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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Mass Graves, Bodies Exposed As Russians Retreat Kyiv Area; Biden Calls For War Crimes Trial Against Putin; Ukrainian Military Officials: Russia Focusing To Surround Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation And Capture Kharkiv; $90 Million Superyacht Owned By Russian Billionaire With Ties To Putin Seized By Spain At Request Of U.S.; Police: Suspect Arrested In Connection With Sacramento Mass Shooting; Manhunt Underway For Other Suspects. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired April 04, 2022 - 20:00   ET

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

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Senators Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, all supported Jackson. They were the only three Republicans to do so. The full Senate vote to confirm Jackson will be later this week.

Thanks so much for joining us. AC 360 starts now.

[20:00:19]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.

When Russia's war on Ukraine, their invasion of Ukraine began, it was feared or even expected that this moment would come, which does little to lessen the horror now that it has.

This is going to be a difficult hour tonight because the reporting on the mass killing of civilians in the now liberated suburb of Bucha outside Kyiv, we will be showing you precisely what that aftermath looks like. You'll see the dead bodies of human beings, not casualties of war, not victims of some formless harm to come to Earth, people did this to other people, up close in many cases, tying their hands behind their backs, forcing them to kneel or simply shooting them where they stood, leaving them dead in the streets. Others reportedly killed by snipers who used them for target practice.

A CNN team late today witnessed the removal of five decomposed human beings from a local basement. Their hands were tied, most had gunshot wounds to the head and lower extremities as well. The Ukrainian official telling CNN the five were tortured, something that we cannot independently confirm.

It was in any case against the Laws of War set out in the Geneva Convention as applied to enemy troops, let alone civilians. And as the images of mass graves show, they are sadly far from isolated. And again, wanting to look away from this is understandable. Something Ukraine's President could not do as much as he or anyone might have wished to.

He spoke today about what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): These are war crimes, and they will be recognized by the world as genocide. You are here and you can see what happened. We know that thousands of people killed and tortured, teared limb, raped women, and killed children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: President Biden did not call it genocide. He did whoever say this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You may remember, I got criticized for calling Putin a war criminals. Well, the truth of the matter, you saw what happened to Bucha. This warrants him -- he is a war criminal. But we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight, and we have to gather all the detail, so this could be an actual -- have a war crime trial.

This guy is brutal, and what is happening to Bucha is outrageous, and everyone has seen it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, this afternoon his National Security adviser said the administration would consult with allies and partners about how a Putin war crimes trial might proceed. In the meantime, he said more sanctions would be coming later this week. As for evidence of Russian wrongdoing, when I spoke with the top prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan in Lviv, Ukraine a bit more than two weeks ago, he told me he already had cause to begin to make a case against Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARIM KHAN, PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: We have reasonable grounds to believe crimes within the jurisdiction of the court have been committed.

COOPER: Do you have reasonable grounds to believe that alleged war crimes, alleged crimes against humanity have been committed?

KHAN: Yes. Absolutely. And, you know, when one sees, one thing is clear. I mean, the law is clear on this, it is a crime to intentionally target civilians. It is a crime to intentionally target civilian objects.

Now, of course, there has to be further investigation whether civilian objects were being used to launch attacks that made them legitimate targets, but even then, it is no license to use cluster bombs or use disproportionate attacks in, you know, concentrated civilian areas.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: When he talks about civilian objects, he is talking about

buildings, churches, theaters where civilians live. Civilian areas such as Bucha, which saw shelling even early on in the war, including on the 27th of February, just two days after Russia's Foreign Minister said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Nobody is going to attack the people of Ukraine. I will stress, read what Putin said: No strikes on civilian infrastructure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was untrue. Here is a portion of Clarissa Ward's report on Bucha a week later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Alla (ph) and her family made it out of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha early this morning, leaving behind her 81-year-old grandfather.

(ALLA speaking in foreign language.)

