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Luis Moreno Ocampo is Interviewed about War Crimes; Air Raid Sirens in Odessa; CNN's Update from Around the World; Steven Anderson is Interviewed about Ukraine. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 17, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:47]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: For the first time, President Biden called Vladimir Putin a war criminal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Is Putin a war criminal, sir? Are you ready to call Putin a war criminal?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, I -- I -- yes, I think he is a war criminal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The Kremlin responded to that charge just moments ago, calling it, quote, absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable, and pointing to the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

Joining me now is the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Look, targeting civilians is a war crime. I'm showing the theater in Mariupol right now, the one clearly marked children here. So targeting, killing civilians is a war crime. That much is clear.

Where it gets complicated is proving that someone ordered it, like Vladimir Putin in this case.

So, how does one go about proving that?

LUIS MORENO OCAMPO, FORMER CHIEF PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: Well, I think the main idea here is to protect these people, to avoid these killings. And to that we need a fast (ph) case. And I think the easy case and the possible case, to do it tomorrow, is to -- for both Ukraine, to see what are the people arrested, what are the Russian officers arrested were involved in these type of incident, and then these persons could go to ICC immediately and would be immediately prosecuted. So, (INAUDIBLE) showing the responsibility of a captain, a lieutenant, and then see what this person says and how it can escalate to define if this was a crime ordered by generals, by Putin himself. So, we need to obtain the evidence here. The court cannot intervene

with no evidence. And hat what the prosecutor is saying.

BERMAN: Who ordered you to bomb this theater, in other words, that's what you have to ask right now?

OCAMPO: You have to establish that, yes. Who is your -- who is your commanders? What were the plans? How will you analyze the civilian population? Because, you know, this happen also in wars. The U.S. bombed the Kuns (ph) hospital by mistake and then no one was investigated there.

So, we need to prove intention to kill civilians.

BERMAN: Yes. I mean how hard -- given what we're seeing across the entire nation of Ukraine here with apartment buildings targeted, theaters targeted, hospitals hit, I mean how hard would it be to prove a level of intentionality at the highest levels of the Russian government?

OCAMPO: That's a very good question. I think one crime that could be presented that involved the authorities is for displacement, because they should -- how to reach President Putin or the other leaders. OK, full displacement should -- could be that almost 2 million people displaced now, and full displacement is a war crime and it's also a crimes against humanity, both under the International Criminal Court.

So, how to reach Putin, maybe that's a solution. You focus on one small case about the (INAUDIBLE) of these type of killings, and the bigger case, showing the bigger picture, OK, this -- this attack produced a full displacement of 2 million people. That number of victims. And it's coordinated (ph) activities, not just a captain or a lieutenant. It's the top leaders doing this for displacement. That could be a different way to make real that these are -- these are war crimes and people are responsible for them.

BERMAN: Yes, it's 3 million at this point, 3 million displaced people, Ukrainians, who have fled the country.

OCAMPO: Yes. OK. Perfect.

BERMAN: President Biden called Vladimir Putin a war criminal. If Putin were to be convicted as a war criminal, what would that change for Putin going forward?

OCAMPO: Well, well, well, it's a long way to do it. No, but just the indictment of a president produce change. And -- but, look, in my time, we indicted President Bashir from Sudan.

[08:35:00]

He's now in jail. So it's not (ph) irrelevant.

The problem is how to do fast and how to integrate this measure, criminal investigations, with political solution. Because, at the end of the day, to find a solution for this, you need Russian authorities. And that's a point you have to remind -- remember. You need to have a final solution, including Russian authorities. And that, we can never forget.

But, that's why the (INAUDIBLE) solution will not be a solution here. You cannot be (INAUDIBLE) Russia (INAUDIBLE) so costly. So, what we can do is how to leverage the criminal investigation to transform the situation.

BERMAN: Look, it is worth thinking about as we hope this conflict ends soon and the Russians do leave Ukraine, how do you deal with a leader that you've called a war criminal in the future.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, we appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you so much.

OCAMPO: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, just in, air raid sirens sounding in Odessa, the key southern Ukrainian city right here on the coast. Nick Paton Walsh is there standing by. We're going to go to him live.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, more on our breaking news. Survivors are emerging right now from that theater in Mariupol, the one that was serving as a civilian shelter when it was bombed by Russian forces.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:15]

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. Air raid sirens heard in Odessa right on the Black Sea coast.

Our Nick Paton Walsh is there.

Nick, what are you hearing?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, John, as we've been hearing over the past days, this morning there was a burst of air raid sirens, adding to the growing sense and anxiety here about what may potentially come in the days ahead, exceptionally hard to, over the past weeks, work out precisely what is based on actual active intelligence and what Russian ships may be doing and what is based on the broad fear that if Russians is continually moving from the east along the Black Sea coast, this is eventually their target here.

