Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Explosions Rock Ukraine's Cities as Russia Intensifies War; Ukrainians Prepare for Next Round of Talks; Will Smith Hits Chris Rock Onstage at Oscars. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 28, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:59:30]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, March 28. I'm Brianna Keilar. And John Berman is in Lviv, Ukraine, this morning.

Breaking overnight, loud explosions rocking Kyiv. Our CNN team on the ground in the capital city hearing constant explosions there. An adviser to President Zelenskyy warning that Russia is ramping up its military strikes and that Vladimir Putin is trying to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth.

We're also getting some reports of powerful explosions in the last few hours in the Western city of Zhytomyr. A Ukrainian military official says a fuel depot was hit by missile -- by a missile that was fired from Belarus.

With a new round of peace talks set to begin Tuesday in Istanbul, Zelenskyy is saying that Ukraine is ready to accept neutral, nonnuclear status under certain conditions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): Our priorities in the negotiations are known. Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt. Effective security guarantees for our state are mandatory. Our goal is obvious. Peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state were as soon as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So I should tell you, just a couple minutes ago here in Lviv, the air raid sirens do -- did go off. The air raid sirens did go off, a warning for people in this city to take shelter. We are watching the situation here very closely.

In the meantime, I do want to note that we're getting evidence, more evidence of the destruction over the rest of the country. Kharkiv is in ruins. Ukrainian officials say that Russian forces are now firing at a nuclear research facility there. In Mariupol, Ukrainian officials claimed 40,000 residents have been

forcibly taken from the city into Russian territories, placed into what they're calling "filtration camps."

And here in the Western city of Lviv, which is just 50 miles from the Polish border, the Russians hit a fuel storage tank with at least one Cruise missile over the weekend, which is why, of course, we're paying very close attention to the air raid warnings in the city right now.

Also new, Ukraine's military chief says that he believes Vladimir Putin is seeking to split Ukraine into two, using the post-war division between North and South Korea as a model.

And this morning, Ukraine is vowing to conduct an immediate investigation after video surfaced of soldiers shooting Russian prisoners in the knees.

I'm joined here in Lviv by CNN's Phil Black. Phil, we did just hear those air raid sirens moments ago. A warning, and the reason is notable. It's not just for safety reasons but also because this appears to be something the Russians are now doing. These missile strikes on key infrastructure locations all over the country.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Indeed. They're using their Cruise missiles to pick off, knock out supply logistic support sites across the country. That's what we've been seeing for some days now.

That's what we saw here in the city of Lviv over the weekend, with a fuel depot that was hit. Another military site, support site, as well. And yes, overnight, at least one other fuel storage site has been hit. We've seen them in Mykolaiv. We've seen them in Kyiv, as well. All just in a few days.

It's a clear effort to -- to knock out the supply, the logistics, the support that keeps the Ukrainian military moving and, crucially, keeps them shooting. Because without that the defense will falter.

Shifting gears a little, I want to talk about a video that has surfaced showing Ukrainian soldiers seemingly shooting Russian captives in the legs. We've seen these pictures. We show at least three soldiers being shot in the legs. Others on the ground with severe leg injuries, which suggests it's also happened to them.

There's been -- there is also some verbal and physical abuse that these -- these captives experienced.

This was in the East of the country near the city of Kharkiv. The Ukrainian government, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian government says it isn't acceptable. If it is proven to be true, this is not how the Ukrainian forces should behave.

But the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense says that they are -- they ask everyone to keep in mind that the Russians also create, stage these sorts of tapes as part of their information warfare. Not referencing this video specifically, but they say the Russians do do that. If true, it is certainly an ugly episode but one the Ukrainians say is being investigated.

BERMAN: All right. Phil Black this morning. Great to have you here, Phil. Thank you very much. Brianna.

KEILAR: President Zelenskyy is saying that Ukrainian troops have discovered Russian ceremonial uniforms. He believes that Russian forces were planning to celebrate with a victory parade in Kyiv after just three or four days.

CNN's Arwa Damon is live for us in Istanbul with more on this. This is something that he's point to go as sort of failed expectations again on the part of Vladimir Putin, Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna.

