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Film Student Joins Fight Against Russian Invasion In Ukraine; Many Russians Unaware Of Ukraine War Due To Putin's Propaganda; Zelenskyy Echoes Churchill Speech: "We Will Fight To The End". Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 09, 2022 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:33:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Russian forces are now making a renewed advance toward the city of Kyiv from the east after being met with fierce resistance since the invasion began two weeks ago.

Joining me now is Miro Popovich. He is a film student and dual U.S.- Ukrainian citizen who is fighting against Russian forces in Kyiv. Miro, thank you so much for being with us.

First, can you just tell us a little bit about -- I know that you came to America when you were 19.

MIRO POPOVICH, U.S. CITIZEN FIGHTING IN UKRAINE (via Skype): Yes.

KEILAR: You joined the U.S. Army. You since were back --

POPOVICH: Yes.

KEILAR: -- with family when all of this went down. What are you doing now?

POPOVICH: Well, now I'm in Kyiv and I'm helping our military and police as much as I can using my military experience that I gained in the U.S. Army and Afghanistan.

KEILAR: So tell me about that. You served as an infantry mortarman. So, what are you --

POPOVICH: Yes, yes.

KEILAR: What kind of skills are you bringing to this, and what do you expect ahead?

POPOVICH: Well, you know what? The most important skill that you can learn in the military and during any war is the stress and how you handle stress. And I know that I've been into some situations where -- stressful situations when I was serving in the U.S. Army.

And now I'm bringing this, the most important experience, because there is a lot of young guys here that have never seen blood. They've never fired a weapon and they've never heard a gunshot. So, I'm here sort of helping them to overcome this.

And, of course, I know how to use -- I'm proficient with some of the weapons, so that's -- I'm bringing that to the table.

KEILAR: Yes. I've heard that from many veterans.

Let's try to reestablish Miro. Miro, can you hear me?

POPOVICH: Yes, yes, I can hear you.

KEILAR: OK, Miro can hear me so we're going to try to get -- we're going to -- OK, there we go. Miro, we're going to try to make sure that we can see but at least if we can hear you.

POPOVICH: Yes.

KEILAR: I've heard many veterans say that.

You know, it's entirely different training versus actually being shot at. So, what are you telling the young people that you're working with there to get them ready for that?

[07:35:06]

POPOVICH: Well, you know what? I -- I'm telling them one thing -- that you cannot be ready for that. There is no way and there is no training that can get you ready for the moment where you're going to get shot at and you hear explosions.

I just tell them that, you know, use the breathing exercise technique and if you can take cover, take cover. Calm yourself down and go do your thing. I mean -- but it all goes down to the personality of each soldier.

And hopefully, my team is very good, even young guys in my team. They are -- I see that they are ready. They are ready to fight against Russia.

KEILAR: What are -- you know, what are you prepared to do, and when do you think that you could see Russia -- Russian forces encircling Kyiv?

POPOVICH: Well, we know -- we expect -- we expected them to do that about two-three days ago and they still haven't done that. But I think pretty soon they're going to circle Kyiv and they're going to try to go inside, and that's where -- when we're going to come and do our thing -- help our military and help our forces to stop them.

But, you know, it's going to -- it's going to be really hard for them. Kyiv is a very big city and we have the advantage of it being our city. We know every single street here, every single building, every single street corner. Everything's going to be against them. And I'm telling you that we're going to give them hell. I promise you that.

KEILAR: And what is this going to look like -- just brutal urban warfare? What are you expecting? POPOVICH: Well, no. It's -- yes, exactly. We expect them to first, use their artillery and their ballistic rockets. Then they're going to probably use tanks and their armored vehicles. And we're going to -- we have them, too, so it's going to be like a dog fight. It is what it is.

I mean, it's easier to defend than to attack, so we have that on our side. And whatever happens, happens. We're fighting for our freedom. This is our home. We have to defend it and we will do anything -- anything to stop them.

KEILAR: You know, Miro, after getting out of the Army I know that you are now at the New York Film School. So you've chosen a very --

POPOVICH: Yes, the film --

KEILAR: -- different -- a different route, right, than having been in the army. But here you find yourself back ready for this.

POPOVICH: Yes.

KEILAR: And I just wonder -- I mean, you must be confronting this real possibility that you could die. I mean, how are you -- how are you doing that? What are you saying to yourself?

POPOVICH: You know, after the -- after I got discharged -- honorably discharged from the U.S. Army and finished my contract, I never thought that I'm going to see war again. And, yes, I went to film school for acting.

And now, here I am doing the same thing again. But, you know, this time it's my home. They are invading my home so I have to do this.

And death -- you know, I am not so scared of death. I'm probably scared of being severely injured or stuff like that. You lose a limb or something, it's scary. But to die -- I mean, we -- I know -- I think -- I think I'm ready. I'm ready to give this sacrifice.

Because when I walk down the street right now and I see the street where I grew up and I'm imagining the tanks coming here any time -- any moment -- it's -- that's what's scary. I want people -- I want my city to be at peace and whatever I have to do, I will do it.