A local official, interestingly, in the past hour or so, a military official, responding to images that were on social media here showing a number of ships on the horizon off the coast of Odessa, said, look, you may have seen these pictures. It's nothing to be concerned about. These are ships that are maneuvering. Essentially suggesting they might be Russian ships and that these maneuvers were designed to cause greater anxiety here in Odessa.

It really isn't quite clear what this feeds into in terms of Russian military strategies. The warnings are something have been growing over the past days and suggestions to -- from U.S. -- seemingly U.S. officials that there may be Russian ships maneuvering off the coast here too.

But, still, it feeds into a broader pattern of anxiety that all of the moves in the east along the Black Sea coast may essentially be culminating here in Odessa, where you see this normal, quite tourist street behind me that will be bustling this time of year, now full of tank trucks.

John.

BERMAN: Well, I was going to ask you about that, Nick. I mean that is a major street, a boulevard right there.

WALSH: Yes.

BERMAN: And it looks like Odessa is essentially at this point, you know, a defense bunker.

WALSH: Absolutely. Everywhere I look around here, and behind me (INAUDIBLE) the barricades here, there's huge stacks of ties, tank traps, these girders glued together as far as you can see, right the way up to another barricade over there, running past McDonald's, running past all the variety of shops that would normally be full of individuals here, too.

And I have to also say, since we've been talking, there has sort of been this crackle of small arms fire. And we've been hearing this on and off since we've been here. There may be some sort of training range but it's been quite persistent over the last 30 minutes to an hour or so. And it just adds to that general sense of anxiety certainly that we've been hearing, John.

BERMAN: All right, Nick Paton Walsh for us on the streets of Odessa right now preparing for the possibility of an invasion.

Nick, please stay safe.

So, a mayor held captive for days by Russian forces now free. New details on how Ukraine secured his release.

KEILAR: And Ukrainian civilians protesting the detainment of a different mayor, getting teargassed by Russian troops. We are live on the ground in Ukraine, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:10]

BERMAN: All right, we have this new video just into CNN from Kyiv. Look at this. This is just remarkable drone footage. This is a residential building. You can see these rescue crews piecing through the rubble, trying to work through the rubble from this air strike in one of these residential structures. These several that have been hit in central Kyiv over the last few days. Whatever hit that just removed a whole section of the top of the building there.

The work they're doing, picking through pieces, I imagine looking for any signs of people. Hopefully, everyone was able to get out of that building there.

KEILAR: Yes, this is the painstaking work too they're also doing in places like Mariupol, right, where they have to go piece by piece to get the rubble out and see if they can find survivors in some of these strikes that we're seeing.

The mayor of Melitopol, Ukraine, is now free after being kidnapped by Russian forces and held captive for five days. Officials say that his release we secured in exchange for nine Russian soldiers in a prisoner swap.

CNN's reporters are covering the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Sam Kiley in Kyiv, where President Zelenskyy enjoyed a brief glimmer of optimism, and even joy, today, when he spoke with Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, who about a week ago had been abducted by Russian troops when they overran his city. He disappeared and very quickly was able to be released as a result of a special forces operation conducted by the Ukrainian armed forces. He was able to speak by video call with his president, who welcomed him back into the fold and said, after he'd been asked for two days, that's because the mayor had a lot of work to do. He was a young man and he'd only have one day before he had to get back and get on with his job.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jim Bittermann in France, where a Russian blogger and influencer who reportedly spends most of her time here, has caught the attention of Russian authorities. She is Veronika Belotserkovskaya (ph), who has over 900,000 followers on Instagram. A frequent critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a criminal case has been opened against her for, quote, spreading fake information. And perhaps she is one of the people Russian President Vladimir Putin had in mind in his speech Wednesday when he accused his critics of being national traitors who cannot live, quote, without oysters and gender freedom.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Steven Jiang in Beijing.

Some interesting remarks have emerged from the Chinese ambassador in Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian authorities, during a meeting in Lviv earlier this week, the ambassador pledged China's support for Ukraine, both politically and economically, even praising the Ukrainian people's unity and strength during the war.

[08:50:07]

The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday voiced Beijing's support for the ambassador's comments, but appears these remarks have not been reported by Chinese state-run media, which has been largely parroting Russia's talking points since the invasion began.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: The Biden administration planning to send specialized switch blade drones to Ukraine. So how much could these change the situation on the ground?

