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Some Towns in Ukraine Have Only 3-4 Days' Worth of Food Left; Biden Plans Sanctions on Russian Lawmakers Amid NATO Trip; Moderna Announces Results of Vaccine for Children Under 6. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 23, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

DMITRY PESKOV, KREMLIN SPOKESPERSON: There were purposes, that were established beforehand, and also to ensure that Ukraine acknowledges, acknowledges the fact that Crimea is also an untakable part of Russia, and that People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk are already independent states that Ukraine actually has lost them after the coup that happened in 2014.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: So, you see, Brianna, they are sticking with the maximalist demands, one of the most difficult for the international community and of course, for Ukraine would be to accept the legitimacy of what is an illegitimate and unrecognized occupation of Crimea and those parts of eastern Ukraine.

He added the other pieces of their demands, which were demilitarized Ukraine and a non-NATO Ukraine. Well, as you know, President Zelenskyy has already said several times that he knows NATO is not an option for Ukraine at this moment. But the, you know, what I was trying to get from him is, is there any way the Russians can figure out a way to claim victory and go home? And he gave me exactly the opposite answer that they were going to continue. And as you know, what they're doing right now, because of a stalled ground offensive is increasingly hitting civilian targets, with long range artillery and other bombardments.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, pretty fascinating that he told you, it's going strictly in accordance with the plans when clearly, it is not. But I know, Christiane, that you also just spoke with the European Council President, can you tell us what you learned?

AMANPOUR: Yes, indeed, well, interestingly, this is an extraordinary summit by which they hold of the E.U., the 27 members invite as their exclusive guest, President Biden of the United States, that is a rarity, it hasn't happened. And it's a big deal for them here. And it happens at this time, when the West, E.U. and the United States, NATO is showing a very solid wall of unity, and up until now, very, very intense punishment towards Vladimir Putin.

And he said that that is their aim to keep up the pain on Putin. And at the same time, make sure that Ukraine gets all the kind of defensive and other weapons that it needs the lethal aid to resist. And Michel said to me, that it's clear that on every level, Putin seems to have miscalculated what he discovered in Ukraine and amongst the alliance. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES MICHEL, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COUNCIL: Probably they thought that the E.U. would be immediately divided, the two would not be able to take united decisions, this was also a mistake, probably, they would have thought that the United States and the E.U., we would not be able to be exactly on the same page and to and to strengthen this alliance, it means that what's important, we must make sure that Putin will be defeated, it must be the common goal. This is a question of security for the future of Europe and for the future of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So you see, that is a very, very strong statement. It's not let's, you know, let's try to come to some kind of negotiated ceasefire that leaves things kind of muddled. He actually said it's imperative that Putin be defeated, because the very security of the world depends on that. And it is about Ukraine, but it's about much more than that. And I think that is a very important statement to come from the President of the European Council, that that is what they want to see. And of course, that will depend on how much and whether they get enough weapons to Ukraine in time to make them very, very useful and to keep holding off the Russian ground defensive.

KEILAR: Yeah. And circling back on your other interview, if that would be an existential threat to Vladimir Putin. Christiane, thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

KEILAR: Any minute now, President Biden will leave the White House on his way to Brussels for a high stakes meeting with NATO officials. We are live in Belgium ahead.

Plus, there are some estimations that some towns in Eastern Ukraine only having three to four days of food left. We're going to talk to a member of Ukraine's parliament next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:22]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, I'm John Berman in Lviv. Some towns in Ukraine don't have more than three to four days' worth of food. That's according to Mercy Corps. They also advise a 70% of the people in cities like Kharkiv and Sumi are entirely dependent now on humanitarian aid.

I want to bring in Maria Mezentseva. She's a member of Ukraine's parliament in the Head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Council of Europe. Thank you so much for being with us. How dire is the food situation? MARIA MEZENTSEVA, MEMBER OF UKRAINE PARLIAMENT: Good afternoon from the Capitol. I would like to say that, indeed, several cities are severely after the severe bombard things which are ongoing day and night regardless of the time of the day. We're trapped, as well as the people in this uncomfortable, unhumans scenario of the Russian army to show that it's them to sort of whether people will be evacuated, whether people will be receiving drinking water, food, medication, unnecessary first aid kits, et cetera. But nevertheless, the ministry of the temporary occupied territories together with the president's office and local authorities are doing everything possible in this very, very harsh and unprecedented circumstances to firstly, continue the evacuation of vulnerable people, women, children and disabled persons, of course focusing on the agreed roots which everyday agreed upon and then breached by the breach of the ceasefire, or, you know, the shellings and the shootings in this very directions, in this very corridors.