And we have been seeing a number of similar indications in the sense that -- the sense that Russia most certainly expected for this to be relatively speaking, fairly easy, fairly quick. Not quite anticipating or preparing for the level of resistance they have been getting on the ground.

And yes, President Zelenskyy pointing to these uniforms as further evidence of that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translator): Did you know that we found their dress uniforms? I don't know if you know this or not, but it's a bit funny. It would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic. How they were preparing to hold a parade at the Independence Square, basically to ride through it on the third or fourth day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAMON: And of course, Brianna, for Ukraine, for the population there, for President Zelenskyy, the key right now is trying to figure out some sort of peace agreement.

And to that note, we are expecting face-to-face talks to be taking place once again in Turkey. This would be the fifth time that both sides would be speaking. The second meeting to be taking place in Turkey. This time it's going to be happening in Istanbul.

And both sides have, to a certain degree, managed to come closer together. Ukraine, for example, now saying that it is willing to accept non-nuclear neutral status.

Basically, what does this mean? If Ukraine does end up being a neutral state, that would effectively mean that they would not be able to get involved in any sort of third-party conflict, which would de facto mean that they would not be able to, at least for a time being, be a member of NATO. Which remember, was one of the underlying reasons, justifications that Russia was using for launching this invasion of Ukraine. Another key thing to be looking at is whether or not these

humanitarian corridors can actually be opened. Opened in greater numbers and opened with real security guarantees for those who so desperately need them.

Another key point that Ukraine is making at this stage, too, is if any sort of agreement is to be negotiated, is to be implemented, Ukraine would be looking to have some sort of a referendum. Zelenskyy wants to ensure that the population is, in fact, behind him as he does try to move this process forward.

And of course, key as well, any sort of agreement, go beyond just a signature on paper. Be something that is actually going to be implemented. A lot of wariness, understandably, when it comes to Russia's intentions going to -- going into this next round of talks.

KEILAR: Yes. We will be watching them so carefully with you. Arwa, thank you so much, live for us from Istanbul -- Berman.

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news here from Lviv. We did hear the air raid sirens go off just moments ago. We're watching the skies very carefully. Obviously, there was a missile attack on this city over the weekend.

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence is now warning that President Putin could be looking to carve this country in two, something like North and South Korea.

I want to bring in Colonel Cedric Leighton. He's a CNN military analyst and retired Air Force colonel.

Cedric, thanks so much for being with us. You know, if you're talking about this kind of partition, what could that possibly look like in the Russians' eyes?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, John. It's very interesting. Because the minimalist way of looking at this would be that they would take this area right here, which is in essence the Donetsk, Luhansk area. And that would be part of the pro-Russian territory.

But the bigger piece, the one that is really the extreme piece but was part of a Russian war aim for this conflict, would be to take a borderline that would roughly follow the Dnipro River. That would take Eastern Ukraine away from the current Ukrainian government, the Zelenskyy government. They would get the West. The pro-Russian area would get the East.

And that would be the very extreme, economically difficult thing for the Western side to deal with. But that would be I think the Russian thinking would be to take this and make this part of their sphere of influence.

BERMAN: Yes. The former situation there would be something of a concession for the Russians. It would mean they would maybe leave the positions they've occupied in and around Kyiv, even though they haven't been able to push toward the city.

Cedric, the air raid sirens went off here moments ago. Obviously, there was an air strike on this city over the weekend and then a series of strikes on these fuel or infrastructure installation centers, kind of all around the country. Will you just show people on the map where Lviv is and where the Russians are shooting from and what they're shooting at.

LEIGHTON: Sure, John. Lviv is right here where you are right now. Now, where the Russians are shooting at includes the cities of Lutsk, Rivne and Zhytomyr right here. Those three cities that are right in the Northwestern part of the country.

Where they're shooting from includes Belarus. So they're shooting remotely, basically. What they're doing is they're going in, and they're taking these stand-off weapons that they have, using them to target various areas that are, very conveniently, on the supply lines that the Ukrainians need in order to sustain their war effort.

[06:10:02]

BERMAN: Because the supplies are coming from where, Colonel?

LEIGHTON: They're coming from Poland primarily, right here; Slovakia to a lesser extent; Hungary to a lesser extent; and Romania. So those are the areas where the -- where the supplies are coming in from. But this is why the Russians want to, in essence, cut off these supplies and make it very difficult for the supplies to reach places like Kyiv, or Kharkiv, or Dnipro, or any of the other cities that Ukrainians are trying to defend or retake.

