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Russian Forces Attack Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine; Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby Interviewed on Possible U.S. Measures to Provide Aid to Ukrainian People During Russia Invasion; Citizens in Odessa, Ukraine, Preparing City Defenses against Possible Russian Amphibious Invasion. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 04, 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]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Forces attacking a civilian nuclear power plant in Ukraine. This is really the first time this has happened before ever in history. Russian troops are now occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, the largest in Europe. After shelling set parts of it on fire overnight, the plant's operator says managers are now running it at gunpoint. Ukraine's president calls the attack terror at an unprecedented level. The U.S. embassy in Ukraine wrote, "It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant."

The fire was extinguished after the Russians stopped the shelling. The flames, they started in a training building just outside the main reactor. We are told that the radiation levels at the plant appear to be normal this morning. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says the situation is very fragile, but there has not been a release of radioactive material and the integrity of the reactors has not been compromised. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warns the worst may still be to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): There are 15 nuclear reactors in Ukraine. If one of them blows, that's the end for everyone. That's the end of Europe. All of Europe will have to evacuate. Immediate action must be taken to stop the Russian army. Don't allow the death of Europe. Stop this potential atomic catastrophe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden spoke to Zelenskyy about the nuclear threat overnight. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm confirming that the U.S. has activated its nuclear incident response team. In the meantime, just heartbreaking images showing the aftermath of a Russian strike on an apartment complex in Chernihiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That is a woman screaming "kids, little kids." Ukrainian officials telling us at least 33 people were killed, 18 others injured. And in Kharkiv, watch as a Ukrainian civilian speaking into his phone was interrupted by an explosion and heavy shelling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(EXPLOSION)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Earlier this morning, Secretary of State Tony Blinken arrived in Belgium for talks with NATO allies. The goal here, to find new ways to deter Vladimir Putin.

And joining us now is John Kirby. He is the Pentagon press secretary. Sir, thank you so much for being with us this morning. And here we are watching this development. Putin has attacked a nuclear power plant. No damage to the reactors, as we understand it. Are you sure there is no damage to the cooling system at the plant?

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We're in touch with the Department of Energy, as you might expect. Their assessment is that there hasn't been any radioactive leakage and that the levels are where they need to be. I can't speak to cooling exactly. But again, we're in touch with DOE on this, and right now it appears as if things are stable.

But this just underscores how reckless the Russian invasion has been and how indiscriminate their targeting seems to be. It just raises the level of potential catastrophe to a level that, again, nobody wants to see.

KEILAR: Yes, and I ask because it would be some time before you might see elevated levels if the issue is the cooling system. So certainly this is a question we want to get to the bottom of. But you have --

KIRBY: And we're going to be monitoring it as closely as we can with the department of energy, Brie. We're monitoring it throughout the day.

KEILAR: OK, and so the U.S. embassy in Ukraine says, quote, "it is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant." What do you say to that?

KIRBY: It is not the behavior of a responsible nuclear power. Just the other day --

KEILAR: Is it a war crime?

KIRBY: I'm going to leave that -- the ICC is investigating war crimes, and I think it's better if we here at the Pentagon let them do their investigation and work. It is certainly not the behavior of a responsible nuclear power.

Just the other day, Brie, we in the Department of Defense, Secretary Austin, delayed an ICBM test launch, just a test launch, one that had been scheduled for a couple of years, because of the tensions right now, the escalatory tensions caused by Mr. Putin talking about putting nuclear forces on heightened alert. That's what a responsible nuclear power does. A responsible nuclear power does not attack a nuclear power plant.

KEILAR: If a Russian attack on a nuclear power plant, because there are others, spreads radiation to a NATO country, will that be considered an Article Five violation?

KIRBY: Yes, look, again, that's a question for the alliance to make specifically. I would just remind that Article Five makes it clear that it's an armed attack on a NATO ally, triggers Article Five, an armed attack. But how that's interpreted, that would really be something for the NATO alliance to determine.

[08:05:00]

What I will say, Brie, and the president has made this very clear, we will defend if needed every inch of NATO territory. That is why we have flown additional forces into the NATO's eastern flank both in the north and the south. That's why we've repositioned forces inside Europe from Germany to go to elsewhere, up in the Baltics and down towards the Black Sea region. We're going to continue to look for ways to make sure we can meet our commitments to Article Five under NATO.

KEILAR: I don't know if you just heard the former first lady of Ukraine, but she was the second Ukrainian person that we've had on the show who raised the possibility of something that I think they're worried about, which is that Russia could actually use a power plant as a threat, that they could use that actually to motivate NATO countries in Europe, that they could use that if they were going to actually threaten for there to be some leak to get Ukrainians to capitulate. Do you worry about that?

