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Russian Military Forces Continue Invasion of Ukraine; Video Released Showing Inside Mariupol Theater Bombed by Russian Forces with Hundreds of Ukrainians Inside; President Biden Speaks at NATO Summit; Ukrainian Forces Claim Success in Counteroffensive against Russian Forces; Biden: Russia Should be Removed from G20; Four Russian Operatives Indicted for Hacking Global Energy Facilities; Ukrainian Crew Member Tried to Sink Yacht Tied to Russian Oligarch. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired March 25, 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]

NIKITA KLEYMENOV, RUSSIAN-SPEAKING UKRAINIAN: Yes, if ever protection or help to Russian-speaking population in Ukraine was ever really a goal for Putin, they're doing a very bad job at it.

On a personal level, I have two children. My older, my son was born before 2014. So even though my wife and all of her relatives are speaking Ukrainian, and he is going to Ukrainian school, I always made sure that he knows Russian, that he understands Russian. I speak to him in Russian at home.

My daughter, my younger child, was born in 2014, after the attack. And I made the conscious decision that I will speak in Ukrainian with her. So even at home I speak Russian to my son, but I speak Ukrainian mostly to my daughter because I was kind of -- I was not proud anymore. I was kind of ashamed that the country that represents the culture which I am from by blood, or by heritage, is doing such things.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think that feeling is shared by other Russian speakers here?

KLEYMENOV: Oh, yes. People of my generation, I don't know anyone who supports what the Russian government is doing. Everybody is appalled, or some are angry. I personally felt betrayed in 2014, like, my own people stuck me in the back.

BERMAN: It just sounds like if Putin ever really wanted that, it's backfired.

KLEYMENOV: Exactly. They only made things many times worse, because before, before 2014, you could get, I don't know, an occasional bar brow between Russian speaking and Ukrainian speaking, like once a year maybe. Now everybody just is appalled by what Russia is doing, and everybody is trying to distance themselves.

BERMAN: The irony is he's unified Ukraine in a way that maybe it wasn't before.

KLEYMENOV: I agree completely. I've never seen Ukraine as united as it was -- as it is today.

BERMAN: Your wife is part of the territorial defense force?

KLEYMENOV: Yes. So in the first three days after the invasion, the end of February, she just got up, took her documents, got my approval, and just went to volunteer and to join the territorial defense force. And now she is a combat medic with a platoon of our soldiers.

BERMAN: How do you feel about that?

KLEYMENOV: I am worried about her. That's number one. But I am proud.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BERMAN (on camera): And NEW DAY continues right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, March 25th. I'm John Berman in Lviv, in western Ukraine, Brianna Keilar in Washington.

We do begin with breaking news. The first video from inside the Mariupol theater, a building bombed by Russian forces with hundreds of Ukrainians hiding inside. You're looking here at the aftermath. The theater was just packed, packed with people trying to get out. Dozens there covered in debris. In this clip right here, a Ukrainian man can be heard saying there are many people under the rubble, and that the air strike was right in the center of the drama theater where people came to get some water.

Remember, the word "children" was actually spelled out on both sides of the building, clearly visible from the sky. Hundreds were killed anyway. And it's unclear now how many people were trapped inside the theater during the time of the attack.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: There was intense fighting overnight in several parts of Ukraine with Ukrainian forces making gains east of the capital. In one town 35 miles east of Kyiv, a Ukrainian soldier talks about the destruction of three Russian tanks and nine infantry fighting vehicles. He calls them trophies. The U.K.'s Ministry of Defense confirming that Ukrainian forces have been able to retake towns and defensive positions up to 21 miles east of Kyiv, which is significant.

And also breaking overnight, Russia's defense ministry claims its forces destroyed the largest of the remaining fuel depots in Ukraine near Kyiv, using caliber cruise missiles fired from the sea. You can see actually here fire. You can see the huge plume of black smoke. No word on injuries.

BERMAN: All right, let's start with this right here, this new picture we're just seeing for the first time, the destruction, the Russians say, of this fuel depot. I'm joined by CNN's Phil Black. Phil?