BERMAN: And Ukrainian officials say their forces are beginning to counter strike against the Russians, blowing up Russian military vehicles. More of our breaking developments right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: President Biden announcing $800 million in military aid to Ukraine. And that includes a variety of weapons, like missiles, artillery, guns, drones and other supplies.

[08:55:05]

Joining me now is retired Army General Steven Anderson.

Can you just give us a sense of what we're looking at today?

BRIG. GEN. STEVEN ANDERSON, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED): Well, Brianna, three weeks ago Vladimir Putin wanted a blitzkrieg, and what he got was a sitzkrieg. And that's what we're looking at right now. We're seeing positions have been essentially occupied now for a couple of weeks. They're not making any significant progress. What they're trying to do is bring artillery into the game.

So, what they want is to bring systems like this down to Kyiv, thousands of them if they can, to rain havoc upon the people of Kyiv.

Now, we've already seen a lot of air strikes, but imagine if we get a massed artillery presence there, their ability to shoot artillery into this area. Some of their systems have a 35-mile range.

KEILAR: Some of the Russian systems?

ANDERSON: Some of the Russian systems and go all the way -- so they can cover the essential -- the entire city. The positions they occupy right now are essentially in this area and this area.

Now, the Achilles heel of artillery, of course, is ammunition and fuel. They need fuel to move. They need ammunition to resupply. Some of their bigger systems only have eight rounds in their basic load. So they need constant resupply.

So, the Russians are going to try to do everything they can to resupply, to including a rail line that's in this area, coming into the Antonov Airport, and another one down this quarter to occupy these positions. They need to do that.

Now, in order to essentially do their ultimate objective, which would be to surround Kyiv, they would have to conduct offensive operations probably about 60 miles all the way around the linkup to the units on the other side. That is a formidable task. They have fuel requirements of at least 200 fuel tankers a day to conduct normal offensive operations.

So, they're going to use this strategy to try to attack the will of the Ukraine people. And I got news for Vladimir Putin, it's not going to work.

KEILAR: It's not going to work.

All right, so tell us a little bit more about this S-300. What do we need to know?

ANDERSON: The S-300 is significant. President Zelenskyy has asked for these. Slovakians are willing to give up these systems. What does this provide the Ukrainians? Right now all they have is stinger missiles. Stingers go to about 5,000 feet. This provides high altitude air defense artillery coverage up to 82,000 feet.

So now those fighters that are coming out into the west, to attack the supply routes, are vulnerable. The big Antonov 124 resupply cargo planes that they want to put into the Antonov Airport and the Bosbal (ph) Airport, they would be vulnerable. This is a tremendous capability. Zelenskyy wants a no-fly zone. This is his no-fly zone.

KEILAR: Instead of jets flying, this would actually create it for him?

ANDERSON: Absolutely. The same effect with much less risk.

KEILAR: OK. So, let's talk about these switchblade drones because they're small, they're cheap. This is important. Are there enough?

ANDERSON: This is -- no. They've -- in the initial package is 100. They're probably going to need at least ten times that. The tent of this capability is to be used in swarms. One hundred won't be but maybe three or four swarms.

But the advantage of this is, it's tube launched from the ground, 120 pounds carried by a single person and it's got a range of 40 miles. And it can hover over a target for 20 minutes. So, it's essentially a kamikaze drone, it sights its target, it locks its target and it essentially flies itself into the target. Tremendous, tremendous capability, particularly against that artillery I talked about earlier, and, of course, all the mechanized assets that they're trying to use to encircle Kyiv.

KEILAR: What would -- what would it swarm? What would the target be and how would you let off multiple at once?

ANDERSON: Well, what you do is you'd launch them and then they could loiter. They would lay -- they would essentially be circling in the air, waiting for the target. And then let's say an artillery battery fires a barrage, now you've got spotter drones that have detected these fires, essentially counterbattery, and we take these offensive drones and essentially seek those targets that just were identified, tremendous capability. This is a way to essentially take the Ukrainians from the defensive posture to an offensive posture?

KEILAR: How quickly can they get them more?

ANDERSON: Well, we'll have to see how that plays out, but I know that the United States industrial -- military industrial complex is ready to meet this challenge. We need to push as many as we can. One hundred is not enough. At least a thousand.

KEILAR: So is your saying that Zelenskyy wants a no-fly zone, all of these things essentially operate together, in your opinion, to create one?

ANDERSON: Absolutely. He does not -- he does not need MiG-29s. He needs these systems.

KEILAR: Very interesting.

General, thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking us through the supply as well.

[09:00:00]

You're a logistics man, and this is incredibly important. We've see what happens when you don't have good logistics.

ANDERSON: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Thank you very much.

ANDERSON: Thank you. Thank you very much, Brianna.

KEILAR: And CNN's coverage continues right now.