WARD (voice over): "He didn't want to come with us. He decided to stay," she says. "He is was old and can't run very fast and we had to leave so quickly Bucha. I don't know what's happening there now. It's so scary."

This is what remains of the place she calls home, burnt out husks of Russian armored vehicles, entire apartment blocks destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: While the killing of civilians in Bucha and elsewhere has been going on almost since day one of the war, sadly now, we are learning of the house by house version there and perhaps beyond.

[20:05:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I today speak with our fighters in Mariupol and they said that it is significantly worse in Mariupol than in Bucha despite of the fact that it is impossible to imagine, also know that 340 people killed without mercy, many of them with a tied hand. We find it exactly that day.

And don't be mistaken, Bucha is not alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Bucha is not alone, he said.

We've got live reports tonight from CNN's Ben Wedeman in Mykolaiv, CNN chief international anchor in Kharkiv; Christiane Amanpour; and CNN's Kaitlan Collins at the White House.

We begin with this report from Ben Wedeman who had a very close call earlier today with his crew.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This is an area where there has been a fair amount of outgoing, as well as incoming artillery. Down the road is a town that has been fought over for several days by Russian and Ukrainian forces.

WEDEMAN (voice over): In these vast open spaces, the Russians seem far away, they're not.

(EXPLOSIONS)

(GUN SHOTS)

WEDEMAN (on camera): Down here, John. Down here. Keep on rolling.

You see it over there?

WEDEMAN (voice over): We hug the Earth.

Two more artillery rounds.

(EXPLOSIONS)

WEDEMAN (voice over): Cameraman John Torigoe keeps rolling.

(on camera): All-righty, so we had two incoming rounds responding to artillery that's been firing in the Russian directions. The shells came pretty close to us.

(voice over): No one has been injured. The officer tells translator Valeriia Dubrovska, we need to go now.

VALERIIA DUBROVSKA, TRANSLATOR: Go away. You need to run.'

WEDEMAN (on camera): Okay, okay. Okay, let's move to get safe. I hope the car is okay. Yes, let's go.

(voice over): And so we run with full body armor to the cars.

(on camera) We're losing -- we're losing petrol.

(voice over): No time to lose.

(on camera): Throw it in the back.

(voice over): Driver Igor Tiagno (ph), laser focused on getting us to safety. His car also hit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go, go, go.

WEDEMAN (on camera): Oh all right. We're now -- we're trying to get out of this area as quickly as possible. Our other car completely destroyed.

(voice over): Crammed into this small car, we approached safer ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to go into that, cover that village and then we'll take a breather.

WEDEMAN (voice over): Producer, Kareem Khadder checks the damage to the car.

The soldiers we left behind are still out there. We could leave. They can't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Ben Wedeman joins us now along with Kaitlan Collins and Christiane Amanpour.

Ben, we just saw on your piece, what more have you been seeing in recent hours? I mean, it's so -- it's just such a confusing scene, you know, to see -- to hear artillery off in the distance then all of a sudden realize your vehicle has been hit.

WEDEMAN: Yes, I mean, we were out there. There was outgoing artillery and you sort of keep that in the background, but when they come so close to you, it really does sort of send a jolt through your body.

But you know, I can tell you, we woke up this morning at seven o'clock. We were woken by a missile strike on Mykolaiv and there have been missile strikes pretty regularly in the last few days on civilian areas.

We went in the morning with the mayor of this city, and he showed us an apartment complex that was hit. Then we went to a hospital that was hit and there was a maternity hospital that was hit.

Today, 10 people were killed, nine of them in a market, an open market that was hit by a missile strike, and it appears that the Russians are using cluster munitions. In this case, 46 people were wounded today in this city alone and it appears that the Russians have no intention to take Mykolaiv, but simply to punish it, because it resisted the Russians several weeks back -- Anderson.