BERMAN: I'm going to misquote, you know, General Omar Bradley, who effectively said -- what did he say? -- "Tactics are for amateurs. Logistics are for professionals."

What can this do? If you're blowing up fuel storage areas and other logistical centers the Ukrainians need, how disruptive can that be, the Ukrainian efforts to fight back?

LEIGHTON: It can be absolutely critical, John. One of the key things here, if we go in, and let's just take a look at the Kyiv area, for instance, just to describe some of this.

If you cut off the logistical support here, it would be impossible for the Ukrainians to even mount any kind of effort against Russian forces that are a present to the Northwest and the Northeast of the city.

They've already done a lot to move the forces back. It's a very difficult thing for them to do. But without any of those logistics supplies, it's going to be impossible for them to move forward. They need guns. They need ammo. They need food. They need fuel, just like the Russians did.

And we have to remember down in this area, remember that 40-mile convoy that was so famous or infamous that the Russians had but didn't go anywhere because of lack of fuel, lack of parts. All of those things would then be the Ukrainians' problems, and that would be disastrous for their war effort.

BERMAN: All right. Needless to say, we're watching that all very closely. Col. Cedrick Leighton, thanks for helping us understand it. Appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: You bet, John.

BERMAN: All right. So this was one of the most shocking moments in Oscar history. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on live TV. That's next.

Plus, the White House walking back comments made by President Biden this weekend. Why those words getting backlash from around the world, though not in Ukraine where those words are being celebrated. Much more, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:35]

BERMAN: It's one of the most shocking moments in Oscars history. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: Jada, I love you. "G.I. Jane II," can't wait to see it. All right?

Oh, wow. Wow. Will Smith just smacked me.

WILL SMITH, ACTOR: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Get my wife's name out your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) mouth.

ROCK: Wow, dude.

SMITH: Yes.

ROCK: It was a "G.I. Jane" joke.

SMITH: Keep my wife's name out your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) mouth.

ROCK: I'm going to, OK?

OK. That was the greatest night in the history of television.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Just a short time later, Smith would take home the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Let's talk about this now -- It's a new infamous moment already -- with CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas and CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam. She was actually there in person at the Oscars last night. Stephanie, just walk us through what happened here.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, I can tell you, everyone thought it was a bit until you heard the slap. And I was not sitting anywhere near the stage, and I actually heard the slap.

And then I could hear Will Smith yelling, "Keep my wife's name out your effing mouth." You could hear it. It was clear. And at that point, the Dolby Theater, the environment in there just completely changed.

Everyone started looking at each other and looking down. Because at first, when he got onstage, everyone thought it was some sort of bit, some sort of joke.

Keep in mind, earlier in the show, there was a joke where Regina Hall was joking about the men that she was going to take back to -- back behind stage for a COVID test. Right? So she had pointed to Will.

And he was like, "No, I'm staying here. You're not pulling me away from Jada." Right?

So we had already seen sort of this dynamic here. What we don't know is whether or not Chris Rock knows that Jada Pinkett has been dealing with alopecia, which is hair loss. And you don't know why, and you don't know if your hair is coming back. If you haven't dealt with it, it is stressful.

One could assume that Will Smith knows what that feels like watching his wife stressing about this and finally going public with that. This joke about "G.I. Jane" with the shaved head obviously seemed to hit a chord. And that's what we believe led to that response.

But still shocking to see two middle-aged men in the middle of this, and Will Smith walking up onstage and then winning the award.

When he got up there to win his award, to accept his award, A, Will wondering whether or not he was going to show back up; and B, you could hear a pin drop, because it was so quiet, because everyone wanted to see how Will Smith was going to address this moment. Take a look for yourselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees.

Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:10]

ELAM: And you can see there that he was emotional. He also lightened it up with a few jokes. But it is noteworthy, he apologized to his fellow nominees. He apologized to the Academy. He did not apologize to Chris Rock. And if you remember back to 2016, when there was the whole debacle

about Oscars So White, Chris Rock was hosting, and he was talking about Jada Pinkett boycotting the Oscars. And he went in on Jada Pinkett and Will Smith that year. So one could wonder whether or not this is some plaque that has built up.

