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Russian Military Forces Continue Invasion of Ukraine; Russian Forces Strike Broadcasting Tower in Ukrainian City of Vinnytsia; Language Involved in Talks between Ukraine and Russia Possibly Changing; British Defense Ministry Says Russian Troops Strained with Invasion of Ukraine; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Address U.S. Congress. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 16, 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: This morning there are new signs of serious strain in the Russian attack. The U.K. Defense Ministry says the Kremlin is calling in military reinforcements from across its country, Russia, a broad swath of Russia, to replenish the losses inside Ukraine. Ukrainians claim that they blew up at least three Russian military helicopters, you can see the pictures here, during a strike at Kherson's airport.

Still, moments ago, a TV tower in the central Ukraine city of Vinnytsia, we can show were that is, our team was there just yesterday, a TV tower in Vinnytsia hit. This is nowhere near where the main conflict areas are, so you can see the Russians expanding their target zone there. It was a Russian rocket that knocked out the city's broadcasting facilities.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And several Ukrainian cities still taking heavy fire, as Berman was saying there. This is drone footage revealing just the utter devastation in Okhtyrka, which is a hard hit area near Kharkiv. And in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say Russian forces are holding people captive at a hospital. Thousands of civilians are struggling to escape the city. There is no way out, though, for so many of them. After President Zelenskyy speaks to Congress this morning, President Biden is expected to announce $800 million in new security assistance for Ukraine. And Biden also plans to travel to Europe next week. Let's go to CNN's chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto who is live for us on Capitol Hill. Jim, you have new reporting on what the U.S. is sending Ukraine.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As President Zelenskyy prepares to address Congress just behind me here, and ask the U.S. for additional military assistance, I'm told that the U.S. and its NATO allies are already sending additional air defense systems. These are surface to air missile systems. Not the S-300, which is something that Zelenskyy has asked for and other both Democratic and Republican Senators have been talking about, an effort still under way to get that system, but other Soviet era missile systems. They're known as the SA-8, 10, 12, and 14. These are also surface to air missile system, mobile systems, that have an altitude range, low and medium altitude, not as high an altitude as the S-300, but a greater altitude. It allows the Ukrainian military to hit targets at a higher altitude than the shoulder fired stinger missiles we've been talking a lot about in recent weeks.

So this would be, once these get into the country, and I'm told that they are on their way, they have been sourced and on their way into Ukraine, would give the Ukrainian military an ability to better defend itself not just against Russian aircraft, but also these systems give them the capability to strike incoming cruise missiles, fired often from Russian territory. So this shows that the military assistance that the U.S. and its NATO partners are sending to Ukraine is expanding, the systems are on the way to better help Ukraine defend itself against what are really just relentless Russian attacks.

BERMAN: It raises the possibility, an interesting one, that the Ukrainian forces grow stronger with higher capabilities the longer this conflict goes on.

Jim, I want your take on this, because you have now lived through these weeks and weeks of back and forth and talks of negotiations. A lot of interesting language over just the last few hours from both the Ukrainians and the Russians. Zelenskyy says the Russians are becoming more realistic, Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, claiming that specific language might be within reach. What is going on here?

SCIUTTO: Well, it is interesting to watch the language from both sides. The give -- and again, this is perception from the outside. We don't know what is happening on the table between these two parties. But at least in public statements, you don't see the Russians asking publicly anymore for what they have called denazification. The government of Ukraine is not a Nazi government, Zelenskyy, as we've noted many times himself, Jewish, but that's a term that Russia has used to get rid of this government and replace it with its own pro- Putin, pro-Russian government. That is something Russians aren't talking about anymore.

You also see something of a change in language from the Ukrainians about NATO membership. A discussion, and even Antony Blinken was talking about this this morning, that it is not realistic to imagine that Ukraine would become a member of NATO anytime soon, that the possibility that Ukraine might take that demand off the table initially as long as it gets security guarantees, right, that Russia will not invade again, that Russia makes a commitment, and its allies make a commitment.

That's movement, right? It brings you sort of from here to here, perhaps, if they stick to those commitments. The question is how do you get from here to here, an agreement, a meeting of the minds that ends the hostilities on the ground. By the way, Ukrainians say Russian forces got to go, right? They can't

remain in the country in any way, shape, or form that they're going to be satisfied with.

[08:05:04]

BERMAN: Yes, there's all the reasons in the world to be skeptical of this. But at the same time, the change in language over the last several hours is unmistakable and bears watching. Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for being with us.