COOPER: And Christiane, I want to talk about what you've been seeing in Kharkiv, but first, I'm wondering what you think the implications are of what we've now been witnessing from Bucha. You've of course covered the horrors of Bosnia. Leaders were ultimately brought to justice there. Do you see that happening here?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And in Rwanda, the 90s were terrible for this kind of real horrible war waged against civilians. But yes, if the facts are collected, already the International Criminal Court and other Human Rights organizations are starting their investigations even before we saw the full horrors of Bucha. And once they get all that evidence, it might take a long time, but

I'm absolutely sure that it will be prosecuted. The difficulty is that in this case with the ICC, neither Russia, Ukraine, nor the United States and a number of other countries recognize the ICC. Back in the 90s, there were special tribunals set up.

But I do think, it is really important what Ben just said, the idea of punishing because there is this sense from several people, world leaders who have spoken to Putin, you know, in the early days of the war, particularly the Finnish President, he told me he felt that there was -- and he said, these were his words -- a hatred growing inside Putin for Ukraine, and for everything that they stand for, and everything that they have resisted.

And historian, Anne Applebaum has said that even Putin denying the legitimacy, the existence of Ukraine as an independent nation, and people could be adjudicated, a genocidal thought, a genocidal ideology -- Anderson.

COOPER: And in terms of Kharkiv, what have you been seeing there?

AMANPOUR: Yes, well, yes, this is the second city of Ukraine the Russians tried to take it in a two pronged attack in the early days of the war. They were pushed back by the Ukrainians, but there has been constant and we've heard it since we've been here, artillery duels, and just like Ben said that they, you know, killed several people in Mykolaiv.

Just yesterday -- just yesterday, after we got here, just mortar strikes in a residential neighborhood not far from where we are, killed seven people according to local authorities, and injured, you know, about 34 others and we went and we saw the site right in the middle of an apartment complex, right in that area where they have the full court and the swings and you know, the slides for the kids, a little corner shop. People were sitting outside on a Sunday, just enjoying themselves.

And today, of course, we saw all the destruction around town, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has said that this city might again become a target for the Russians, as they start moving and concentrating further, you know, East in the Donbas. We're only about 40 kilometers from the Russian border and in full, you know, curfew in this motel here. So that, you know, lights are out. We can't show where we are.

COOPER: Kaitlan, we heard some of what the President had to say, but what more do we know about possible sanctions or new sanctions?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There will be new sanctions this week. We don't exactly know what the scope of those sanctions is going to look like, Anderson, but they are in direct response to these horrifying and powerful images that you're seeing coming out of Bucha. That's what the National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan said today when they were talking about this, and that is what led President Biden today to double down on these claims, that he had these accusations that he's made saying that Putin is a war criminal in his mind after seeing these images, after seeing what has been happening over the last several weeks with these indiscriminate killings of civilians.

But what he did stop short of saying was that this is genocide, and that is something that the Ukrainian President has said, the Polish Prime Minister have said they believe that a genocide is being committed in Ukraine, but the White House is not ready to go that far yet. And they talked about kind of the legal definition of a word like "genocide" of "war crimes" today. They said it's something that they're evaluating.

And, of course, President Biden put out there this idea of a war crimes trial for President Putin earlier today, and it is not clear exactly what that would look like. Jake Sullivan basically said they would need to talk to allies about what Court would adjudicate that, what that would look like, and so that remains to be seen.

But what is clear is the White House does not think this is anywhere close to being over and they are warning about this next phase of the Russian invasion. And to what Ben and Christiane were saying about, it looks like they're just trying to punish Ukraine, they did say that they think one of the broadest efforts that you're going to see Russia try to take is create this narrative that they've made progress, but also try to weaken Ukraine as much as they possibly can.

[20:15:13]

COOPER: Ben, to that, this next phase, so to speak, as Russia sees it Mykolaiv is obviously a very important city for Russia's ultimate plans in the Southeast in Ukraine. Are there concerns there? I mean, is the city now just expecting ultimately continued pounding from artillery and then ultimately to be occupied or an attempt to occupy it?

