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New Day
Lviv Moms Make Care Packages For Family Members At The Front; Refugees And Ukrainian Soldiers Face Bitter Cold Amid Invasion; Zelenskyy Likens Putin To Nazi Regime In Call With Jewish Leaders. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired March 08, 2022 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:31:41]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Certainly, in war there is a lot of attention paid to the troops who head off to fight, but those who stay behind also serve in other ways. CNN's Anderson Cooper met with a group of moms, wives, and daughters who are doing their part for the Ukrainian war effort.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): In a volunteer center in Lviv, moms whose husbands and children who have taken up arms gather supplies for those fighting for their east.
ARENA (ph) (through translator): We understand we need to hold strong like a fist -- like this -- and we have very strong face. We believe that we will win and this will hold us together.
COOPER (voice-over): Arena works for a group called Angel On Your Shoulder. She's recruited more than 100 women to pack boxes around the clock.
ARENA: Nonstop, nonstop.
COOPER (voice-over): Everything is donated -- medicine, toiletries, all kinds of prepackaged food.
COOPER (on camera): They're looking for things which are easy to prepare which you can just add water to for troops at the front or families.
COOPER (voice-over): Nothing stays here for long. The work is hard; the war is harder.
ARENA: Don't cry.
COOPER (voice-over): Angela's husband left for the front yesterday.
ANGELA, HUSBAND FIGHTING WAR: My husband left yesterday.
COOPER (voice-over): He's a doctor -- a veteran of the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
COOPER (on camera): Does it help to work here -- to stay busy?
ANGELA (through translator): We are doing what we can. We keep on praying. People ask how you are not crying but you know crying doesn't help. Each person does what they can.
COOPER (voice-over): Angela is in the Reserves as well but for now, she's taking care of her family and volunteering.
COOPER (on camera): Thank you for your strength. You give -- you give me and everybody strength.
ANGELA (through translator): Thank you very much.
COOPER (voice-over): In another building, more mothers, more volunteers making camouflage netting to hide tanks and artillery.
OLENA (ph) (through translator): Let me teach you. Do you see? Just like this.
COOPER (voice-over): Olena's son is already in the fight.
COOPER (on camera): What made you want to come here?
OLENA (through translator): We need to protect our country. It is difficult to speak. My son is in the army since 2015. I didn't want to let him go and he said who will go if not me? How will I be able to say to people that I hid in shelter? So he left and it was extremely difficult for me.
COOPER (voice-over): Many in this room have had to flee their homes in Kharkiv and Kyiv. They wonder when the bombs will fall here.
COOPER (on camera): If you could talk to mothers in Russia what would you tell them?
OLENA (through translator): I would tell them to take their sons back. We are also sorry for them. They are also humans.
Human life was created by God. How can it be taken away just like that? They will be judged and faced punishment for this. You cannot do this. Let them take their kids.
COOPER (voice-over): This war has many fronts and for mothers, there are many ways to fight.
[05:35:00]
Anderson Cooper, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.
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KEILAR: Evacuations are underway in one Ukrainian city. Russians are offering civilians safe passage but is this just another deception? And how the bitter cold is now playing a big role in the fighting. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: As we talk to our reporters on the ground in Ukraine, one thing they tell us that's having a very big impact now, frigid cold temperatures -- the coldest since the war -- the invasion began.
[05:40:05]
I want to bring in CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. Chad, what's the expectation there?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think we're going to see wind chill factors down around seven Fahrenheit. Obviously, that's well below zero Celsius. Cold air is coming in from the north. The low pressure that made a little snow over the last couple of days has moved off to the east and that allowed the cold air from the north to come down. And when you get that cold air blowing in -- even temperatures in the 20s -- it's going to feel somewhere around 10.
And the problem is today is the warmest day. We're going to get to about 33. The next time it gets above freezing is Saturday. Temperatures, morning and afternoon, and night all below freezing. That's a problem when you don't have power or heat -- or really, some people, even shelter.
Very cold temperatures coming in. I know we're not talking about wind chills 10 to 20 below zero, but we're talking about people that are living outside -- living in the streets.