KIRBY: We worry about potential escalation of this conflict beyond what it already is, Brie. I can't get inside Putin's mind to figure out what his next step is going to be. He clearly wants to control Ukraine from a military perspective. That's what he's going after, major population centers and trying to move on Kyiv. What he may be thinking about in addition to that, we can't know.

But what we don't want to see is an escalation of this conflict, certainly not in the nuclear realm, whether it's nuclear power plants being attacked or nuclear weapons being used. There is no reason for that.

He still has options available to him, yes, militarily, but also diplomatically. And that's what we want to see. We want to see Mr. Putin be serious about trying to de-escalate and find a way to end this conflict.

KEILAR: Since the beginning of the conflict, and I do want to be clear, I believe this is before you had Putin and his foreign minister raising these nuclear threats that they're kind of bandying about, the U.S. increased E-6 mercury flights. These are airplanes that can take over nuclear command if there is no longer a capability to do that from the ground in the U.S. Why? Why was that done? What is the concern?

KIRBY: Yes, Brie, I'm not going to talk about our nuclear postures with any specifics or details. What I would tell you is the same thing that Secretary Austin said. We're comfortable with our strategic deterrent posture now. We review it every day. We look at the situation every single day. And every single day if we need to, we make appropriate adjustments. But the secretary has been very clear, he's comfortable and confident that we've got the strategic deterrent posture in place to defend our homeland and defend our allies and partners. And that's really about as far as we're going to go on that.

KEILAR: Should Americans be worried, though? This is the kind of brinksmanship, certainly on the part of Russia, to be clear, that I think this generation has seen nothing like. How concerned should Americans be here?

KIRBY: Look, Mr. Putin's comments the other day about the heightened alert status for his nuclear forces was just as unnecessary as it was escalatory. And it is not the kind of language and rhetoric we need out there with a situation like we have in Ukraine. It just escalates the tensions. It just makes things much more anxious for everybody.

This is a time for responsible leadership. He clearly is not exhibiting that kind of leadership in Ukraine, and certainly not with comments like this about the nuclear posture. I think what is important for Americans to understand is two things, Brie. One, we'll continue to flow security assistance to Ukraine, so they can defend themselves, and they are defending themselves quite bravely and actually quite effectively.

And number two, we're going everything we need to do to bolster NATO security so that we can defend every inch of NATO territory if it comes to that. We've also just in the last couple of days, Brie, stood up a deconfliction channel with the Russian Ministry of Defense so that we can have real communication with them to try to reduce the chances for any kind of miscalculation.

KEILAR: If Kyiv is encircled, as I think we're expecting Russia to aim for here, if Kyiv is encircled, will the U.S. participate in an airlift to supply the capital?

KIRBY: The president has been very clear, Brie, that U.S. troops are not going to be fighting in Ukraine. We are going to work with humanitarian assistance groups around the world to help make sure that they have the support they need, to try to relieve this humanitarian --

KEILAR: But just to be clear, that wouldn't be fighting. If you're talking about airlifting supplies in to -- is that a possibility? I'm just trying to get a sense.

KIRBY: We don't see a U.S. military role here, Brie. But certainly the United States and the administration will work very closely with humanitarian groups and nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations to get the kind of aid and assistance that we need to the Ukrainian people. I guess there is an estimate now more than a million of them have evacuated, and that's not even counting the hundreds of thousands that have been displaced internally. Mr. Putin is causing a catastrophe on humanitarian scale. And the whole world is focused on this and will come to their assistance, and the United States will certainly be a part of that.

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KEILAR: John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, we do appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you.

KIRBY: You bet.

BERMAN: We do have some breaking news for you. If you look at this map, it is clear that one area the Russians have had some success is in the south, north of Crimea, pushing up from the south, taking over the city of Kherson right now. And there is concern now for Odessa, the third largest city in Ukraine. That's where I want to go to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh who is live there seeing what really looks like this act of defiance, Nick. Explain what's going on.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, John. What you've got behind me here is basically a yacht club. This is Odessa. This is a peak holiday destination for Russians, frankly, as well as Ukraine in the past. Now it is a barricade.

Let me show you what we got happening here. Ordinary locals in a human chain passing down these sandbags. They're just asking me who we are, what are we doing. And you can see down here where this all comes from. It's just the banks of the shoreline here. You can see that big excavator pulling out the sand, putting it in piles. And then ordinary young people here, predominantly 20s, 30s, shovels, filling up the sandbags, a huge pile. Someone is trying to come here through here from the left here with empty bags. A huge pile, filled up into the vans, and then taken into the city center. We have seen how they form part of the city's defenses here.

This is the coastline which everyday people are concerned they might see a Russian amphibious landing on. It's kind of crazy to imagine that in summer people are here in the bikinis, actually we saw somebody yesterday going for a dip, but this is a holiday destination on to which they're concerned they might see Russian amphibious landing ships at any time.