WEDEMAN: At the moment, the expectation is that they're going to -- the Russians are going to intensify or at least continue this current level of missile strikes on the city. The Ukrainian forces have very successfully pushed ground forces, Russian ground forces far back from the city. So there is not an immediate danger of that. But that doesn't mean that they aren't concerned it could be a possibility.

So we have seen over the last few days, barricades being built up, trenches being dug. We've seen in the main streets, these huge trees are being cut down so they can use the trunks and the branches to fortify trenches and other barricades.

The expectation is that rather, I should put it this way, no one rules out the possibility that the Russians will try to regroup and try to take this city as they did before. Keep in mind, the Russians, it is widely believed would like to make Ukraine a landlocked country, take the entire Black Sea coast, cut this country off from the sea, and that would be -- and Mykolaiv is the city that is stopping them from advancing further westward, and taking for instance, the Port City of Odessa, out of which much of Ukraine's wheat and other crops are exported to the rest of the world -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Ben Wedeman, Christiane Amanpour, Kaitlan Collins, appreciate it. Thank you. Be careful.

Next, to the question of Russian propaganda and it is already well underway. We've been seeing, Russia is already claiming that what you've been seeing from Bucha was faked. We have new satellite images, of course that say otherwise.

Also, my conversation about Russia's next moves on the ground with Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby.

And later, Russia historian, David Remnick on what the Russian people are being told about the fighting and what Vladimir Putin might do next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:45]

COOPER: Russia's Defense Ministry says video of bodies in the streets of Bucha is faked. This video from Friday, Russia says it was staged, yet we have just gotten satellite images from Maxar Technologies taken weeks ago and objects on the street, admittedly hard to see on a small television, match the exact locations of the bodies in the video.

They show the bodies, the people have been in the streets since as early as March 18th when Bucha was still under Russian control, It surely underscores the importance of facts whether from orbit or on the ground. Here is CNN's Phil Black.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): There is little point closing the back doors of this van. It is stopping frequently, picking up those who didn't survive Russia's brief occupation of Bucha.

Each person is photographed, where possible, ID is checked, and where necessary, bindings are removed. Their clothes, their belongings, and in some cases, their restraints, all indicate these people were a threat to no one in the moments before they were killed.

In normal times, Vladislav Minchenko is a painter. Now, he collects bodies.

(VLADISLAV MINCHENKO speaking in foreign language.)

BLACK (voice over): "This one was carrying potatoes," he says. "You can see, they are all civilians and snipers shot them all in the head. This is how they were having fun."

Tatyana Vladimirovna (ph) weeps beside her husband's shallow grave.

(TATYANA VLADIMIROVNA speaking in foreign language.)

BLACK (voice over): She says he was taken from their home and weeks later found in a basement, tortured, mutilated, shot in the head. Ukraine's Defense Ministry released this video of another basement in

Bucha. A CNN team visited the site and saw five dead men. Their hands were tied. Most were shot in the head and legs.

President Zelenskyy came to Bucha and walked at streets, saying --

(PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY speaking in foreign language.)

BLACK (voice over): "It is very difficult to negotiate with Russia when you see what they have done here."

Ukraine says it will investigate Russia's war crimes. The European Union says it will help. No need says Russia because all of this has been staged.

A resident says this equally sincere message was scribbled with lipstick in a Bucha home by a Russian soldier. "Thanks for the warm welcome," it says. "Sorry about the mess."

Russia's mess. The extraordinary suffering, death, and trauma inflicted during just a few weeks of occupation is only starting to be understood, but those who lived through it, it is unlikely to ever be forgiven.

Phil Black, CNN, Lviv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I want to get some perspective now from Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby.

I spoke to him just before airtime.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Admiral, I appreciate you joining us tonight. Obviously, these images coming from the towns around Kyiv are horrific. Do these attacks on civilians, these killings, do they change anything about the U.S. position on the war?