We want to bring CNN global affairs analyst and "Time" magazine contributor Kim Dozier. Kim, thank you so much for being with us. And you have noticed some fascinating language over the last few hours from the United Kingdom Defense Ministry saying, basically, the Russian troops are strapped right now. They're under serious strain. What did they say, and what do you see here?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: This is from the intelligence arm of the defense ministry. And their assessment is that the Russians are taking such heavy losses, that they are having to pull troops from other parts of Russia to backfill the troops that are in those stalled positions. And they are also curiously hiring private contractors from groups like the Wagner Group to, they think, try to control the cities that have already been taken over to free up those forces to join the offensive fight.

BERMAN: And it is interesting because people have been looking at this map here, and they have been seeing areas where Russian troops are operating, they have been growing, right. But just because you see this in red doesn't mean that it is easy for the Russians to control.

DOZIER: Yes, and Ukrainians on the ground say this often means that they control some of the major highways and routes along these areas, but not the backways and byways. And just because they have taken a city like they've taken Melitopol, yes, but the people in that city haven't given into Russian rule. Some of them are hiding in their homes, but they are reporting that the Russians are having to kidnap activists at night to try to tamp some of this down. And every time they use soldiers for that, those are soldiers that are not helping take territory in the rest of the Ukraine.

BERMAN: So you heard Jim Sciutto's report there. We're going to hear from President Zelenskyy addressing the U.S. Congress very shortly. He is going to make an ask, clearly, what he wants. President Biden is going to make an offer after that over what the U.S. is actually sending. We know that the United States has already sent in so many of these Javelins, anti-tank weapons, which are hugely useful for troops, also the Stingers anti-aircraft weapons.

Jim was reporting, though, a higher level of anti-aircraft weaponry that will be available to the Ukrainians. How happy do you think that they will be, and how much less than their ask do you think it really is?

DOZIER: Look, President Zelenskyy is still going to do what you do in any bargaining situation. He is going to ask for the maximum. He is going to ask for a no-fly zone as he did of Canadian lawmakers yesterday in hopes that the pressure on the Biden administration will be such from Congress and from the American people that the Biden administration gives them not only some of the weapons on offer, but possibly more armed drones. The drones that Ukraine bought from Turkey ahead of the war have proved devastating to the Russian military. But they only had reportedly about 36 of them, and some of them surely have been taken out. And so they need resupply. And they'd surely would like more modern ones. So the laundry list is going to keep growing as long as this war goes on.

BERMAN: This is the Turkish drone right here. And you can see here, we have some imagery here, which shows you just how effective it can be against a Russian column there. No wonder the Ukrainians want more of that.

I do want to ask about another development this morning. We're getting word from our crews there, we've got a team that had been in Vinnytsia right here, this city that isn't particularly near the conflict areas, there was a strike on a television tower there, a broadcasting facility. Why do the Russians keep doing this?

DOZIER: Between hitting those broadcasting facilities and also, from what we can tell, actually targeting news teams, it shows that the information war is hurting their war effort. Whether it is the Russian TV producer who made the protest in Russia proper on state television, or the mothers of Russian soldiers who are starting to step up and start their protest, which has in the past caused Russia to pull out of at least one previous conflict. This is the kind of action you take when the message is going against you and you are trying to win on the information front.

BERMAN: And again, we just talked to Jim about this, but we're getting this conflicting -- not conflicting language. We're get language from both the Ukrainians and the Russians now about these negotiations that sounds different than it has over the last several days. Do you have a sense of what the sides would be willing to accept?

DOZIER: The most important hint that we've gotten from President Zelenskyy is now in a couple of different comments, he has said he basically understands that NATO membership is likely off the table. So that was a major ask of Russia, that they strip from the Ukrainian constitution that they were going to be trying to join NATO.

[08:10:01]

But it seems that Russia is still pushing to take -- to have Ukraine recognize its annexation of Crimea, and possibly also recognize the Donbas area and maybe some more of the territory that has been taken in this conflict so far. And Ukraine is still doing well enough on the battlefield that it's not ready to accept that.

BERMAN: It's hard to imagine Ukraine accepting anything that would just give this to Russia. And up until this point, that has been the Russian position. We will see if there is change in that. Kim Dozier, great to have you here, thanks so much

President Zelenskyy is about to address U.S. Congress, asking for more U.S. help as Russia continues to attack his country. We're joined by chairman of the Armed Services Committee on what he expects to hear, and what more the U.S. should be doing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Moments from now, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is set to deliver a virtual address to members of the U.S. Congress. And Zelenskyy is expected to make some fresh calls for a no- fly zone and also for help in acquiring fighter jets. President Biden has rejected these steps as potentially dragging the U.S. into conflict with Russia, suggesting that it could begin World War III.

Joining us now is Congressman Adam Smith, Democrat from Washington and chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Sir, thank you so much for joining us ahead of these remarks here in just about 45 minutes. What are you expecting to hear, what do you want to hear from the Ukrainian president?