Temperatures are going to be cold in all of the cities -- not just one, not just four, not just for Kyiv, but all the way across the country from east to west well below normal, somewhere in the ballpark of 15 degrees below normal for highs and the same, John, for lows. A couple of tough days in store.
BERMAN: Yes. When you don't have power, when you don't have a roof, this is a real problem.
MYERS: Yes.
BERMAN: Chad Myers, thank you very much.
MYERS: You're welcome.
BERMAN: Coming up, CNN's Matthew Chance gives us a firsthand look at the destruction in a small residential neighborhood as the attacks on civilians intensify. Plus, why the letter Z has emerged as a symbol of this Russian invasion.
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[05:45:50]
KEILAR: Russia says it is not bombing civilians even as we watch Russia bomb civilians. Russia is lying. Civilians are reeling from the shelling, including in Kyiv where Matthew Chance takes us inside the home of one family.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Clearing up the broken debris of a shattered home. This is the devastation caused by a Russian attack on a residential neighborhood in the small Ukrainian town. Bila Tserkva, 50 miles south of the Ukrainian capital is nowhere near the front lines but it has felt the rage and the pain of this war.
CHANCE (on camera): Right. Well, we've come inside one of the houses that was affected by what was apparently random artillery or rocket fire into this residential neighborhood.
And you can see just how -- just how shattered the lives of the family here were. Look -- I mean, the windows have all been blown out, obviously. All their belongings have been left behind as they go into hiding. The picture up there seems to be some of the people who lived in here. It was a -- it was a family with some children. Apparently, they've survived this, which is good.
But, of course, when you look at the situation and the way that Russians have been shelling residential areas across the country, so many people haven't survived.
And this is interesting. Come have a look. It's the -- it's the children's bedroom. You can see over here -- look, the bunk beds -- the roof that's fallen down onto the -- onto the top of them when that shell hit. And, of course, in the -- in the panic and in the evacuation, the kids have left all their -- all their toys up here.
But it just shows you that no matter where you are in this country, with Russia attacking towns and cities across it, lives are being shattered.
CHANCE (voice-over): Svetislav is a close friend of the family who were nearly killed in their beds here. Godfather to the three children who escaped with their lives.
Now he has one request, he tells me, for the United States. "Please close the skies over Ukraine," he begs. "If we can just contact NATO and ask them this, everything will be fine." Otherwise, he warns, "Putin will cross Ukraine and threaten the whole of Europe."
In a bunker under the town, it's terrified children singing Ukraine's national anthem. It keeps them calm. As Russia invades a whole generation of Ukrainians it's being united by this war -- together as they shelter from the horrors above.
Matthew Chance, CNN, in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine.
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KEILAR: Thank you to Matthew for that report.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking to Jewish leaders in America, calling Vladimir Putin's actions pure Nazi behavior.
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[05:58:58]
BERMAN: In a call with American Jewish leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Vladimir Putin's actions pure Nazi behavior -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): This is just pure Nazism. They -- he -- he's just destroying the citizens of Ukraine of different nationalities. So we have to nail down, give our weapon away. We have to hoist the Russian flag. We should say that we don't want anything. We want to put our hands up.
Listen, all of this already happened in Europe. All of this happened during the Nazi times. This all happened when the Germany army went -- rolled through Europe and everyone gave their Jewish people away, putting them into ghetto.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Joining me now is William C. Daroff. He is the CEO for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and arranged that video call with President Zelenskyy. Very nice to see you again.
Before we talk about the call itself, I just want to remark on this phenomenon. The New York Times did a nice story about this.
[05:55:00]
There's been so much suffering over centuries for Jews in this region, whether it be pogroms or the holocaust. It's such an interesting moment right now where things, to an extent, have gone full circle for Jews around the world.
There's a huge outpouring of support in the Jewish community for the suffering -- for the people suffering in Ukraine right now. Just explain that to me.
WILLIAM C. DAROFF, CEO, CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS OF MAJOR AMERICAN JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS, ARRANGED VIDEO CALL WITH ZELENSKYY AND JEWISH LEADERS: Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me back on the show.