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.) PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I think they just make it all the more clear to all of us in NATO certainly here in the United States, that we have to continue to redouble our efforts to get Ukraine the kinds of security assistance that they need to better defend themselves and they're doing that very nimbly and very effectively.

[20:25:10]

But we know there is more that can be done.

The Secretary of Defense spoke today with the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, they talked about additional security assistance. The Minister reassured the Secretary that that material is getting into his fighters' hands as fast as possible. We're going to keep doing as much as we can, as fast as we can. And clearly, when you see images that disturbing, that sickening, it

makes you all -- all of us here at the Pentagon, want to continue to work on this as hard as we can.

COOPER: Has the U.S. ability to actually get weapons where it's needed, have they improved because of the relieving of the areas around Kyiv?

KIRBY: We haven't seen a relaxing necessarily because of Kyiv. In fact, I wouldn't say we've seen any relaxing at all. We are being very flexible in and how we are getting stuff on the ground into Ukraine. Numerous routes, those routes change from time to time, the Russians have not tried to attack those routes yet. We want to keep that to be the case as long as possible.

So we're being very flexible is the way I'd put it in terms of how we're trying to get these shipments inside Ukraine.

And look, they're arriving just over the course of the weekend. Six shipments from six different nations. And of course, over the next 24 hours, we think there'll be more.

COOPER: U.S. officials expressed skepticism when Russia announced that it would scale back forces from the North of Ukraine, turned its focus on the Donbas region. Was the Pentagon at all surprised by the scale of what has happened and would you call it a pullback?

KIRBY: I don't know if we've been surprised by the scale, Anderson. We, last week only saw a small minority of Russian forces that were moving north out of Kyiv and looked like they were leaving. Over the course of the weekend, we've seen additional.

In fact, we now assess that the majority of troops that they had arrayed against Kyiv have now left the area. Still, there are some there, but they've left the area. We think that they are clearly moving to reposition those troops into Belarus or into Russia, refit, resupply, and then reapply them into the fight elsewhere in Ukraine.

Now our best estimate is that they'll do this re-application in the Donbas region, in the East where they have said they definitely want to prioritize. So, they clearly are retreating away from Kyiv, and as they do, they're being attacked by Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are not just letting them leave unperturbed, they're going after them as well, even as they try to leave the country.

COOPER: The forces that have been -- the Russian forces that have gone from Northern Ukrainian into Belarus and Russia, they have reportedly taken heavy losses. How long, do you have -- I mean, do you have an estimate of how long it would take before Russia is able to redeploy those forces or refit them?

KIRBY: No, we don't. We don't know exactly how long that's going to take and you get in your question, you get at the issue. How devastated are these units? How much refit do they need? How much resupply? Do the Russians need to reinforce their manning? Are they going to just try to combine elements of two units that have been heavily damaged by casualties and by vehicular damage and combine them into one? Or they're going to try to refit whole units back together again?

It's not exactly clear, Anderson. But what we do think is that they are going to take some time, probably not a long time to try to get these forces back into the fight. And again, we think that's going to be in the eastern part of the country.

COOPER: U.S. Intelligence has warned on a number of occasions, Vladimir Putin could be considering using chemical weapons. Is that still the case? Have there been any updates on that?

KIRBY: We haven't seen any imminent indications of the use of chemical or biological weapons. It's something we're watching every day. Obviously, our knowledge on the ground is somewhat limited, but we see no indications that that's imminent. That said, we continue to see them talk about it. It's out in the public that they've ruminated about the Ukrainian use of it. That's a classic Russian play -- right out of the playbook, blame somebody else for something you're fixing to do yourself. So we're watching this really closely.

It's certainly -- we're talking about a country here, Anderson, that has used chemical weapons on individuals and on groups of people before, so they have a history here that bears watching.

COOPER: Yes. Admiral, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

KIRBY: Yes, sir.

COOPER: Coming up, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's new warning that the images we've already seen of liberated areas may get worse.