[08:05:01]

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can see from these pictures, it appears to have created a significant smoke column. This is just on the outskirts of Kyiv. The Russians say they did this with a cruise missile fired from one of their naval vessels. It happened overnight. If so, then it is more evidence of the power and the accuracy and range of these weapons that they're being firing from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and that's what they can bring to bear in this war against the Ukrainians.

BERMAN: So again, shows what the Russians can do. Not far, though, from where the Ukrainians say that they are having some success in part of their counteroffensive missions.

BLACK: Yes, and there's good reason to believe this is true. We've been hearing from the British and U.S. defense officials in recent days. We now have video ourselves from social media video that has been put on by Ukrainian soldiers who are clearly very happy, celebrating in the aftermath of a battle to the east of Ukraine. We have geolocated this video to about 35 miles east. And it shows them showing off what they call trophies. These are Russian tanks, damaged, destroyed. Some of them still appear to be in working order. And you can hear them saying that the operation has been an absolute success. They have knocked out the enemy.

BERMAN: We also today now for the first time see the aftermath of the Russian attack on that theater in Mariupol, where there may have been more than 1,000 people sheltering. We learned at least 300 people dead, but this video is devastating.

BLACK: It's eerie video, isn't it? You see people covered in dust, very slowly, quietly making their way out of this theater just moments after this strike has taken place. Remember, this incident, it was back on March 16th, this is one of the incidents that was cited by the U.S. government when it made its formal assessment of war crimes being committed here by Russian forces just a few days ago.

Around 1,000, perhaps more were estimated to have been in there sheltering, seeking aid. We still don't know precisely how many were there. We still don't know precisely how many were killed. But the latest estimate from Mariupol city council today says that based on witness reports, they think at least 300 people did not leave that theater alive.

BERMAN: So sad. I managed to speak it a woman who did get out of Mariupol just a few minutes ago, and she told me no one can save Mariupol now.

BLACK: There is very little left to save. The images we see there every day are increasingly shocking.

BERMAN: Phil Black, thank you for being here with us.

Brianna? KEILAR: We are awaiting President Biden's arrival in Poland where he

is expected to observe firsthand the scale of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. CNN's Wolf Blitzer is there. He is live in Warsaw with more. Tell us what we should be expecting here, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: The president of the United States will be arriving fairly soon in Poland. He's going to be eventually showing up in the capital of Warsaw where I am right now. But first, he's going to stop off in it a city called Rzeszow about 60 miles or so from the Ukrainian border. He's going to get a full briefing on the enormous humanitarian crisis that has unfolded as the result of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine more than a month ago.

As you know, Brianna, more than 3.5 million Ukrainians have now fled the country, more than 2 million of them, maybe as many as 2.3 million have come here to Poland. And they are beginning a new life. They hope it's not going to necessarily last all that long, but no one knows. And clearly there is a lot of concern.

On top of all of that, the Poles are very nervous about what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, which borders Poland, of course. Poland, unlike Ukraine, is a NATO ally. So if war were to spill over into Poland, it would certainly impact all of the 29 other NATO allies, including the United States. And that's one of the reasons why the U.S. and other NATO allies have been beefing up the military presence in eastern Europe, especially along these NATO alliance countries like Poland, for example.

In recent weeks, 20,000 U.S. and NATO troops in eastern Europe, that number has doubled to 40,000, more than 100,000 U.S. troops are now based in Europe along the NATO alliance. So the president wants to make a point of meeting with members of the 82nd Airborne division who have been deployed, the U.S. says temporarily to this area, although the word "temporarily" could mean anything. It could be a few more weeks, a few more months, even years down the road. It depends of what is going to happen in Ukraine.

But based on my conversations, Brianna, with senior Polish officials back in Washington, as well as in Brussels where I was yesterday at the NATO summit, there is a lot of concern. Polish officials are worried about what the Russian intentions might be, and they're worried this war could clearly spill over into Poland. So they're trying to prevent that. But that's a serious problem.

KEILAR: It certainly is. Wolf, thank you so much. Wolf Blitzer, of course, live for us from Warsaw.

