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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Zelenskyy To U.N., Many More Cities Like Bucha; Kremlin Repeatedly Denies Accusations Of Bucha Massacre; U.S. To Announce New Sanctions Against Russia On Wednesday; Chef Jose Andres On What He Saw In Bucha, Irpin Hours After The Russian Withdrawal; Inside The Intensive Care Unit Of A Ukrainian Hospital; Russian-Americans Call Ukrainian Hotline In Desperate Search For Family Serving In Russian Military; Ivanka Trump Talks To January 6 Committee. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired April 05, 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: Woods has been out of competition for more than a year after a car crash, incredibly serious would have left him with serious leg injuries, fractures his bones directly under the knee. He said before that amputation was on the table. You heard him talking now about the challenge of walking.

So this is an incredible story. His expected return coincides with the 25th Anniversary of his first Masters win in 1997.

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

[20:00:24]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.

We begin tonight with the grim fact of our prediction come true in Ukraine and the awful truth that it won't be for the first time. Former President of the country made the prediction just yesterday in the wake of the atrocities uncovered in liberated Bucha.

"Don't be mistaken," he said. "Bucha is not alone." And it was not. It would be too much to hope for given all we've seen so far. So little prepares you for images like these.

This is a town called Borodyanka, which is just north of Kyiv. Our Frederik Pleitgen spent the day there and as you'll see in his report tonight, in addition to the sheer destruction of civilian areas, he found graphic evidence of atrocities. So Bucha was not alone nor is Borodyanka likely to be according to Ukraine's President Zelenskyy who addressed the U.N. Security Council today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The massacre in our city of Bucha is just one, unfortunately, of many examples of what the occupiers have been doing on our land for 41 days.

And there are many other such places that the world has yet to find out the full truth of: Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Okhtyrka, Borodyanka and dozens of other Ukrainian communities, each of which is like Bucha.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: President Zelenskyy spoke to Spain's Parliament as well today invoking Hitler and Mussolini's bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica in 1937, Europe's darkest hours updated for the 21st Century.

As is this from the Kyiv area, a little boy, six years old in his own back yard, behind him is the makeshift gravesite where his mother was buried. She died reports say of stress and starvation.

A little boy in his own backyard, his dead mother buried there.

According to the U.N., the confirmed civilian death toll is now nearly 1,500 with their usual warning that the true number is likely far greater. Russia's U.N. Ambassador spoke on the subject today telling the Security Council quote, "Not a single civilians suffered from violence," unquote, while Bucha was under Russian control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VASSILY NEBENZIA, RUSSIAN U.N. AMBASSADOR (through translator): Once again, without any evidence based on the presumption of guilt, Russia -- the Russian army is being accused of some kind of evil deed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: In point of fact, the evidence in Bucha is plain to see. On the left side is a portion of video taken on Friday after the Russians were driven out. You see the bodies in the streets there, you see the man shot on a bicycle. On the right is a satellite photo from several weeks ago when Russians actually controlled the town and you can see the same bodies of civilians in the very same places where they fell. That was while the Russians were there.

Ordinary Russians don't get to see evidence like that, of course, nor do they hear the voices of Ukrainians who confront the reality, the nearness and horror of it every single day. People like Olena Gnes who we've come to know along with her family since early on in the war.

In a recent video, she speaks to what she and now we are being forced to comprehend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLENA GNES, MOTHER OF THREE IN KYIV: So I hope that those people who were butchered in Bucha became victims, and now they're looking at us right now from the skies. They are looking at me, they are looking at you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: As we've mentioned CNN's Fred Pleitgen is with us tonight. CNN's Ivan Watson is in Zaporizhzhia and at the White House, where new sanctions against Russia are expected to be announced tomorrow, CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins us.

First, we're going to bring you Fred Pleitgen's report and as always, a warning, it is difficult to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the war that Russia has unleashed against Ukraine, few places have suffered more than Borodyanka, occupied by Vladimir Putin's troops since late February, recently taken back by Ukraine's Army.

PLEITGEN (on camera): Borodyanka was held by the Russians for a very long time, and just to give you an idea about the scale of the destruction, you have houses like these that were completely destroyed, but if we look over here, you can see that even large residential buildings have been flattened. This entire building was flattened. It was connected with this one before, but now there's absolutely nothing left of it.