And there's so many young, amazing guys here and girls that are ready to do the same thing and we're going to -- we're going to fight until the end. Whatever happens at the end, we're going to fight until that moment.

KEILAR: Well, Miro, I hope you do not have to make that sacrifice. And I appreciate --

POPOVICH: I hope so.

KEILAR: I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me --

POPOVICH: Yes. KEILAR: -- and I hope that are able to stay safe and that you'll stay in touch with us. Thank you.

POPOVICH: Thank you. God bless.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What a discussion. What bravery.

All right, breaking news. This is happening right now. That's the Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris. She's at Joint Base Andrews. She is about to depart on a trip to Europe.

She will be going to Poland which, of course, very important discussions will take place there. At issue primarily, right now, the possibility of somehow getting Polish MiG fighter jets inside to Ukraine. That will no doubt be a topic of discussion there.

[07:40:02]

Again, Vice President Kamala Harris heading to Poland right now on this very important trip.

CNN's breaking news coverage continues right after this.

KEILAR: And we do have some new video from an eyewitness on the ground in Ukraine. What we know about this armored Russian military train, just ahead. Plus, the power of Putin's propaganda, hiding the truth and pitting family members against one another.

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BERMAN: U.S. officials estimate up to 4,000 Russians have been killed in the invasion of Ukraine. Yet, Russian propaganda insists on downplaying the severity, banning calling it an invasion or a war. They say it's a special military operation.

The question has been do the Russians buy it? So this morning we have something of an answer of how this works.

[07:45:04]

Joining me is Misha Katsurin. He's in Ternopil in Ukraine right now.

And Misha, your father is in Russia and after days of bombing and days of this invasion, you were wondering why he hadn't called to check on you in Ukraine. So you finally got him on the phone. What did he say?

MISHA KATSURIN, UKRAINIAN RESTAURATEUR WHO HAS FAMILY IN RUSSIA (via Skype): Yes, that was like the common conversation -- hi, how are you doing? So, any word -- any word about war? And I asked him do you know what's going on? And he said yes, I've heard something.

And I started to tell him how my things and things on my family. I told him that we woke up from the bombing and that I took my, like, little son who is a month old and we tried to -- like, to escape and to save the family. And he started to argue. He said no, no, no -- everything is not like this. And he told me that Russia started, like, a peaceful operation and they're trying to save us from the Nazi regime, which occupied our country. And the most interesting thing was that the Russian soldiers are giving to their local people food and warm clothing. So, that's the thing he saw on the T.V.

And I said no, father. Now I'm here. I see what's going on. My friends also see what's going on.

And he just could not believe in this. So, I spent maybe five minutes trying to talk to him and then I just said goodbye -- sorry. So that was the first conversation.

BERMAN: You say dad, they're bombing us and he says no, no, no --

KATSURIN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- that's not what's happening.

KATSURIN: Everything -- yes. So, he just cannot believe in this reality. So they are exist in another reality, which was created for, like, 20 years. And you know, when the -- like, each day on the T.V. and newspapers, on like federal radio -- and there are no free medias in Russia.

They, like, have information that the tree behind them is red. And then I called him and said no, father, the tree is green. And he just cannot believe it. He wants to believe me but he cannot.

BERMAN: Did you get through to him at all? Do you think after your discussion he had a sense you were being bombed and invaded?

KATSURIN: So, that was like the -- some way. So after I finished this discussion I made a post on Instagram that my father does not believe me. And there was more than 135,000 shares of this post. So I realized that the problem is super widespread.

Like, there was like thousands and thousands of comments and all the people wrote that I have the same thing. My mother does not believe me. My sister does not believe me. My uncle does not believe me. And I realized that this is like a huge, huge, huge problem.

And we gathered with my colleagues and we created a website which is called "Father Believe." On this website, we try to offer to people to call their relatives and to tell them the truth. And we write down all the main questions of the Russian propaganda and the answers of these questions. Because the most easy thing is to like say OK, I don't have father because that's very stressful when you call these people does not believe you. You start to scream. You start to become super angry.

And in this thing, I realized that I need to be calm. I need to be smart. And I need to call him again and again and again and -- to help him. Because like imagine -- right now, Russia closed Instagram, they closed Facebook, they closed TikTok. So there is -- the only way to get information like from the federal channels. And that's why right now relatives are I think the only media which

can like tell them some other side of the information. And there are like more than 11 millions of relatives in Russia right now. So just imagine if people like tell the truth to them and they will tell the truth to like two of their friends. That will be 33 million of people who don't know the truth. That's like -- that's a huge power.

BERMAN: Let's hope. Make them believe. Make them believe.

Misha Katsurin, thank you for your efforts right now. Thank you for joining us this morning.

KATSURIN: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: The breaking news -- the Kremlin says the U.S. has declared economic war on Russia. Plus, CNN just got access to one of the humanitarian corridors where civilians are trying to escape these cities under siege. We're going to take you there live.

CNN's special live coverage continues after this.

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[05:53:56]

KEILAR: This is the question of how this will end, right? What will it take for Vladimir Putin to end Russia's assault on Ukraine?

