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Russian Forces Attack And Take Over Key Nuclear Plant In Ukraine; Russia Shuts Down Independent Media As Putin Clamps Down; Ukraine's Former First Lady Joins New Day Amid Russian Invasion. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 04, 2022 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:28]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news this morning, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant now essentially under Russian control. The company that runs the plant says that station managers are working under invaders' gunpoint this morning. This comes after the Russian attack overnight. A building was set on fire.

Now, we are told this morning there is no elevated level of radiation this morning and no damage to any of the reactors of any serious kind, though the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, although they're no longer in Kyiv, put out a statement just a few minutes ago that said an attack on a nuclear power plant is a war crime.

Joining us now is Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and a former policy director at Ploughshares Fund. It's a global security foundation focused on nuclear nonproliferation and conflict resolution.

So people know where it is, this is the Zaporizhzhia plant we're looking at Joel, now essentially under Russian control, we are told. As you were seeing this fire blaze at this plant overnight, what were your concerns?

JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, FORMER POLICY DIRECTOR, PLOUGHSHARES FUND: John, first and foremost, sheer terror. This is nuclear blackmail. What Vladimir Putin is doing is terrorizing the Ukrainian people who already were traumatized by Chernobyl and scaring them into what he hopes is submission. But he's also sending a signal to the rest of us that nuclear facilities are no longer off the table.

And that's what's most shocking about this moment is that there are international rules. There are clear codes of conduct to not attack nuclear facilities that serve civilians, or any nuclear facilities for that matter. Russia has even signed for these and crossed out that ledge -- that line and pushed the world over the edge now.

It makes us all less safe. It makes Europe less safe. France -- 90 percent of their power comes from nuclear facilities. Russia has dozens of nuclear facilities. So this is a highly dangerous moment that not only can terrorize the Ukrainians but also does strike fear into the Western world that is trying to stop Vladimir Putin's bloody invasion.

BERMAN: Now, again, luckily this morning, we're told no elevated levels of radiation, no serious damage to the reactors. But when you see firing even near a facility like that -- there were outlying buildings that were damaged and on fire -- what are the risks? What can go wrong at a nuclear facility like that?

RUBIN: So, the best parallel is, fortunately, a fictitious one -- the China syndrome. There's Fukushima as well.

And I have to say kudos to the Biden administration for having a calm hand on the tiller here. In my engagement with the administration about this, they're very calm. They're monitoring it, using the experts, following the science, and understanding what was happening.

So they saw this plant was not melting down. But a meltdown could potentially trigger an explosion and an explosion would be of nuclear radioactive material, and that could spread hundreds of kilometers, and that could be extraordinarily destabilizing. And also remember, the winds blow from west to east, so it's not as if Russia would be immune from this and it could be a humanitarian catastrophe.

BERMAN: And again, the reactor itself was not damaged. But I do also understand that something as simple --

RUBIN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- as the power that feeds into the plant -- the water that feeds into the plant -- if any of that is damaged it could put people at very high risk.

[07:35:00]

RUBIN: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that as well because that's the cooling mechanism for the spent fuel rods. And if the cooling isn't cooling -- think of your car. If you don't have enough coolant in it, your engine stalls, melts down, sets on fire. That's the exact same dynamic that would happen with this power plant. And a nuclear power plant burning up and melting down -- we all know how extraordinarily dangerous that could be.

And shooting -- I have to say shooting directly -- using tanks to shoot at a nuclear power plant is such an overt war crime. It's so obvious an aggression. There's no -- there's no rationale for it except to terrorize and punish the people of Ukraine, and that's what's most despicable about this.

BERMAN: All right, Joel Rubin. I appreciate you joining us this morning helping us understand what we all saw --

RUBIN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: -- with our own eyes and the very real fear of seeing something like that.

There is harrowing new video this morning of Ukrainian citizens under fire. More on the Russian attacks intensifying.