PLEITGEN (voice over): And the Russians made sure to show they owned this town, painting the letter "V" on occupied buildings even defacing Borodyanka's city administration.

"V" is the letter the Russians used to help it unify their forces that invaded this part of Ukraine.

Oksana Kostychenko and her husband just returned here and found Russian soldiers had been staying in their house. She says, they ransacked the place.

(OKSANA KOSTYCHENKO speaking in foreign language.)

PLEITGEN (voice over): "Alcohol is everywhere," she says. "Empty bottles in the hallway under things. They smoked a lot, put out cigarettes on the table."

They also showed us the corpse of a man they found in their backyard. His hands and feet tied, severe bruises on his body, a shell casing still nearby.

Russia claims its forces don't target civilians, calling reports of atrocities fake and provocations. But these body collectors are the ones who have to remove the carnage Russia's military leaves in its wake.

In a span of less than an hour, they found a person gunned down while riding a bicycle, a body burned beyond recognition and the man still stuck in his car gunned down with bullet holes in his head and chest. He was believed to be transporting medical supplies, now strewn near this road.

(GENNADIY AVRAMENKO speaking in foreign language.)

PLEITGEN (voice over): "The most awful thing is, those are not soldiers laying there, just people, innocent people," Gennadiy says. For no reason, I asked, "Yes, for no reason, killed and tortured for no reason," he says.

The road from Kyiv to Borodyanka is lined with villages heavily damaged after Russia's occupation. Destroyed tanks and armored vehicles left behind, but also indications of just how much firepower they unleashed on this area.

(on camera): The Russians say this is a special operation not a war, and that they don't harm civilians, but look how much ammunition they left behind simply in this one single firing position here. This is ammunition for heavy weapons with devastating effects on civilian areas.

(voice over): That devastation cuts through the towns and villages north of Kyiv, where the number of dead continues to rise.

Now that Vladimir Putin his armies have withdrawn, Ukraine's leaders still believe many more bodies could be buried beneath the rubble.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Fred joins us along with Ivan Watson and Kaitlan Collins.

Fred, I mean, just the scenes that you saw, just horrific. What did you see the Russian soldiers and were their tanks and equipment left behind in all the towns that you passed through?

PLEITGEN: Yes. There were a lot of tanks and equipment left behind in pretty much every town that we went through. And I think all this really flies in the face of the Russians telling their population, this was some sort of orderly withdrawal. This is something that they did on purpose and wanted to do all the time that they were just trying to bind the Ukrainian Army to prevent them from being able to mass in the east of the country.

Now, the Russian Army was absolutely destroyed by the Ukrainians in the area around Kyiv and quite frankly, Anderson, there is no other way to put it, a lot of those Russian soldiers were incinerated inside their tanks when they got hit by the Ukrainians and a lot of Russian bodies were left behind, a lot of Russian uniforms were left behind as well, Anderson, as it seems as though some of the Russians took off their uniforms and then tried to hide, fleeing the scene there.

But what we also saw and we had some of that in the report was some of the heavy weapons that the Russians were using and that certainly does seem to indicate that the Russians were bringing an enormous amount of heavy firepower onto not just the Ukrainian military, but civilian areas as well, considering we were so close to Kyiv that it was well within the range of those artillery pieces that we saw.

In general, you know, when we were in Borodyanka, especially it seemed to us as though the Russians were really trying to impose their will on that town, and we're trying to show that town that they were the ones in charge. There was that V symbol that the Russians used, painted everywhere. It looked to us almost as though some sort of brutal cult had invaded that place and taking control. That's how much they tried to impose their symbolism. And with that, of course also their will on that place -- Anderson.

COOPER: Ivan, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been trying to get to the Port City of Mariupol. Have they had any success at all because they've been trying that for a while?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not only have they not had success, they were actually detained, Anderson. They've been traveling from the city I'm in right now, Zaporizhzhia, and on Sunday, they were trying to lead a convoy to Mariupol and they were stopped in the Russian occupied town of Manbij (ph), outside of that overnight and released on Monday.

The Russian Defense Ministry in the last week said that he did want to assist with the evacuation of civilians from that besieged city that the Russians were encircling in the first place that they wanted to work with the United Nations and with the Red Cross to do it, but what we're seeing is basically the Russian military is not giving the Red Cross, a neutral aid organization, access to that besieged city.