Here is what the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTORIA NULAND, UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS: The way this conflict will end is when Putin realizes that this adventure has put his own leadership standing at risk, and he will have to change course or the Russian people take matters into their -- into their own hands. But from the U.S. perspective, the endgame is the strategic defeat of President Putin in this adventure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now to discuss, we have CNN foreign affairs analyst Kim Dozier, and CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

I will say, I think Putin can see that point from sanctions-ville where he is currently located because he's starting to see how everyone's life in Russia is going to be affected. But I just don't know how close it is.

What do you think, Kim?

KIM DOZIER, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, look, he won't listen to criticism from his inner circle, he's insulated from popular opinion, and he's already put in legislation in place to punish anyone for speaking the truth. [07:55:09]

I think this is -- if the U.S. is waiting for him to realize that he's at odds with the world and therefore pull out of Ukraine, it ain't going to happen.

KEILAR: What do you think?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the worldwide economic full-court press with the Russians -- just call it economic warfare -- against Putin will have an impact -- is having an impact. The question is what's the timing of that because Putin's --

DOZIER: Eventually.

AVLON: Right.

DOZIER: We're looking months, a year.

AVLON: But, I mean -- but this is -- this is not a -- this is not a slow roll economic --

DOZIER: True.

AVLON: -- issue for Russia right now. I mean, this is -- this is hitting the Kremlin kleptocrats where they live. It also is impacting just daily life in Russia.

How much can the disinformation outweigh that? How much can his full press on Kyiv extend against that?

It ultimately does come down to a risk-reward ratio. It's also the long-term issue of how can he hold Kyiv? How can he hold a country of 44 million people who are going to fight him every step of the way indefinitely?

But this is -- this is still -- we're still on one of these trajectory-defining moments two weeks in. I don't think people should be defeatist about Putin's ability to resist because we've already seen that we overestimated Russia's strength militarily in this operation.

KEILAR: Yes. And to that point -- I mean, if he's feeding so much disinformation to people and as we understand it, believing it himself -- he's getting high on his own supply of propaganda --

AVLON: Yes.

KEILAR: -- how can you trust him to actually be rational about this calculation?

DOZIER: I still think that it's going to take a China to step in and say what you're doing is hurting the economy such that it's hurting our bottom line, and providing him some sort of face-saving way out of it. And I just think we're a long way from getting to that tension point

because at this point, the common people on the street might be feeling it, but he and the oligarchs -- they've got reserves. And he can also turn the psyche of the people into this embattled, martyred, it's the world against us. And that has a way of drawing people together for a long time to come.

KEILAR: Let's look at what was really an amazing moment, right? This was President Zelenskyy speaking to the British House of Commons yesterday and he seemed to conjure -- evoke Winston Churchill. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight until the end at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That is no accident.

AVLON: No, not at all. That is an intentional direct echo of Churchill's famous speech from June fourth, 1940 -- "We will fight them on the beaches. We shall never surrender." And that's why it was -- it was greeted with a standing ovation in British Parliament.

Zelenskyy's speeches have been able to inspire and change policy when it comes to speaking to people in the west.

And one of the big questions at the outset of this, I think for a lot of folks, was is Zelenskyy a former comedian-actor? Is he going to be Ashraf Ghani or he is going to be Winston Churchill? We now know the answer. He's going to be Winston Churchill.

KEILAR: Yes.

DOZIER: And he's drawn the people together in a way that he's stiffened their spine. Now, I know that a lot of foreign diplomats would like him to leave but they now understand he's not leaving Kyiv. And if he is assassinated by the Russians in the process he becomes a martyr and that continues to draw the Ukrainian people together. As one diplomat told me, he becomes the most famous Ukrainian of all time.

KEILAR: He's almost singlehandedly -- I think especially because he's evoking so much World War II through so much of what he's saying, John -- he's almost singlehandedly making people -- western allies wonder oh my God, is this the sort of beginning of a World War III. And if it is and whatever comes after this, what are we going to do right now, right? He's sort of -- it's sort of a reckoning that he's creating.

AVLON: Well look -- I mean, I think one of the things that this invasion has made us realize is that many of us took the peace created -- peace created after the Second World War for granted. The liberal international order that was established by America and its allies is a rules-based society.

That's what Vladimir Putin is directly attacking, as well as the people of Ukraine, and we are confronting that every day. It has caused us to double down on our defense of these alliances -- that NATO and the western world is more united now because we're not taking this for granted because of Vladimir Putin's aggression. And Zelenskyy is in a position to highlight that.

So yes, I think we realize now why these institutions were created, why they need to defended, and why we need to defend the liberal democratic order because of things like this. Because the alternative is people who believe that might makes right. People who believe they can lie to their people and rule by force and murder to get their way. And we cannot allow that to be the trajectory of the 21st century.

KEILAR: Yes. I think there was also this thought in World War II -- oh, they'll just stop at Poland, right?

AVLON: Yes.

DOZIER: Yes.

KEILAR: And people wonder --

AVLON: Guess what?

[08:00:00]