Also, another superyacht owned by another Russian billionaire seized, this time with help from the U.S.

We have details on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:00]

COOPER: President Zelenskyy is warning the world tonight that the sheer number of images, brutal images that we've seen that a Bucha may be surpassed as images from other towns recently liberated come to light.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translation): There's already information that the number of victims of the occupiers maybe even higher in (INAUDIBLE), in some other liberated cities, in many villages of the liberated districts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that the locals had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago. The occupiers will definitely bear responsibility for this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Though, we should know CNN cannot confirm his statement, but we'll update the story the moment we have more information.

As we reported earlier, his remarks came after Ukraine's military said it now believes that Russia is focusing its efforts to surround their forces and capture the city of Kharkiv in the Northeast Ukraine near the Russian border. And one that like Mariupol is the focused of fighting for a long time now.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour was reporting from there earlier tonight and has more details now about what's become of the city. Now similar to what we said earlier, some of the images you will see are graphic that's the only way to honestly report a story about brutality and survival this magnitude.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Here in Kharkiv, former Ukrainian capital second biggest city and one of the most important cultural sites, the great 19th century poet Taras Shevchenko is hunkering down for the rest of this war. Workers cover him in sandbags against the kind of destruction that's pounded the city center since the start. The most spectacular strike was this one a month ago, a Russian missile slams low and hard straight into the corner of the regional administration building.

(on-camera): The missile struck right here. And the idea of hitting a building like this is to deny the legitimacy of the State. But the terror against civilians continues playground by playground, mall by mall park bench by park bench.

[20:35:09]

(voice-over): Which is what we find in this residential neighborhood. People were sitting outside chatting on a Sunday afternoon, kids were playing. We find the telltale pattern of a mortar that landed right here. Authorities say seven people were killed in this neighborhood. Many more were injured.

Kharkiv sits 40 miles from the Russian border. It is the last major city before Donbass, where Russia is directing its war effort to the east. Just last week, the nearby village of Mala Rohan was liberated from the Russians. This civilian says he was captured and held.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): When dusk falls, children are outside playing and getting the last bit of fresh air before descending underground into one of the capitals many subway stations. After 40 days of war, they have turned their temporary homes into a neighborhood. Some have even decorated with fresh flowers.

Xena (ph) says she's been living down here since the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, this is my house. AMANPOUR (on-camera): Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This used to be my house. Now we cannot live here, obviously because it has been bombed three times in a row.

AMANPOUR (on-camera): But this is a safe space for you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, absolutely.

AMANPOUR (on-camera): And for the kids.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, absolutely.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Kids do what kids do, homework and handicrafts. Even this is organize, Marina works for an organization that plans ways to keep the children busy, entertained, and their minds of the trauma.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here were quick to the plain grounds. This pays for kids where they can play with the toys with (INAUDIBLE), made puzzles, and to do the things they did in their usual life before the war.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): But the trauma is never far away. As we found in this underground station, where civil defense a teaching kids how to protect themselves, how to recognize weapons and ordinance and to remember never to touch. The adults are shown how to protect themselves in case of a chemical weapons attack.

Even this maternity hospital was damaged in a mortar strike, now the basement has been turned into a shelter and delivery room if necessary. Birth, life continues. We met Alina (ph) 30 minutes after she had delivered baby Yaroslava (ph).

(on-camera): How are you feeling?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm well, she's well. My first daughter.

AMANPOUR (on-camera): Your first daughter?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

AMANPOUR (on-camera): Your first child?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): As we leaving she tells us I love my country. I love my daughter, my family, my husband, and in the delirium of new motherhood. She says everything will be great for us.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Kharkiv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: New life amidst all that lost. Just ahead, David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker joins us to talk about the images we have seen tonight. Plus, his new peace and what Vladimir Putin may be thinking at this moment in the war based on his past actions and other wars.