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[07:40:20]

BERMAN: We are getting new disturbing looks at the aftermath of the devastating Russian bombing attack in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. Dozens killed as Russian forces destroyed residential areas, including schools, with no signs of the Russians backing down.

CNN reporters covering all the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Scott McLean in Lviv.

Some of the most horrifying images from this war have come from Chernihiv, a city 90 miles north of Kyiv where yesterday, an airstrike hit an apartment complex. The video from the aftermath shows the horrifying scene filled with smoke, the sound of sirens, and a woman's screams. Dozens of people were killed, many were injured.

The Russians insist that they are only going after military targets but the local government says there are none nearby -- only apartment buildings, schools, and a children's hospital just 1,000 feet from the blast.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ivan Watson on the Hungarian border with Ukraine. Every day I watch a stream of Ukrainian women and children coming across the border by train, by car, and on foot, pulling meager possessions in rolling suitcases, forced to leave their homes by Russia's invasion of their country.

More than 100,000 people have crossed into Hungary in just one week; more than a million from neighboring countries combined. And the United Nations estimates that number could reach four million refugees by July.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I'm Natasha Bertrand at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is here today meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, as well as NATO foreign ministers, to discuss increasing humanitarian assistance aid to Ukraine, as well as lethal assistance amid the Russian war there. They are also discussing shoring up that troop presence on NATO's eastern flank -- increasing the presence there to shore up those eastern flank allies who feel threatened by Russia's aggression.

Blinken said this morning in remarks that while NATO does not want a conflict with Russia they are prepared to defend themselves if a conflict does come to their doorstep. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The media is among Russia's targets in this war. Many independent media outlets continuing to face threats of censorship or risking closure and having to shut altogether. That includes Voice of America, which is officially off the air in Moscow.

And joining us now is Myroslava Gongadze. She is the eastern Europe chief of Voice of America.

Unfortunately, VOA is not alone. This is happening to Western and independent news organizations. Tell us what's going on.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE, EASTERN EUROPE CHIEF, VOICE OF AMERICA: Absolutely. Basically, all the independent media in Russia, as of yesterday, was shut down -- Dozhd, BBC, foreign media. Everybody is off the air, unfortunately.

The Russian government is trying to basically block all the possible free information to flow to Russian people. And unfortunately, yes, some of them are seeking information through -- trying to avoid to go to straight to website and find a way to get information. But however, the general public don't understand what's really going on in Ukraine.

And I have to say that the latest public opinion polls done by Russian opposition showed that 58 percent of Russians supporting so-called special operation in Russia. So --

KEILAR: Yes. They can't call it in the media there an invasion. They're calling it what the government calls it, which is a special operation.

So, this just happened. The upper house of the Russian parliament passed a law that criminalizes spreading of what's called false information. So, let's be clear. This is just information that Putin doesn't like -- that Moscow doesn't like --

GONGADZE: Absolutely.

KEILAR: -- that discredits the Russian military. And he calls for sanctions against Russia. And now, the legislation goes to Putin and he is going to sign it.

We're talking about years in prison if someone actually just reports the truth.

GONGADZE: Up to 15. Up to 15 years in prison.

So, yes -- I mean, I talked to -- yesterday, I talked to one of my colleagues in Novaya Gazeta in Moscow. And he said that they think that they would be shut down as well by the end of the week. And I urged him to leave the country because I really -- I'm afraid of their safety and security at this point.

So, basically, nobody will be able to report in Russia the truth about the war in Ukraine. [07:45:00]

KEILAR: What do you worry about going forward in Ukraine because we've actually seen and we've been relying on the reports of a lot of independent media there?

Look, you -- and I know a lot of our viewers are not going to know this but you know the cost personally of this. Your husband was killed. He had -- back in -- almost 20 years ago as he was reporting about corruption in a Russian-leaning Ukrainian government. A lot of progress since then and a lot of great news outlets.

What are you worried will happen to those independent news sources?