We know that is an increased threat because of information about an Estonian cargo ship off the coast of here that was sunk. Ukrainian officials say from Russian shelling, they're trying to use it basically as some kind of civilian shield to allow themselves to approach the coast here.

But you get the sort of feeling of a city united when you see scenes like this. The volume of sandbags almost more than they can get trucks to take away at this point. And it is filling up the city center. It is blockading parts of the center. It's the opera house. I've got to tell you, John, it's dark, frankly, having people of the age we're seeing here, in their 20s and 30s, passing around a picture of fortifications of the opera house in Odessa in 1941, and saying to themselves that they're having to do exactly the same thing now. One man told me he wept when he said that. Others have said that their grandmother simply cannot imagine that similar scenes are occurring in 2022 than the saw in 1941 when the soviets fought off the Nazis.

And that's the kind of -- it's not irony. It's the dark contrast here between people who are seeing this Soviet aggrandization from Vladimir Putin for their restored broader territory seems to be behind this invasion of Ukraine, contrast with the feeling they have that they're having an invasion by the Nazis all over again.

You were mentioning Kherson earlier on, John. I should just tell you what we're hearing from residents there now, which is equally troubling. They're talking about a convoy that has moved into the town of Kherson. Civilians, they're now seeing humanitarian, it seems, trucks, parked up in the central square, big white trucks that they fear may be about to hand out humanitarian aid.

And local officials there have warned of essentially a movie being made. We have seen this movie before, John, in other places where Russia's moved in and essentially occupied. We saw it in Crimea, we saw it in the Donbas in 2014, 2015. They send in people to fake support for the changing government, and we may be seeing these aid trucks in the central square now. That's what local officials are warning of. We'll see this synthesized notion of popular support for the Russian occupation of Kherson.

Contrast that to what we're actually hearing from residents, and that's of locals being walked away, local men being walked away at gunpoint and disappearing, looting, and real fears about what Russia's control actually means for their life. John?

BERMAN: And Nick, again, we're watching a human chain here, moving sand from the beach from this resort area in Odessa to the city center to block what they are expecting to be a Russian invasion of this historic city, the third most populous in Ukraine. And these people, these largely men, these men ages, as you said, teenagers to their 30s, do they expect to be on the front lines of this fight in the next several days?

WALSH: Well, let's ask them.

(INAUDIBLE)

[08:15:12]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will defend our city and our country, for sure.

WALSH: There's your answer. John?

BERMAN: They will defend their city and their country, for sure. Remarkable vision there.

Nick Paton Walsh in Odessa, thank you very much. All right. CNN visits a children's hospital in Kyiv where the patients

are physically unable to flee the warfare going on right outside their door.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't have good conditions for our patients.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is this dangerous for them, this situation?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Welcome back.

Let's go straight to Kyiv right now, the Ukrainian capital.

Our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is there with air raid sirens.

And, Clarissa, you also heard a blast.

WARD: That's right, John. This is just a few moments ago while you were in the commercial break. We heard one very loud explosion indeed, coming from roughly that direction. That is where a lot of the fighting has been going on as Russian forces have been pushing down on the capital, some of the heaviest resistance that they have been coming up against has been in the northwest and we believe that's the direction that we heard that blast from.

But I will say, we have been here for nine days now, hearing this day in, day out, that was one of the loudest blasts that we've heard, you can hear the air raid sirens going off now in response to that. After that explosion, we heard more activity coming from that direction as well.

And in general, John, I would just say it has been a very active morning here with lots of strikes, booms, blasts, mostly in the distance, mostly on the outskirts area.

Now, part of the reason for that may be that what we're seeing today here in Kyiv for the first time in some days are clear skies. For the last couple of days, it has been very foggy, that kind of low hanging fog that makes it much more difficult to carry out aerial bombardment, particularly, because there is no visibility.

But this morning, as you can see behind me, the skies are clear. And we have definitely heard an uptick in activity. Now, we don't know what exactly the targets of those strikes has been, but we do know that the Russian defense ministry, just two days ago, warned about what they were going to try to hit here in Kyiv. They talked about several SBU facilities. The SBU is the acronym for Ukraine's security services.

So reasonable to assume that possibly those may be among the targets, although as we have seen, John, in very real grim and horrifying pictures, residential areas also getting hit, civilian also being hit, particularly in that area to the northwest, some 30 miles or so out near Borodyanka, we saw an apartment building completely hollowed out by a massive strike, John.

BERMAN: Clarissa, I think we have that video of Borodyanka right now, this attack on civilians, if we can put that on the wall behind me right now. This is an attack on a apartment complex. This is a residential apartment complex in the city you were just talking about, Clarissa, right now. We're looking at the pictures you were describing there.