Plus, another super yacht owned by one of Russia's billionaire Elite is captured. The U.S. says it won't be the last. Details on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:42:16]

COOPER: Western allies have seized yet another superyacht owned by a Russian billionaire with connections to Vladimir Putin. It's a $90 million 225 foot luxury yacht dubbed Tango. According to court documents, it was seized by Spanish authorities the request the U.S. Justice Department. The seizure in this case was the first conducted by U.S. task force created to hunt for sanctions violators. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement, however, it will not be the last.

This comes of course, as we reported, as the Biden administration says it's working with allies on new sanctions against Russia that could come later this week.

I'm joined now by journalist has spent much of his career covering Russia, David Remnick editor of the New Yorker.

David, thanks so much for being with us. You know, you see these images out of Bucha of people with their hands zip tied behind their back, of mass grave bodies are said to be dozens, if not more than 100 inside. You know, I, anybody who's covered conflicts over the years it brings up, you know, images one has seen in Bosnia or in Rwanda and all those complex obviously, we're different and have different parameters to it. But in the end, the brutality we see, ends up being the same. And the denials of it continue as well.

DAVID REMNICK, EDITOR, THE NEW YORKER: Right, the images and the reality are sickening. But so are the denials. You know, you hear Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Minister and Dmitry Peskov, the Putin's press spokesman, denying it saying these are all fakes. In other words, every reporter that has gone to Bucha and they've been many there have been from the New Yorker, there have been from the Times have been from the CNN, all the rest. It's all fake. It's all a lie. All the pictures are funny.

Aand this is an old playbook. It's not just a Russian playbook. This is an old playbook. Franco said the same thing with the Basque town of Guernica. You remember that from the famous Picasso painting was bombed. What Franco said well, he said the Basques had bombed themselves and the -- and all the corpses were fakes. Same thing in Bosnia in the '90s, we were told by the Serbs, that, in fact, the it's amazing to remember it, but that the Bosnians had done this to themselves that the market bombing was something that they had done themselves in. And what was the goal? Sounds very familiar. The goal was to get foreign support for the Basques, for the Bosnians and so on.

This is an old story. And it's and it doesn't get any less disgusting. And we have to think about who's on the side of truth and who's not. Who uses phrases like enemies of the people to describe reporters. Well, it's a phrase from the Jacobins after the French Revolution. It's a phrase of Stalin's. And I'm afraid it was the phrase of our former president.

[20:45:04]

We live now in a battle not just about politics or humanity we live in a battle about truth. And some people believe some world leaders unfortunately believe that, if nothing is true, everything is possible.

COOPER: It also gives, I mean, for somebody like Vladimir Putin, who obviously, the media is controlled there in a very, you know, specific way. I mean, he does have the ability to really shape what information many Russians receive, obviously, if somebody has some technical proficiency, they can get outside information. But, you know, he can remain in power for living in this alternate reality for a long time.

REMNICK: We have to remember this is not a state like Iran, however flawed it might be. It is a dictatorship, call it what you will, totalitarianism of a modern kind or extreme authoritarianism. But the control of information there is really nothing that Americans can imagine. I know, there's been comparisons with the American scene, it's not really the case. It's bad enough, here we have 40% of our population still believes the election was stolen, even though there's a wide range of media available to people.

There in Russia, it's very, very difficult or require some technical proficiency, meaning younger people to sort of get behind state propaganda. State propaganda is really absolute. And it became more absolute in the last month when the last glimmers of independent media were shut down absolutely. And a lot of those reporters, a lot of those editors, seeing no alternative left the country entirely.

COOPER: And you wrote a piece on what is Vladimir Putin thinking. And you looked at sort of how his past informs what or may inform what he's doing right now in what way?

REMNICK: Well, there are a number of elements. First and foremost, he's trained and his reflexes come from the organization that he served for so long, which is the State Security Services, the KGB, not that he was a high ranking or particularly brilliant analyst, but that that's the culture he grew up in. And that's the institution that now dominates so much of the Russian scene, the security services, that's number one. Number two, he came to power, as somebody who was especially ideological, I certainly had no, didn't care anything about communism. He, you know, everybody knew that was a dead letter.