But overall, people just shocked this happened and so many things that happened after the show -- after that moment in the show, it was missed. Because everyone in the auditorium was completely flabbergasted by that entire issue that we saw play out on the stage.

KEILAR: So, Chloe, what is the fallout here? What are we hearing from Will Smith? What are we hearing from the Academy? Is his Oscar in jeopardy?

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, we haven't heard anything more from Will Smith. And Chris Rock has not spoken out.

But the Academy, they did tweet, quote, "The Academy does not condone violence of any form."

The LAPD also said that Chris Rock has declined to press charges at this point. It doesn't seem likely that he will. The LAPD is not pursuing any further action.

But celebrities are split on social media so now. Many people saying, well, Will Smith has a right to defend his wife. It was a below-the- belt joke. While other people are saying that violence of any kind should never happen.

And also, how easy it was for Will Smith to just approach the stage like that. Yes, he's an actor, and he was up for Best Actor that night and ultimately won the Oscar. But it does raise security questions about how anybody could just approach the stage so easily and get to someone who's on the stage.

But, again, a lot of questions as to whether or not the Academy is going to take further action. Because in their by-laws they talk about not condoning violence. So I think that it's a wait and see type of a morning.

KEILAR: Yes. It is interesting, Stephanie. This is -- this is dividing people. There are some people people who supported what he did. There are some people who supported it on social media and then, you know, backtracked or deleted the tweets that they had put out, because they realized they're condoning violence.

Even as maybe, I think, a lot of us, especially if you know about the alopecia thing, your heart sunk as you heard Chris Rock say that to Jada Pinkett Smith. But this is really, you know, dividing people.

ELAM: Yes, people are upset about it. I do think that I went from being, actually, a rather uniting show in many ways, because you had these moments where you're seeing these stars from these movies that are beloved coming onstage. And so you have those moments. You also had our three hosts of the show this year who were also very

much engaging. So it seemed like it was going along well. Chris's monologue also seemed like it was going going along well.

But people are mad, and people are embarrassed, as well. I can tell you that there are a lot of people, black folks in Hollywood, who are really mad about this, who are very upset about how this played out on the stage, even though Will was defending his wife.

They're talking about the ways that this could have been handled. And you could see during the commercial break that Denzel was getting up from his seat. Denzel Washington was intervening, talking to the Smiths. You could see that there was this whole conversation. You saw P. Diddy was onstage, and he said, We're going to work this whole thing out like family afterwards.

There was definitely this energy behind it that you could see from where we were sitting in the Dolby theater. But still, there are a lot of people, like, how could we let this happen? How could this happen?

Also, no one here is a child. We are talking about grown, middle-aged men. So people were very upset about that. And I can tell you, just alone of the number of messages I got, people are very much split on this one. And very upset that it happened in the first place.

KEILAR: Yes. It's -- thank you so much, Stephanie, for being there, for reporting on this. Chloe, appreciate your insights, as well. Thank you to you both.

So as Russian missiles are continuing to pummel Ukrainian cities, President Zelenskyy choosing to speak to a group of independent Russian journalists. See what happened there.

And President Biden claiming that he was not calling for a regime change when he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, quote, "cannot remain in power." Russia responding moments ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:45]

BERMAN: I'm John Berman, live in Lviv in Western Ukraine. Can you hear that?

(SIRENS)

Those are the air-raid sirens. We actually believe these sirens are an all-clear. About half an hour ago, the sirens first went off warning people to take shelter. Obviously, people paying very close attention to this now, given that this city was the target of a Russian missile strike over the weekend. A fuel storage center hit.

But we are hearing now we believe to be the all-clear. That is what they do after they feel that the situation has stabilized. I'll keep you posted as we monitor these developments. Separately, a new hit to the Russian economy. Heineken announced it

will pull its business out of Russia. The brewing company had already halted new investments there.

(AUDIO GAP) I should say, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and exports to Russia.

Heineken says it will lose more than $430 million from this move -- Brianna.

KEILAR: The White House is walking back those comments that President Joe Biden made over the weekend calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a butcher who cannot remain in power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: As you know, and as you've heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else, for that matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:30:00]