Now people are managing to get out of there. Again, the Ukrainian government estimates that there are more than a hundred thousand civilians trapped there, the Russians do seem to be allowing people to leave in their own private vehicles, to other Russian occupied cities. And then there are some convoys that are able to take some of these evacuees out back to Ukrainian controlled territory.

[20:10:23]

But for whatever reason, the Russians are not allowing the Red Cross into Mariupol and given what we've seen around, what Fred has seen around Kyiv, maybe it's because they don't want them to see what is happening in Mariupol.

COOPER: Yes, and obviously, we've been covering all the reports about what has been happening, reports of people having to be buried in backyards, mass graves, obviously to pick up bodies that have been left out, unable to be buried privately.

Kaitlan, the new sanctions coming tomorrow, what do we know about them and given the images coming out of the Ukraine, does anyone think that -- I mean, that they will make much of a difference in the short term?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's part of the issue. And the White House has tried to explain that by saying, you know, even if they're not going to deter Putin and his Russian forces, They at least need to put them on in response to these horrifying and powerful images that you're seeing coming out.

And so you will see tomorrow this announcement coming from the White House. We are told this is being done in coordination with the other G7 nations in the European Union, and that for the U.S. side, the package is going to look like a ban on new investments in Russia. It's going to be tightening those already existing financial sanctions on financial enterprises, Russian state owned enterprises, of course, and also Anderson, targeting Russian government officials and their family members. And one big question that has been raised by that is whether or not

the White House will also single out Putin's two daughters, because there has been this proposal floating around when it comes to the European Union, this idea of sanctioning his two daughters as well given -- to kind of make this personal in this package that they are expected to impose, yes, tomorrow.

So far, the White House hasn't said whether or not they are going to be included in this. But it does seem like that is an option that at least the European Union is considering. And so that's a big question coming to this. But of course, back to what you've said, one thing that has been facing the White House ever since this started is whether or not these invasions could actually deter anything because of course, as we've seen, this invasion has continued and also gotten more brutal by the day.

COOPER: Fred, in other conflicts, sometimes the retreating force will booby trap bodies, will leave booby traps in vehicles or abandoned weaponry behind. Are Ukrainian forces encountering that? Are they worried about that?

PLEITGEN: Well, they are worried about it, Anderson, and there are some that they are encountering as well. In fact, especially in Bucha, it's something that the Ukrainian forces told us that they had encountered and there are some demining teams that are actually working in places like Bucha and similar places as well. You can see some of them on your screen right now, because on the one hand, there still is a lot of unexploded ordnance laying around.

In fact, you know, when we are out there, we frequently see live tank shells, RPG rounds, tank ammunition, all those kinds of things still laying around. You really have to watch out where you step.

Now civilians obviously go into that area, that's quite dangerous. However, the booby traps the Ukrainian say are also a problem and something that they have to deal with, as well. In fact, we were in one compound, where they had also discovered a couple of dead bodies and they specifically warned us that there were areas there that could very well be booby trapped, and they believed that they were booby trapped.

So they have to go very carefully right now to try and find out which areas are safe and make those areas safe. And to do that, there is a curfew that's in place until April 7th for those areas to make sure that people who live there can go back, but not anybody on top of that -- Anderson.

COOPER: Ivan, I understand, you have some more new information about hospitals that have been targeted.

WATSON: This is really disturbing. The United Nations says that since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, there have been no less than 85 strikes on health facilities in this country. That is more than one a day being targeted, and that at least 72 people have been killed in the strikes. Now the Mayor of Mykolaiv, this kind of frontline Southern Ukrainian

city posted this video, we can show right now of a parking lot. He identifies this as a pediatric hospital, and you can see that the ambulances there get struck by explosives.

Now, we are trying to reach out to find out what day this was, what exact hospital this was. But it is notable because the aid organization, Doctors Without Borders had a team in Mykolaiv that witnessed an attack they say yesterday on the city's oncology hospital, and that the attack also hit the nearby Children's Hospital, blowing out the windows of the Doctors without Borders vehicles.

The team there saw at least one dead body and several wounded people and Doctors without Borders says that no less than three hospitals have been hit in that city in just two days.

So the pattern here is that health workers and hospitals themselves appear to be being deliberately targeted.