BERMAN: Joining me now is the former Ukrainian Ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba. Mr. America, thank you so much for being with us. If I can, before we talk about NATO or diplomacy, I just want your reaction to the new pictures we're seeing today from Mariupol.

[08:10:01]

We're getting our first look inside that theater where more than 1,000 people were sheltering. We're now being told at least 300 people were killed. And the pictures are just devastating to see the people suffering inside. Your reaction?

OLEXANDER SCHERBA, FORMER UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRIA: When I saw these pictures, I had to think of 9/11. It's just -- 9/11 is lasting a month for us, maybe longer. It's absolutely incredible. And the stories that you hear from Mariupol about kids sitting on the street, small kids with both parents lying dead by their sides, and being just picked up by strangers, it's just unbelievable.

BERMAN: I spoke to a woman, a college student, who did manage to escape about five days ago from Mariupol. And she told me that no one can save Mariupol now. Is she right?

SCHERBA: Well, as Mariupol mayor said, I think yesterday, the course of action should be evacuating people, and then de-occupying it, because right now it looks like the main military forces of Ukraine are distance, and there is around 100 kilometers between them, which between the main forces and Mariupol, which makes it really impossible for the troops to cross this empty space and not to be hit from the air. So they are on the other side there are troops in Donbas that are fighting, so we cannot drop one city to save another. So this is how it looks now. They are on their own, and there is only one hope that the civilians, somehow, would be allowed to escape.

BERMAN: Mr. Ambassador, you're a diplomat. You spent your life in diplomacy, and there is this unprecedented meeting over the last couple of days in Brussels, NATO, European Union, the G7, everyone getting together and talking about Ukraine and how to help. What kind of a difference do you think what has just happened will make here in your country?

SCHERBA: First of all, every sign of support counts, beginning from the war, and most importantly, of course, just the sign of unity on the side of the west, NATO, the readiness to help, a, with weapons, b, with humanitarian help counts incredibly. It means a lot. We understand that, unfortunately, the west isn't courageous enough at this point and wasn't courageous enough through this whole conflict to close the skies over Ukraine or Mariupol, over these people in Mariupol who are being destroyed, and in plain sight of the world. But if you give us the air defense, the modern air defense, cruise missiles, if you impose oil embargo on Russia, and if you impose international ports for Russian vessels, that would be it for the Russian economy, that would be it for the aggressor.

BERMAN: Ambassador Olexander Scherba, thank you for taking the time, as always. Be safe.

SCHERBA: Thank you.

KEILAR: Joining us now, CNN national security analyst Beth Sanner, she is the former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and CNN military analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark. Beth, how did you think this summit went?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I think it went as well as it could have possibly have gone. It really did show genuine unity. But I think that we are now kind of at a new point, and the challenges are going to increase against the strains on that unity. It is going to get harder.

KEILAR: General, what did you think?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Well, I thought it was great to see the president over there. I thought his trip was really important. I thought the things he said were perfect. But, as Beth said, we're going to have problems, because actually underneath this, there are differing national interests, differing national perspectives. One issue is cutting off oil. Another is how much assistance we can give to Ukraine.

A third would probably be things we can't know about right now, which would be the response. Should Russia use weapons of mass destruction like chemicals or nuclear? So there are some real issues behind this. And Ukrainians are still begging for more assistance, military systems. They're at a critical phase in their battle. So lots of issues ahead.

KEILAR: Well, General, let's talk about -- you said, NATO is prepping for a WMD attack, right? They have mobilized their defense, when it comes to chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological attacks. What does that tell you? What are your worries?

CLARK: Well, we've got we've got specific indicators, obviously, and warnings about possible Russian use of these weapons. And they're always used in Russian exercises, usually, it's a nuclear weapon. And usually, it's used on Poland, as a way of telling NATO to back off and leave Russia alone and let it finish its job. So in scenario after scenario, this is a sort of escalate to deescalate strategy that the Russians use. So naturally, NATO has to think through this. This is one of the factors that has caused NATO to be hesitant to send the MiGs over and do other things. We don't want to provoke this.