[08:15:03]

SMITH: Well, I think there's two big messages, one is the one that you just said, he wants more help, whatever help he can get. And I think he's going to drive home that point.

But the larger message is to continue the broad, global information war to get support for Ukraine in every conceivable way, not just the weapons systems you've talked about, but economic support, humanitarian aid and crucially sanctions on Russia. And also crucially to make sure that other nations don't start helping Russia.

Here, we've heard reports about China, how much that they're going to help Russia. Reports of maybe India is going to buy Russian oil. What's going to happen in the Middle East on that?

So, Zelenskyy has a broad international message which, by the way, he's been doing brilliantly at, and so have the Ukrainian people. To drive home the message, Russia deserves to be condemned and we need to use every tool we can to make them pay as high a price as possible for this invasion, to maintain that information warfare and get the support for the Ukrainian people, not just in the U.S., but to continue to grow it globally.

KEILAR: He is also going to ask for more despite what the U.S. has given. Yesterday, he was talking to the Canadian parliament and he said, and I'm paraphrasing loosely here, imagine calling your friends, telling them you need help and he talked about how they would express deep concerns about the situation.

He is going to say that he needs more. What do you say to that?

SMITH: Well, first of all, I think in some areas, we can provide more and President Biden just announced another $800 million. I think it's crucial to get Javelins, to get anti-tank weapons, anti-air weapons that are coming in. The drones that you talked about in your earlier segment, figuring out how to get those in. We're working with the British and some other partners to get more long range surface-to-air missiles. I think all that help we can get and should get.

But the other things that have been talked about -- the no-fly zone, the fighter jets, there's two problems with that. One, militarily given where the fight is at, and I've seen generals on your program explain this far better than I can, they're not really that big of a game-changer in terms of the fight.

And then the second point is, the friend in question here is a little different because of what President Biden has made clear. If we wind up going to war with Russia, more countries in Eastern Europe are likely to be dragged into this. We have to help Ukraine in every way we can without widening the war and stumbling into War World III.

That's the balance I think President Biden and his team have done an outstanding job of walking today.

KEILAR: Can you talk about that higher level of anti-aircraft weapons that are needed?

SMITH: Absolutely. Yeah. So, you've got your shoulder-fired missiles, the Stingers and Javelins. And what -- the higher level is basically a vehicle-born weapon. We don't actually have those in our inventory that we could transfer. And they have -- they can hit at higher altitudes and they're basically driven around on a truck for a lack of a better way to describe it.

Some allies do have those weapons, could conceivably get those in. They would expand the amount of weapons that the Ukrainians have and also expand the target range. But right now, most of what happening in Ukraine is not happening with fighter jets. It's happening with long range standoff weapons or with artillery.

So, the type of help we can get them, you know, that is the focus is on Javelins, Stingers, anti-air missiles, anti-tank missiles and also I think the drone technology is really crucial. We have to figure out ways to get them more drones.

KEILAR: Oil prices, as you know, are falling. Gas prices, they're not following yet, but they are expected too.

And one of your colleagues, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, says that there's profiteering that is happening by oil companies.

Do you agree with that?

SMITH: Well, I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case. That is kind of what oil companies do. They try to make as much money as possible.

It's been a long running battle for years between policymakers and oil companies, and also oil-producing nations to try to drive down the price. By and large, people who are selling things, they want the price to be higher. People who are buying them want the price to be lower. We have to set policy to try to make sure that the consumer is not taken advantage of.

So, absolutely, we need to keep an eye on that and try to make sure that the oil companies don't take advantage of the situation.

KEILAR: Do you think Americans are willing to pay these higher prices in response to what is going on in Ukraine?

SMITH: I mean, the simple answer to that is some are, some aren't, but I think the majority of Americans are. You know, look, and this is where President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people have done such an amazing job. The courage they have shown, the message that they have sent out has made the world want to help them, from governments to my constituents, to just the average individual.

I think that message is working and, yes, I think that the American people are willing to help the Ukrainians in any way they can short of setting off World War III obviously.

[08:20:01]

So, yeah, I think there will be more support than you might imagine on this issue.

KEILAR: Chairman, really appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.

SMITH: Thanks, Brianna. Appreciate the chance.

KEILAR: In Kherson, the most destructive known strike that the Ukrainian military has conducted against Russian helicopters so far, destroying at least three choppers amid reports that Russia is calling up reinforcements.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, this extraordinary feud transpiring between the head of Russia's space agencies and one of America's most famous former astronauts, that astronaut Scott Kelly, here with us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: So, new this morning, after a high profile Twitter feud between astronaut Scott Kelly and head of the Russian space agency, a NASA official is now warning former U.S. astronauts that such feuds are damaging to the International Space Station mission writing in an email, quote: As Americans, each of us enjoys freedom of speech and you are all empowered to speak your mind. However, please know that as former NASA astronauts, your words carry additional weight and attacking our Russian partners, it's damaging to our current mission.