[20:15:23]

COOPER: Kaitlan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley testified before Congress about the war today. What did he talk about?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is actually really revealing testimony from Chairman Mark Milley and we had heard from Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser yesterday who said, this next phase where you are seeing Russia reposition its forces, they are very intentionally calling it a retreat. He said it could go on for months.

And Milley actually extended that timeline today talking about the conflict and how long he believes it could go on for. And Anderson, he said he thinks it could go on for years, talking about what this looks like, what Russia, their intentions are, and what they plan on doing and he did offer that warning that this is going to go on, in their view, and based on the assessments that they've made for some time.

And Jen Psaki was later asked about that, she said that is the assessment that's been made by the United States military. And so, one other thing he said today that really stood out to me as well was he was talking about what could have deterred Putin. You know, we're talking about sanctions and whether or not the threat of that could actually make him hesitate in these moves.

Chairman Milley said he didn't think anything could deter Putin except putting U.S. forces on the ground in Ukraine and he said, if that hadn't been something that was under discussion, which President Biden has repeatedly said he was not going to do. He said he would have advised against it because he believed it could have led to armed conflict with Russia.

But it is notable that he talked about ways to deter Putin and he said there basically weren't any short of putting United States military on the ground in Ukraine. COOPER: Interesting. Kaitlan Collins, Ivan Watson, Fred Pleitgen, I

appreciate it. Thank you.

Coming up next, I'm talking to former Defense Secretary and soldier Chuck Hagel on the atrocities we've already seen and the likelihood we'll see more.

And later my conversation with Chef Jose Andres who went with his team from World Central Kitchen to feed people in Bucha.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:11]

COOPER: In addition to President Zelenskyy's warning that there will be more discoveries like the horror of Bucha to come, there were these striking words today from President Biden's top military adviser. We touched on this before the break. Listen to what Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told the House panel today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We are witness to the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world in my 42 years of service in uniform.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to undermine not only European peace and stability, but global peace and stability that my parents and a generation of Americans fought so hard to defend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, joining us now is Chuck Hagel, served as Defense Secretary during the Obama administration and saw combat as a soldier in Vietnam.

Secretary Hagel, thank you so much for joining us.

If the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is right and the horrors in Bucha will be repeated, do you think these atrocities should impact the U.S.'s in this war? Or does it not change anything in terms of the level of involvement on the ground?

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, thanks for having me, Anderson.

Let me just reflect in answering your question on what General Milley said today that you just ran a clip of that. As people watch this, this raw carnage, the massacres of innocent people and he is right, we haven't seen this since, I'd say since World War Two. There will be consequences. There will be repercussions.

There will be more and more demand on the United States and the West to do more. As we're seeing every week, it accelerates, to do more and do more. I mean more sanctions tomorrow, more calls for more weapons, more sophisticated weapons, S-300 missile defense systems. You're going to have more pressure that will be on the United States, and I think it's appropriate.

I mean, when we step back and really understand what's going on here, not only have we never seen this since World War Two, but just the humanitarian dynamic of this. The Chinese are watching this as relates to Taiwan, the Iranians, the North Koreans -- all countries are watching this, and watching the U.S. response to it, and the West response to it.

COOPER: And as it -- I mean, if it continues to go on for, you know, years or a year, the risk of fracturing within the NATO coalition increases, which is obviously, the U.S. is concerned enough about that President Biden went there to, you know, to keep it shored up together, and they've done a good job of keeping it together thus far, but how big a concern of that is it for you, you know, if this goes on and people stop watching it and stop paying attention to it and just get frustrated and you know, start to come up with different ideas of what should be done.

HAGEL: Well, Anderson, all those are realities and those are very likely consequences that I was referring to. I mean, you could see that happen. You can see it go the other way. This is so unpredictable.

And we've never seen anything quite like this in our lifetime, so there is no playbook here. That unpredictability leads to a lot of hair trigger decisions. A lot of accidents can happen. A lot of things happen because there's -- the whole world is involved here. Not militarily, but certainly through fuel and supply chain issues through imports and exports.

Nobody is getting away from this or are going to get out of it as it continues and the slaughter even becomes more immense and more specific.

[20:25:10]

And the United Nations today is a good example. I mean, people are going to have to start taking sides in this because not only are they all going to be affected more and more, the longer this goes, but just the pressure on the governments of these countries from their people.