But the truth is, Brianna, Putin is going to use chemical weapons or nuclear weapons, whenever it's in his interest, and blame us no matter what we do. So we have to think our way through this. This is a really serious issue for the alliance right now. Because our best hope moving forward is to strengthen Ukraine's ability to push those Russian forces out of Ukraine.

KEILAR: We heard from the Russian Ambassador to Indonesia, Beth, that Putin -- he still wants a seat at the table at the G20 in November in Indonesia. Biden has now said that Russia should go from the G20. What do you see happening here?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think this is going to be a real challenge, a really complicated issue. When you look down the nations, 20 nations who belong, I see about half of them being very, very reluctant to push Russia out. These range from India, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and of course, China and Russia, I'm missing a few. But I counted about 10 last night when I was thinking about, you know, how is this going to work out? And there really are no mechanisms within G20. It's a very loose organization, it doesn't have a lot of rules. And so this is going to be a real diplomatic challenge. And I think that the Western nations may end up having to kind of challenge.

KEILAR: Meaning, what does that look like? I mean, what does the U.S. do if they don't think Russia should be in the G20 and Russia is going to the G20?

SANNER: The decision is going to have to be made about whether to show up and sit across the table from somebody who is seen as a war criminal. And I don't know whether the ICC is going to be able to get, you know, that would be record lightning speed for them to get an indictment for Putin by November but --

KEILAR: To settle the issue, right?

SANNER: To settle the issue, but I think it's going to be out there.

KEILAR: Very interesting. OK. General Clark, I do -- I did want to ask you, we've learned the top Pentagon officials have not spoken with their counterparts in Russia, there is still this deconfliction line, right? We know that. But how unusual, how concerning is this?

CLARK: Well, actually, this is not that surprising when I was a commander in Kosovo, and we were doing the air campaign against the Serbs who had Russian advice, they served military, wouldn't speak to me or the folks in Washington either once a campaign started. So these generals are under extreme pressure from their internal security organizations. They're not going to take any chances of being accused of collaborating with the West.

And in addition, they're busy, they don't want to be influenced. They've got their marching orders. And it's just simply a fact that they would view the call from the U.S. military leadership as a hostile act designed to deter or impede Russian efforts. We view it differently. We say this is -- this could help us in the war. But, of course, Mr. Putin doesn't want to end that war except on his terms. And we don't -- we can imagine what those are. And they involve more use of the military and so forth.

So this Russian military is -- they're having a hard time right now. They're under tremendous pressure. They've performed poorly. The generals aren't doing well. The troops aren't doing well and I'm sure Mr. Putin is getting ready to sack more people in Moscow. That's the way it works there.

KEILAR: Yeah, we really have -- his defense secretary or the equivalent right has been conspicuously absent really interesting. General and Beth thank you to both you.

CLARK: Thank you.

[08:20:00]

KEILAR: Four Russians were just indicted for a series of hacking campaigns and the DOJ says they targeted hundreds of energy companies around the world over the last decade. We have the details. Plus, a Ukrainian man telling CNN he tried to sink the yacht he worked on because the vessel had ties to a Russian oligarch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The Justice Department says four Russian government operatives have been indicted for allegedly hacking hundreds of energy companies in countries around the world, including here in the U.S. CNN's Sean Lyngaas is joining us now with details. This is really interesting, tell us about what they've been indicted for, but also about the timing here?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Brianna, the timing is uncanny. Because as you know, U.S. government officials have been warning for months about possible retaliatory cyber-attacks from Russia in light of the Ukraine situation. The U.S. sanctions on Russian officials and the sanctions are beginning to bite. They've been doing these classified briefings with critical infrastructure companies, including energy firms about the threat and then just yesterday, the Justice Department unsealed two indictments for hacking that occurred in between 2012 and 2018. So a while ago, but they're basically saying we're probably not going to be able to get these four Russian men in a courtroom, three of which are intelligence officers for the FSB intelligence agency. But we're going to try to warn us businesses about what they're doing, what they could be doing in the future and they're trying to say to the Kremlin, we see you.