It is really remarkable that Jews all around the world are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters -- Jews and non-Jews alike.
As you mentioned, we have a tortured history in Ukraine where for -- literally, the Jews were there for hundreds of years and suffered through pogroms and through the holocaust. But to this day, have had a real revitalization of the Jewish life in Ukraine where there are tens of thousands of Jews who up until this current crisis have lived in peace and harmony with their neighbors and are a key component of the mosaic that is Ukraine in the 21st century.
And, in fact, President Zelenskyy, whom you mentioned was with us yesterday on our videoconference, is a member of the Jewish community and someone who really has strong feelings of connectivity with the Jewish community in Ukraine and across the world.
BERMAN: So, when President Zelenskyy -- who, as you mentioned, is Jewish -- says to you all on this conference call that what Vladimir Putin is doing is pure Nazi behavior, what was the reaction?
DAROFF: Well, I think there were audible sighs from the crowd where many of us felt -- he was very emotional -- we could connect to the history in Ukraine -- the history of Jews in Europe, which has been one where we were ghettoized, where we were discriminated against, where we were made to starve by Nazis -- by Soviets and the like.
And while I don't endorse the idea of connecting any contemporary historical events to the holocaust -- I think the holocaust is a unique event in and of itself -- his emotionality and his connection to that was something that was palpable.
There was a Russian attack on Babyn Yar memorial, which was the largest site of the so-called holocaust by bullets, where there were, in a 72-hour period in September of 1941, 33,000 Jews were murdered. And there was a Russian attack that hit that site. And my understanding in talking with President Zelenskyy is that he had a real emotional connection to that and it really opened up his eyes to this connection of what he's undergoing now with the torment and the torture that Jews underwent during the holocaust.
BERMAN: Yes. The chief rabbi of Ukraine told us after the attack on Babyn Yar -- he basically said they're killing the Babyn Yar victims again --
DAROFF: Yes.
BERMAN: -- which is pretty vivid imagery.
DAROFF: Yes, it's a remarkable site. I was there for the groundbreaking this fall of the new memorial, which President Zelenskyy has been a key player, and it is -- it's remarkable. There were, as I said, 33,000 Jews who were killed in a 72-hour period and then over 100,000 others who were killed along the way during the war. And to have that sacred site damaged in this wanton way by Russia is remarkable and something that has been condemned across the world.
BERMAN: And very quickly, Vladimir Putin -- from the start, himself -- has used this absurd rhetoric of denazification as a justification for this invasion.
DAROFF: Yes. I would say -- just as I mentioned about President Zelenskyy, I think that is absurd. I think that we should leave the holocaust in history and not compare it to contemporary matters. And the fact that he would say that Ukraine needs to be denazified when, in fact, the leader of the country is Jewish and many of the top leaders is Jewish, just shows the ridiculousness of that claim.
One other thing that President Zelenskyy mentioned was the nuclear terrorism of Russia, talking about the attack on the Ukrainian nuclear plant. And he made the connection about how at the same time that Russia is undertaking this nuclear terrorism they are around the table in Vienna putting together the Iran deal, which press reports say they'll be a key component of.
And he mentioned the hypocrisy of that, too. That on the one hand, the west is saying he's a nuclear terrorist and someone who can't be trusted. But with the right hand, we are looking, apparently, for him to be front and center in the Iran nuclear deal. And that's also a key concern of the American Jewish community.
BERMAN: William Daroff, nice to see you this morning. Thank you so much.
DAROFF: Thank you. My pleasure.
BERMAN: And NEW DAY continues right now.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, March eighth. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.
The breaking news this morning, evacuations for Ukrainian civilians underway in the northeastern city of Sumy as long as Russia stops attacking for a few hours.
Overnight, the Ukrainian government agreed to an offer from the Kremlin to set up a humanitarian corridor from Sumy, right here, down south to Poltava right there. You can see that right now.
Heavy fighting has been seen there in recent days. Nine people were killed in an airstrike, including two children.
And moments ago, Ukraine says a humanitarian convoy headed for Mariupol is getting shelled by Russian forces. That's down here. There was a convoy coming from the area up here, Zaporizhzhia.
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