But as the years have gone by, he's become he's kind of formed an ideology out of this element. And that element that I would call a kind of pseudo religious nationalism, that derives from all kinds of sources and, and distorted versions of history. And mainly, it's illiberal. It's posting itself as the as the anti-pro to liberal democracy. And, you know, whether it has to do with what he calls sexual minorities, or the ballot box, he has posed himself as the anti-pro to this and let's face it, this is not 1989 or 1991 any longer. He has a lot of followers.

COOPER: Yes.

REMNICK: He has followers in Hungary. He has followers here, Steve Bannon thinks so Vladimir Putin is terrific and who was he, he was chief audiologist of the former President of United States.

COOPER: David Remnick, it's always good to talk to. David, thank you.

REMNICK: Good to talk to you.

COOPER: Up next, we're breaking news on the mass shooting over the weekend in Sacramento, California left six people dead. Police say they have arrested a suspect, man hung continues for others. We had the latest, ahead.

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[20:52:50]

COOPER: Police in Sacramento California have arrested one suspect in the searches on for others wanted for deadly mass shooting early Sunday morning. One of several shootings across the country this weekend that left a total of at least 13 people dead and more than 40 others injured.

More in the killings in Sacramento as your CNN's Josh Campbell, but first warning some of the images may be tough to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 2 a.m. just as bars begin to close and crowds move to the sidewalks, a fight breaks out. Then gunfire erupts.

Police say at least 100 shots are fired. And video from the area shows more than one shooter at the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We saw a woman she was running down the street and she kind of fell back and over and it looked like she was shot in the stomach area.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): In all, six people killed, 12 more wounded. And so far there's no known motive for the deadly shootings.

KATHERINE LESTER, CHIEF, SACRAMENTO POLICE: We know that a large fight took place just prior to the shootings. And we have confirmed that there are multiple shooters.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): All of it happened within minutes over several city blocks. Of the six killed, three were men and three women. The mother of one of the victims sharing her grief. PAMELA HARRIS, MOTHER OF VICTIM: My son was a very violaceous young man. You know, fun to be around, like to party, have fun, smiling all the time. And for this to happen, is crazy.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): The coach of the Golden State Warriors reacted with frustration to this latest shooting.

STEVE KERR, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS COACH: This is probably the ninth or 10th moment of silence that I will have experienced as coach of the Warriors. I don't think moments of silence are going to do anything.

CAMPBELL (voice-over): A sentiment shared by the Sacramento Mayor.

DARRELL STEINBERG (D) MAYOR OF SACRAMENTO: Thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough. We must do more. This senseless gun violence must be addressed. How many unending tragedies does it take before we begin to cure the sickness in this country?

CAMPBELL (voice-over): The President issuing a call for action, saying, we must do more than mourn, we must act. Ban ghost guns, require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines repealed gun manufacturers immunity from liability.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[20:55:14]

CAMPBELL: Now Anderson, you and I have covered so many of these mass shootings and after each one we are calls for an end to America's gun epidemic those rarely lead to actual action. But for those who say that the answer is not guns, but policing, we need more cops on the street. Let me briefly show you where I am. I'm standing in one of the most protected pieces of real estate in the state of California. This mass shooting took place right by the State Capitol, and even in an area that is swarming with police, even those officers couldn't get here fast enough to save those innocent lives because we know in covering these shootings, they're often over in minutes, sometimes even seconds.

Anderson, law enforcement experts tell us that the key to ending America's gun violence epidemic is not just policing there needs to be more done. Anderson.

COOPER: Josh Campbell, appreciate it. Thanks.

Up next, we have more breaking news. Two more Republican senators join Susan Collins and voted in support of Judge Ketanji Brown's historic nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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