[08:25:12]

The Justice Department does this periodically, quite often to try to deliver sort of a shot across the bow of Chinese, Russian, Iranian hackers, whether it actually delivers that message, it's hard to say, I mean, they're going to continue to hack. But right now, with this indictment, we have a real clear picture of some troubling activity that occurred over the last several leaders. One was an emergency shutdown of a petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia in 2017, that one of the men indicted yesterday was accused of using malicious code to trigger that shutdown. He then allegedly tried to hack a U.S. energy firm in 2018 to do perhaps, to experiment with that sort of thing as well. But he was unsuccessful, according the Justice Department. So it's a huge warning to U.S. critical infrastructure right now, at a time of unprecedented tensions between Russia and the U.S.

KEILAR: Yeah, unsuccessful on one case, but they can just keep trying and other situations. And maybe they get through with one and some other energy company in the U.S., these two hacking groups that have been highlighted here and these indictments, what makes them a unique concern to U.S. officials?

LYNGAAS: Sure, great question. I mean, one of them, is what U.S. officials worry about in terms of what they call prepositioning where they gain a foothold into critical infrastructure over the years. They don't necessarily do anything with it. They're kind of lurking there, as they did with U.S. electric utilities, a few years ago. But in the event of tensions of escalating conflict, like we have right now, the concern is they would sort of activate that access and perhaps do something to disrupt critical infrastructure.

And like I mentioned with the other group, there was the shutdown of the of the Saudi Arabia facility. So these are unique hacking groups that are able to cause disruptions to industrial systems. The good news is that critical infrastructure firms in the U.S. had been drilling for this sort of thing for years, and they are very well aware of this activity as our DOE officials, that Department of Energy officials and others. So there's an awareness, but this indictment really highlights what's at stake here, Brianna.

KEILAR: Certainly does. Sean, thank you so much for detailing for us. I appreciate it. Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a CNN exclusive, a Ukrainian crew member on a yacht tied to a Russian oligarch is revealing how he tried to sink the ship, when Vladimir Putin forces invaded his country. CNN's Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin has the story. Drew.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SERVICE INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: John, right now, Taras Ostapchuk, he's in Ukraine fixing broken tanks. A month ago, chief engineer on a minor Russian military oligarchs yacht that's when war broke out and his personal war began.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Taras Ostapchuk, a 55 year old nautical engineer says he spent the past 10 years serving on the Lady Anastasia, an aging luxury yacht sailing the Mediterranean.

TARAS OSTAPCHUK, FORMER CHIEF ENGINEER, LADY ANASTASIA (through translation): We had a crew of nine people, including a chef and a waiter.

GRIFFIN: He says, the yacht current owner and only user is Aleksandr Mikheyev. A sanctioned Putin connected oligarch and the CEO of a major Russian state run company that rakes in tens of billions of dollars selling munitions, everything from weapons to ammo to aircraft. Yacht engineer Ostapchuk went from cruising and oligarch luxury to a bunker in Ukraine.

Our interview just began, stopped by an alert of an incoming Russian attack.

OSTAPCHUK: OK, sorry. See you next time. Bye-bye.

GRIFFIN: His life changed in late February when the yacht was docked in Spain and Russia invaded his home country.

(On camera): Welcome back. Thank you.

OSTAPCHUK: Nice to meet you again.

GRIFFIN: So good to see you, my friend.

OSTAPCHUK: Yeah, I'm safe. GRIFFIN: Safe once again, Ostapchuk explain he was spurred to action when he saw this image of a Russian military strike in an apartment building in his hometown of Kyiv.

OSTAPCHUK: My role is started. Yes --

GRIFFIN: At that moment, he knew he had to do something to retaliate sink the Lady Anastasia.

OSTAPCHUK (through translation): Water began to fill up the engine room and the crew space. After that there were three crew members left on board. I announced that the boat was sinking and that they should leave the ship. I did this on my own.

GRIFFIN: The other crew members also Ukrainian didn't want to risk their own jobs, he said. Instead, they sounded the alarm called authorities. He was arrested and the Anastasia saved, although damaged. In court, Ostapchuk denied nothing, instead declaring he would return to Ukraine where he picked up arms and joined the military.

OSTAPCHUK (through translation): Now a war has begun. A total war between Russia and Ukraine and you have to choose either you are with Ukraine or not.

[08:30:00]