Joining me now with his response is former astronaut and retired captain of the U.S. Navy, Scott Kelly. He's the author of the author of the soon to be released "Ready for Launch: An Astronaut's Lessons for Success on Earth."

Captain, great to have you here. Before we get to the detente, and I hate to use those words, just

explain to me why -- what caused you to speak out so forcefully against the head of the Russian space agency?

CAPT. SCOTT KELLY, U.S. NAVY (RETIRED): Yeah. So, when I saw Roscosmos produce and later release a video leaving Mark Vande Hei who is currently on the International Space Station, leaving him up there, separating the Russian segment from the U.S. side of the space station, they are basically saying, you know, they are no longer going to be responsible for a person that they agreed to take care of.

And it just really outraged me. And I had to speak up about it and do it in a way that would get Roscosmos' attention.

BERMAN: And it sounded like it did.

KELLY: Absolutely.

BERMAN: So, now, there is this email from a NASA official asking you and others to back off. What is your response to that?

KELLY: Well, my response is, you know, I respect NASA. I respect their mission. I understand they are in a very difficult spot. And I respect the man that sent that email.

So, you know, I decided that I'm not going to try to make NASA's job any harder than it already is because they do have a hard job. So I did back off at least for now.

BERMAN: At least for now.

You want the International Space Station, the cooperation with the Russians, to continue even in this environment?

KELLY: Absolutely. I mean, it is like basically the last thing that ties our country and really the rest of the free world to Russia in a peaceful and a cooperative way. And that's one of the great things about the space station program is the international aspect of it.

BERMAN: How hard must it be for an American to be up there right now with a Russian?

KELLY: You know, the crew members are all professionals. At least when I was on the space station, I was there when Russia moved into Syria. And we talked about that in kind of an abstract way, almost like you were talking about two different countries not our own, because, you know, what was most important is that we relied on each other for our work, our friendship, psychological support, and also literally for our lives.

So, you know, I don't think that it is probably affecting their working relationship now as much as you might think.

BERMAN: And you would still trust the Russian cosmonauts with your lives? KELLY: Absolutely. I mean, they are professions. I've been up in

space with one of the Russian cosmonauts who is up there now, Anton Shkaplerov. And, you know, they are in many ways just like us and they're very, very professional. And no doubt I would -- I would be happy to return home like Mark Vande Hei is going to in a couple weeks in the Soyuz.

BERMAN: And you talked about something called, what is it, the oversight effect?

KELLY: Overview.

BERMAN: Overview effect. What is that?

KELLY: Well, you know, when you're off the Earth and you look at Planet Earth, it doesn't -- it looks a lot smaller thank you think. I mean, the atmosphere looks very fragile. But also you see countries without political borders and you realize there are people down there, you know, we are all really together in one big humanity.

And to solve big problems, we need to work together as a team.

BERMAN: So, you say you're backing off your feud with the guy, the Russian space agency for now, but you're not backing off speaking out about what's going on. You are using your voice, your unique voice, on social media.

You're fluent in Russian. You spent years training in Russian, or fluent enough. You're a better speaker than I am, let's put it that way.

KELLY: Maybe.

BERMAN: But you are tweeting in Russian.

KELLY: Yeah.

BERMAN: You've got family that's Ukrainian.

Why is it so important for you to speak out like this, what are you hoping to achieve?

KELLY: Well, you know, I wrote a book that was published in Russia. I have a big Russian following on Twitter of my -- you know, I don't know how many of the 5 million Twitter followers I have are Russian, but I -- there are a lot because I get responses when I tweet in Russian.

And my goal is just to get the message to Russian speakers in Russia and around the world about what is going on, the real news. Because what I'm getting now from them a lot of times is they -- you know, they send me Tucker Carlson videos that is -- are their argument on why they are righteous in this attack on Ukraine. And it just enrages me.

And if I have anyway to get the real message out, I'm going to do it. Because clearly, the Ukrainians are going to suffer the most in this case, right? But there are also a lot of Russian people, they don't have -- you know, they're not on the Russian side of this and they're going to suffer as well. And they are my friends.

BERMAN: How are they responding to you?

KELLY: Well, most of them are, you know, on the right side of this, some of them are on the wrong side. And I often get like they are sending me videos, hey, what about this? What about the Scott Ritter guy? What about Tucker Carlson, he is saying this and this is their evidence that this is a righteous war. And it just engages me.

So if I can get them the real information, I'm going to do it.

BERMAN: And finally, you sent back a medal.