It is hard to imagine someone in that building, that part of the building surviving. An example of how civilians are really being caught in the middle of this, right?

WARD: And it is just extraordinary, John, because yesterday you heard President Putin reiterating this claim that civilians are not being targeted. But when you look at that, frankly apocalyptic image of that apartment building, which has just been completely hollowed out, and you think in a big high rise like that, of how many ordinary people must live there, how can you possibly claim that civilian infrastructure and civilian structures are not being targeted?

We don't know how many people were killed in that attack in Borodyanka. It has been very tough to get precise numbers, particularly from areas that under continued bombardment because it's almost impossible for journalist in monitoring bodies to get in and out of them.

But we do know the Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in referencing that extraordinary scene in Borodyanka said that there were many civilian casualties -- John.

BERMAN: Again, you look at that building and can't but think of Grozny and Chechnya, Vladimir Putin, of course, ordered the nearly the destruction of that entire city. This just the beginning of what that could end up looking like there.

Clarissa, obviously as we said, civilians, how could you survive something like this if you were there, suffering in other ways. You had a chance to see firsthand some of the places in Kyiv, like hospitals, like a simple children's ward that had to deal with all this.

WARD: That's right, John.

We visited this hospital yesterday, the Okhmatdyt Hospital. One week ago, it was a state of the art, the largest children's hospital in Ukraine. And now everything has changed, basically. You can imagine with bombardment like that happening throughout the day, you cannot be moving very sick children up and down and up and down and up and down. So, they had to put a lot of them underground. It is just a terrifying

situation for the children, for the parents, and for the doctors who are doing everything they can to treat them. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): Outside the Okhmatdyt Hospital, the sound of heavy fighting pierces the night air. The shelling has started, this nurse says. We're in the surgical department for newborn babies. It is so loud.

Exhausted staff hover nervously in the hallway.

This is Ukraine's largest children's hospital. Shutting down is not an option.

DR. DMYTRO ISHCHENKO, NEUROSURGEON: We decided to open the surgical department here.

WARD: Neurosurgeon Dmytro Ishchenko shows us the impact of just one week of war.

So the children who are too sick to be moved have to stay here, in the basement, in case the bombardment starts again.

There are ten patients currently being treated in this underground hallway. And they are very sick indeed.

Is this your daughter? On the floor in one corner, we meet Sonya (ph) and her 3-month-old daughter Milena (ph). Milena (ph) has a brain tumor.

It is a terrifying situation. We must stay underground and we don't know how long for, she says. I'm alone here at the hospital, and my husband is at home with my other kid.

For seven nights, she has been sleeping on this floor as the bombing gets closer.

She is saying the stress of the situation has meant that her milk has dried up. So she is now using formula for her daughter.

With resources being diverted to deal with trauma injuries, parents are stepping in to help where they can. At one bed, Valentin is feeding an unconscious child.

[08:25:04]

So he's saying that little baby there is his little boy. But he's helping with this child because their mother can't be here.

I tell him he's strong. There's no other way, he says. God gives us strength.

In this environment, Dr. Ishchenko offers his patients and their families whatever he can, but there are limits. ISHCHENKO: It is really very challenging and really tough because we

don't have good conditions for our patients.

WARD: Is this dangerous for them, this situation?

ISHCHENKO: Yes, and not only because we have a war. These conditions is not suitable with brain surgeries.

WARD: For now, nonessential procedures are on hold.

Eleven -year-old Yaroslav's (ph) sutures should have been removed but the risk of infection is too high. His mother Lodmila (ph) tries to comfort him. I will massage you and everything will be okay, she says.

But no one knows how long this war will last. And these children cannot wait forever.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on camera): Now, all the doctors we spoke to in that hospital, John, said that they would stay here no matter what, no matter how heavy the bombardment gets. But you can imagine what a difficult situation it is for them because for some of these very sickly children, they're just not able to give them the treatment that they really need right now. And, of course, it has been extremely dangerous to even contemplate trying to move them.

Now, one potentially positive glimmer of hope out of yesterday's meetings between a Russian and Ukrainian delegation has been the sort of agreement of some kind of humanitarian corridor in various cities across the country, including here in Kyiv, those have yet to be implemented. But potentially that could allow children like Yaruslav, like Melina and parents like Valentin and Sonya to get their children out safely when it just becomes unsustainable to remain here, John.

BERMAN: Look, there is nothing more traumatic than dealing with a seriously ill child under the best of circumstances, and to do it while under attack, I just can't imagine.

Clarissa Ward, thank you for that report.

The U.S. embassy of Kyiv says attacking a nuclear power plant is a war crime. The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States joins us next.

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