[08:40:17]

As a representative of Kharkiv where my constituency is in the heart of Kharkiv City, I can confirm that my chin on the ground continuing doing the deliveries at very, you know, whenever it's possible to the people and more than already six -- more than 600 block houses were destroyed.

Nevertheless, we are doing our best on the ground to show that no one will follow the -- well, what I've been hearing before from the speaker that, you know, we should forget about the occupied territories of so called Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea. Ukrainians will never do so same as the president, I think the liberation mode is in full swing. And once we will liberate those territories that are now under the threat, we will continue going to the east to Donbass and to the south to Crimea.

For sure the plan set (ph) or whichever Putin is calling it for Ukraine, neither Plan A nor B nor C, were fully fulfilled. It's very important to understand that this high official meetings of the President Biden's presence and the joint efforts of our allies in U.S., in Europe have to be now in one -- let's say, vision, because what we've been taken from our trips to London and Strasbourg recently, that there might be a second layer of sanctions. But our Western partners, the United West has to speak with one voice. We're calling on more humanitarian aid. And for this purpose, we've created a special platform called Women for Peace, which unites now, 46 member states of the Council of Europe, well, Russia is out now. So we're 46. And, of course, we're we have launched several, at several occasions yesterday, and then another initiative in the European Parliament, where the (inaudible) in U.S. is doing their best delivering this, you know, very concrete lists of the humanitarian aid needs.

But most importantly, right now is to equip us with the needed weapons on anti-missile of the long range stuff. And, you know, we will not talk about it very, very discreetly in the air, but we -- once we have it, please trust us, we might even create the no fly zone ourselves, even though we keep on calling for it because the 15 -- the 15, I'm with you. The 15 nuclear power plants reactors are still there. If Putin hates them accidentally, please believe us, it's going to be a repetition of Chernobyl multiplied by 15.

BERMAN: Maria Mezentseva, thank you so much for your words. I appreciate you joining us this morning.

MEZENTSEVA: Thank you very much. Thank you.

BERMAN: President Biden set to depart to the White House for Joint Base Andrews very shortly as he prepares to meet with NATO leaders. He will travel to Brussels today.

Plus, as the war intensifies here in Ukraine, CNN goes to a graveyard and walk holding the bodies of Russian soldiers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:57]

BERMAN: Any minute from now, President Biden will leave for his high stakes trip to Brussels to attend meetings with NATO and European allies. The President now traveling without White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki who tested positive for coronavirus, again. President Biden will also have an important stuff in Poland. CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Chief White House Correspondent live at E.U. headquarters in Brussels with the latest, a big few days, Kaitlan.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A very critical few days for the President, John. And we should note he is speaking to reporters right now as he is leaving the White House, obviously previewing these very critical days ahead of him. We will let you know what he says as soon as we get the video from the White House.

But this comes is very urgent talks for President Biden are awaiting him here in Brussels. He's got a full day of meetings once he arrives on the ground. And, of course, a lot of those meetings are going to revolve around other efforts that they are taking to punish Putin for this Russian invasion of Ukraine, what they plan to do to try to deter him further. And we are told that before the President left to go on this trip that the Pentagon did give the White House options for potentially increasing the U.S. troop presence here in NATO countries. Of course, you've seen them do that alongside that Eastern flank near Russia, near Ukraine as this invasion has continued.

And so it remains far from clear what the President will decide. Obviously, that is going to be something that he's discussing with allies here on the ground, though, we are told NATO leaders are expected to increase the NATO force posture though it remains to be seen what exactly that looks like.

We do also know that while he's here on the ground, John, he is going to announce that they are sanctioning hundreds of Russian lawmakers members of that lower house of parliament in Russia as a response to this. That is something that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has called for multiple times. But how President Biden navigates this challenge of balancing this effort, competing efforts, I guess, or competing ideas and perspectives among NATO allies when it comes to whether or not they should close the skies over Ukraine, something that the White House and the Pentagon have ruled out as a non-starter or whether they should add more fighter jets to the Ukrainian Air Force and help provide those. That is something that is also expected to come up while President Biden is here on the ground having, this full day of meetings, John, which we should know comes as the White House is saying that there is not an end to this war anytime soon. I think it is not going to be rapid, it is not going to be easy, just really noting the difficult road that they still believe is the head of Ukraine.