GONGADZE: I mean, so far, Ukrainian media are free. The issue is that they are working under the gun right now. And, I mean, there are a lot of Ukrainian journalists who decided to stay in Ukraine and actually try to report the story on the ground. And actually, we at Voice of America are using those journalists, trying to give them jobs and trying to use those sources to cover the story and tell the -- tell the world about it -- about what's going on in Ukraine.

You have to understand the Voice of America has 47 languages. We are reporting this news to -- around the world. And we have over 300 million viewers per week. The story is very -- I mean, the people in Latin America, in Africa want to hear the story and want to know the story in their own language, not just in English. So, it's very, very important for us to have those -- that information from on the ground to tell the -- to tell the world what's going on.

Ukrainian media -- I mean, strike -- actually, what's interesting that right now they have a national model (ph). Ukrainian media just organized themselves and they spread one of the T.V. channels two hours -- each big T.V. channels. I mean, there's a lot of big news in -- big news channels in Ukraine and they are communicating and working together to tell that story to Ukrainian people.

So, it's just an incredible way of how people organize themselves. How they try to defend their country, basically, and tell the world what is going on.

KEILAR: It's really amazing, and we're very sorry. Myroslava Gongadze, thank you so much for being with us.

GONGADZE: Thank you.

KEILAR: We appreciate it.

BERMAN: All right.

This morning, workers at Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant -- the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which we saw on fire overnight -- they're working at gunpoint after a Russian takeover. We are joined by a chief Pentagon official.

Our breaking news coverage continues next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:51:40]

BERMAN: All right. This morning, we're getting a look at this video released from the Ukrainian foreign minister. This was a residential apartment building. Just look at that, still smoldering there, turned into rubble. This is in Borodyanka, which is near Kyiv.

The foreign minister says Russians bomb the town for days, killing many civilians. It's hard to understand how anyone who had been in that building survived if they were in it at the time of the attack.

Just another example of how civilians are suffering at the hands of the Russians. There is other video we've seen today of an attack on a Russian school -- sorry, a Ukrainian school. But President Volodymyr Zelensky says this school was hit. You can see the damage caused there. Civilians, as I said, Brianna, clearly suffering.

KEILAR: Yes, suffering. Unbelievable pictures, John.

So, Ukraine's president is leading this embattled nation in the fight against Russian invaders.

The name of a past Ukrainian leader has resurfaced. In 2004, Viktor Yushchenko took on a presidential candidate favored by Russia and he ended up being poisoned by a dioxin only -- it was traced to Russia -- only found in Russia -- and it left him disfigured. Yushchenko was convinced that this was a reprisal against an opposition politician. He also survived an assassination attempt during his presidency.

And his wife, Ukraine's former first lady, Kateryna Yushchenko, is joining us now. Thank you so much for being with us.

I'm so sorry for what you're witnessing in Ukraine. And I wonder if you can react to this latest development, which is this attack on a nuclear plant?

KATERYNA YUSHCHENKO, FORMER FIRST LADY OF UKRAINE (via Skype): Yes. You know, what's happening now in Ukraine is a genocide of our people.

The Russian army is aiming missiles at our schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, ambulances, orphanages. They're shooting at buses. They're shooting at people in the streets. And millions of people, including friends and family, are, right now, hiding in basements and in subways.

And when they tried to -- when they captured that nuclear facility yesterday, they -- the rumors are that they also used Chechen terrorists to put in mines, and that they will now threaten to blow up this nuclear facility if Ukrainians do not capitulate. And they want the Europeans to force us to capitulate because everyone will be fearing the radiation from those.

You know, there's also an Orwellian scenario taking place right now in the city of Kherson, which was captured yesterday. They're busing in dozens -- hundreds of people from Crimea who will stand in the streets and cheer the Russian occupation -- that they will the liberation -- and will call for their own independent republics and then unification with Russia. And it's a complete fake scenario.

At the same time, we're seeing people being shipped out of Kharkiv to Russia with the expectation that Russians will replace them. And this is a tactic that the Soviet Union has used for very many decades, and I would say even Russia used for centuries.

