40-mile convoy of troops and supplies moving toward Kyiv. He wants to see action to stop that. What do you say to Rabbi Bleich?

PSAKI: Well, first, I was listening, and what an incredibly moving account and a moving person and human being and leader at a very difficult time in the country right now. Look, what I would say and what the president would say is we are going to continue to expedite the delivery of military assistance. We are going to continue to have the backs of the leaders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. We are standing with NATO. We are standing to provide as much support as we can.

What we are not going to do and what the president is not going to do and what he has promised the American people he will not do is send U.S. troops to fight in Ukraine and start a war between the United States and Russia. That would not be in our interest. That's not in global interest.

But we are going to continue to do everything we can short of that, security assistance, humanitarian assistance, economic assistance. And we are going to continue to rally the world on their behalf, as we have been doing over the course of the past couple of months.

BERMAN: Is there coordination with the Ukrainian military even to the targeting level?

PSAKI: You mean in terms of intelligence sharing?

BERMAN: Yes.

PSAKI: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Will the U.S. Defense Department, U.S. military leadership help perhaps device plans for something to stop that convoy, for instance, or for the protection of sites in Ukraine?

PSAKI: Well, I certainly understand the question. I'm just not going to get into intelligence-sharing specifics or conversations between military leaders. But we are in regular constant touch with Ukrainian leaders at a range of levels, and we continue to provide them a range of support, including, as I mentioned, John, a huge package of military and security assistance to help them step up defenses in this moment.

BERMAN: President Zelensky said just a few minutes ago that he believes 6,000 Russian troops have been killed. Is that a number that the United States has visibility on?

PSAKI: We just don't have confirmation of those details from here at this point. I know the Defense Department has been trying to provide regular updates on what we are seeing, but we don't have confirmation of casualties on either side at this point.

[07:30:03]

BERMAN: Is it frustrating, Jen, for the president or for people working in the White House?