[08:50:19]

BERMAN: Kaitlan Collins in Brussels, I know you and CNN will be covering every step of this crucial trip. So thank you so much, Kaitlan.

Breaking news, Moderna just released the interim results of its COVID- 19 vaccine for children younger than six. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next with the findings.

Plus, people in Odessa preparing to defend their city with the help of Bon Jovi. We'll tell you how the rock star is helping out, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:55:05]

KEILAR: We do have breaking news, Moderna just released the interim results for their COVID vaccine trials on kids under six years old. So let's bring in CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. OK. Sanjay, help us break down this data, if you will.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, you know, when they do these trials, especially in kids, the first thing they look at when they give these vaccines, they see if the people are producing enough of these neutralizing antibodies. And that was sort of the first indication that they were and that it was something that they wanted to continue to test. This vaccine was tested in the middle of this Omicron wave. So then they looked at basically how well does it protect, again, and children under the age of six, how well does it protect against symptomatic infection?

And I could show you basically, what they found here was that in -- when you look at these numbers, keep in mind, they're not going to be similar to what we saw at the beginning of the vaccine rollout, Brianna, you know, we heard numbers in the 90% range, but 43.7% for six months to two years, and two years to just under 637.5%. That was against symptomatic infection. So the kids producing neutralizing antibodies and having protection that is similar to what adults get against Omicron as well with the same vaccines.

Omicron just seems to evade the vaccine protection, more so than, you know, some of the earlier variants, Brianna. One thing to point out is that obviously, safety studies are part of this as well. There weren't a lot of side effects, most of the side effects occurred after the second dose. But importantly, there weren't any reports of myocarditis, pericarditis, some of the things that have been concerns and people in their late teens and early 20s. So good news there, it now goes to the FDA for possible emergency use authorization.

KEILAR: Can you do a Moderna versus Pfizer? And I say that because having looked at Pfizer, it looked like there was a better response for the younger kids in this age group than the older kids in this age group?

GUPTA: Yeah, this is really interesting. I remember you and I talking about this, Brianna, when Pfizer first released some of this data. So it was interesting. What they found was exactly as you said, with the Pfizer vaccine under the age of two, children did seem to produce a lot of neutralizing antibodies on par with what adults produce as well with the vaccine. It was really the two to two five age group where they really weren't getting much of a response there.

Now, I do want to show you there is a difference in the dosing of these vaccines. You know, people may not pay as close attention to this, but like flu vaccine, adult, those kid doses, they're the same. With the COVID vaccines, they are different, and they are even different between Pfizer and Moderna. So Pfizer's vaccine, for example, three micrograms, adult dosing is 30 micrograms. So it's a 10th of dose with the Moderna vaccines 25 micrograms, whereas adults is 100 micrograms. So it's a quarter the dose. Where Pfizer stands, Brianna, is that they're basically saying, look, the two doses wasn't enough, go try a third dose, add a third dose into this -- to this protocol, and see what that generates in terms of antibodies and protection. And we'll probably see some of that data, you know, mid end of April.

KEILAR: Real quick, when do you think interested party here, mother of a three, almost four year old, when?

GUPTA: I know. Well, you know, I mean that the process can move along quickly if the FDA decides that this is something that they're going to authorize, so it could be within the next few weeks, you know, but I know, Brianna, I've been thinking about you. But as things stand now, there really isn't the vaccine available for children under the age of five, you got Pfizer vaccine available up until five to 18. And then after that you have lots of choices, but it is that critical age group and I would say within the next few weeks or month or so we're going to have more -- I don't know if it'll be officially authorized but we'll certainly have a lot of momentum one way or the other.

KEILAR: Very good to note. All right, Sanjay, thank you so much.

The people of Odessa banding together to defend their city against Russian forces yesterday by jamming out to a Bon Jovi classic. This video showing young Ukrainian men and women stacking bags of sand along the shore is rocking out there as a drummer is playing along to, It's My Life and the Ukrainian flag is waving overhead.

(MUSIC)

KEILAR: Jon Bon Jovi himself retweeted that video with the song lyrics this is for the ones who stood their ground. And CNN's coverage continues right now.

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