[07:55:00]

KEILAR: You hear Vladimir --

YUSHCHENKO: We also hear that they're --

KEILAR: I want to ask you, you hear Vladimir Putin saying that this is going according to plan. What does that say to you?

YUSHCHENKO: Well, you know, I don't think it's going according to plan because I think he planned to take Ukraine in a day or two and he was met with tremendous resistance from the people of Ukraine. I think he has been so long in his bunker that he did not understand what had happened in Ukraine in these years. I also don't think he ever expected the reaction that he got from the West.

And so, I don't think it's going according to plan. I think he's failing. I think we will win. But this has angered him and so he has decided if he can't take us he will destroy us.

And, you know, they are planning atrocities. They are planning executions of people that they capture. These will people -- be people not only political, but people who are important in Ukrainian culture, education, and in our church.

You know, his goal is to destroy the free and democratic world that we've built since World War II. The rule of law that has given us peace and prosperity this time. And there's never been such a clear battle between good and evil, I would say, since Hitler in World War II.

KEILAR: Are you worried that your family is a target?

YUSHCHENKO: We were told very early on that our family is on the list, of course. When we had the Orange Revolution, that infuriated Putin. He -- the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution, then the Revolution of Dignity.

When people came to the streets it was his nightmare because he could then imagine what would happen if the Russian people came to the streets to remove him. And that, he has never forgiven the Ukrainian people for wanting freedom and for being willing to come to the streets. He's never forgiven us for our free media, for our fair elections.

KEILAR: We are seeing some -- I mean, they are just God-awful pictures that are coming into us from Ukraine in civilian areas. Clearly, civilians being taken out here. This smoldering rubble of an apartment complex here.

What do you need from the West with the knowledge, of course, that there are things, for instance, the U.S. doesn't want to do because it doesn't want to get involved in a direct military conflict with Russia?

YUSHCHENKO: You know, we are very distressed that the world is not doing enough. Ukrainians are thankful -- very thankful for the weapons we've received but we need more now.

We do need the no-fly zone. We need air and missile defense. We need anti-tank weapons. We need ammunitions. We need body armor. We need secure communications equipment.

Also, we -- while we're grateful for the sanctions that have been put into place, they are not enough. They have limits. They have loopholes. They may work in the long-term but we need sanctions that will shock the elites around Putin now and force them to force him to stop the war.

We understand that world leaders, including in the U.S., fear higher prices on oil. They're being lobbied very hard by oil companies, by banks, by investment banks. We understand that sanctions can bite, but they are necessary to prevent a genocide and to stop the war in Ukraine from becoming a world war.

And so, we're calling on our friends and our allies to stop trading with Russia. The U.S., U.K., and E.U. trade with Russia puts $700 million in Russia's pockets every day that they are using to finance their war against us. We need to stop that trade. We need to stop Nord Stream 1. We need to sanction all the Russian elites and their families, not just a select few.

We need to expand SWIFT to all banks, not to a select few. We need U.S. banks, like Citibank -- investment banks like JPMorgan, Rothchild, Goldman Sachs to leave Russia. We need the big four accounting companies to leave Russia.

We need defense companies like Grumman, General Dynamics to leave Russia. We need chemical companies like DuPont and Dow to leave Russia.

KEILAR: And look, we've --

YUSHCHENKO: We need tech companies --

KEILAR: And look --

YUSHCHENKO: -- not just to stop selling.

KEILAR: Yes. And I will say --

YUSHCHENKO: Please.

KEILAR: Look, we've covered a lot of the companies that have decided to leave Russia, but you do draw a very interesting distinction there of the ones that have not.

I want to thank you so much. I'm so sorry for what is happening in Ukraine. Former first lady Kateryna Yushchenko, thank you for joining us.

YUSHCHENKO: Thank you. Thank you very much.

KEILAR: And CNN's breaking news coverage continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right, good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, March fourth. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

And the breaking news this morning, Russian forces attacking a civilian nuclear power plant in Ukraine. This is really the first time this has happened before, ever in history.