And for doing -- what are we going to do? Are we going to do the right thing here? Or what's the right thing to do? So, again, the unpredictability, the instability that this is presenting to the world, maybe the most dangerous part of this, certainly for the poor people of Ukraine. It's terrible, terrible, terrible, but it could -- it could get, and I think it will get more dangerous as this thing goes on week after week.

COOPER: Well, also, as I'm sure General Milley was referring to, you know, Ukraine provides a lot of wheat and food for the rest of the world. If you have rising food prices in the Middle East, rising food prices in Africa that can also spark unrest and be one of the ripple effects of this.

HAGEL: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, Russia and Ukraine produce a third of the world's wheat and other grains in those kinds of proportions and what you just said is a good example of just one dimension of this thing as it goes on and on and on and you've got parts of the world like the Middle East that are not in very good shape, either. And there is not much that is going to help them in any way whether it's Africa or South American countries. There, some of those countries are in trouble.

That's what I was talking about, it just feeds into all that instability, and unrest, and unpredictability, which makes a damn dangerous world.

COOPER: Yes. Secretary Chuck Hagel, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

HAGEL: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: Conversation coming up with Chef Jose Andres who led a team from his World Central Kitchen into liberated areas of Bucha and Irpin to feed people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:53]

COOPER: Top Chef Jose Andres and his team from World Central Kitchen are number of times in Ukraine and they headed into Irpin' and Bucha to help feed people, shot these photos of some of those that they encountered. Jose Andres and his team said they provided more than 13,000 pounds of food and they're planning to do more relief to more towns and villages as they become liberated.

Just before air, I spoke with Chef Andres about what he saw there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (on-camera): Jose, thanks for joining us. I know you were deeply affected by what you saw in Bucha and Irpin. Can you just talk about what it was like there?

JOSE ANDRES, CHEF, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Well, when we realized that, obviously Bucha was free, and we were listening about all the needs that plays in the bus for 30 days taken by the Russian troops, we thought that we had to be there. So, I was able to, to go we cross over one of the bridges that was totally destroy, we were able to bring with us 300 meals. And we found the mayor of Irpin right in the middle of the road, when he realized that we were coming with food (INAUDIBLE). He's the one that told us Irpin needs help, but I'm going to take you to this place that needs the most care. And this was Bucha itself.

So we when we him when we arrive, elderly, people, woman, some pregnant, a couple of children came up. And we were able to use give the food away, everybody was giving us such a big hug. Sometimes hugs that will go for a minute or longer. They were -- the woman were crying, the men were crying. And obviously they were describing the times the horrors of what they went through. With the day after on Saturday, I was able us to in a more organized way to do a bigger convoy this time with we got 6,000 kilos of food, 600 hot meals, and we were able again to go to the same place plus all the places around Bucha and Irpin. And since then every day, the team, the World Central Kitchen, we've been moving slightly north, as you see more cities were being liberated, bringing in eight. Today we were 30 minutes, 40 minutes north of Bucha delivering food to new cities, very important that we are there with them right now until the markets open again. And is slightly things go back whatever that means back to normal.

COOPER (on-camera): Is this your first time operating in an environment like this? I mean, in a, you know, in a country at war?

ANDRES: Yes, totally. We've been in other situations in the border in Venezuela and Colombia, in Haiti in moments that were I would say rough. But in a war situation like the one we are facing. Yes.

COOPER (on-camera): Seeing something like this really for the first time being in a situation in a country of war for the first time. I'm just wondering what stands out to you because obviously you've been in places where people are in great need where their lives have been upended. Their homes have been destroyed. But, you know, you're in Bucha town where people's bodies were left in the streets after being slaughtered by Russian forces.

ANDRES: Obviously, the horrors of war is only that only the men and woman fighting those wars know about it. But it's more than that. You know that you're in a city that sometimes bombs or missiles are coming down. Need move. The CEO of World Central Kitchen is in Kharkiv right now. We get -- we have chef that are feeding people incursion, we have chefs feeding in places that they are even too dangerous to announce it on Twitter, what they are doing because they are putting their lives at risk. But what you realize in a war is that life goes on, people have to eat, people have to survive, people have to hope.

[20:35:06]

And what we see is these food fighters, men, a woman across many restaurants, I think we have right now I'm reading because the number keeps changing. We have hundreds, 260 restaurants, or catering companies or food trucks, man and woman, that they are fighting the war in the only way they know which is with food, making sure that the people that needed will have that plate of food is risk involved. We are very aware of that. Going to Bucha myself, I realized that were mines, we had to be careful. We couldn't be driving in any direction we wanted because there could be a mine waiting for our cars.

So, the dangers are obvious, but let me tell you, I think it's worth to take the danger we can be bringing relief to people that needed the most. Is not use the plate of food is to send a message that we are with you, that we are going to care for you that we are not going to let you go alone in these dark hour. For me being there, the World Central Kitchen teams of volunteers and chefs all across Ukraine is important. We are there this sends a very big message. We are with Ukrainian people. And we are going to be with them until they win. And hopefully they can dream of a better tomorrow.

COOPER (on-camera): Yes. Chef Jose Andres, appreciate it. Thank you.

ANDRES: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: We just had tonight, we're going to take you inside the intensive care unit of a hospital in the eastern part of Ukraine, a staff are trying desperately to save civilians and soldiers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:15]

COOPER: We have some new video that was released today that we want to show you that was taken Monday I was at a hospital in the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian say this was a Russian strike that had outside of children's hospital. Blast hits and parked ambulances. There was a team from the relief group Doctors Without Borders that was in the area confirming the strike and a statement it also says there was a strike running near biooncology (ph) hospital as well.

Ivan Watson recently spent some time at a different hospital in the eastern part of the country to understand the toll the wars taking on civilians and soldiers and staff. Is always warning some what you'll see is graphic. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shattered bodies in the intensive care unit of a Ukrainian hospital. Men and women from the Ukrainian military whose war wounds are so catastrophic, they need machines to breathe. These deeply uncomfortable images a glimpse of the physical toll this conflict is taking on both soldiers and civilians.

(on-camera): The general director of the hospital says that after the first couple of days of this new war, at least 30 medical personnel resigned because of just the trauma of seeing these kinds of injuries up Close.

(voice-over): A soldier named Yuri wants to communicate.

(on-camera): He can't speak because he's still on a ventilator. He has regained consciousness after 11 days in a coma.

(voice-over): We won't identify him because doctors say his family does not yet know of his injuries.

(on-camera): He has one child, (INAUDIBLE).

(voice-over): A daughter he signals, 13 years old. Writing in my notebook, Yuri tells me he's been in the military for two years.

(on-camera): The doctor says that he has a very good chance of surviving very serious shrapnel injuries to his body. We were given permission to film here provided we not name the hospital nor the city that we're in. And that's because the Ukrainian authorities fear that that information could lead to the Russian military directly targeting this hospital.

(voice-over): In every room here there's a patient whose bones and tissues have been ripped apart by flying metal.

(on-camera): Vladimir (ph) is a volunteer. He signed up on the second day of this war in 2022.

(voice-over): This electrician turns volunteers soldier comes from the Russian speaking city of Kharkiv. Three days ago a battle left him with two broken arms and wounds to the stomach.

(on-camera): Vladimir (ph) has said his sister lives in Russia, and he no longer communicates with her. I asked why. He said that she believes that the Ukrainians are enemies. This is a family that is split apart by this war and different narratives of who started it.

(voice-over): Vladimir (ph) and the soldier with a fresh amputation lying next to him both insists that only force can stop Russia's war on this country.

Down the hall I meet a young civilian also horrifically wounded him.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WATSON (on-camera): (INAUDIBLE) Deema (ph) is 21 years old. Where are you from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mariupol.

WATSON (voice-over): Deema (ph) is a recent university graduate photographed here with his mother Natasha. My mother died when this happened to me, he says adding I've cried it off already. I'm calmer now.

He says on the night of March 9th, he and his mother were hiding in the bathroom of a two-story house in the center of Mariupol when they heard warplanes overhead bombing the neighborhood. Mother and son were hiding in the bathroom shortly before 1:00 a.m. he says when the bomb hit the house. When he woke up, his legs were gone. He never saw his mother again. During my visit, a friend gives Deema (ph) a phone.

(on-camera): This is first time he's seeing the building where he and his mother were sheltering when they were.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WATSON (on-camera): The red car here that is destroyed in front of the ruined building was his mother's car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Of course I get angry. I get sad. I get depressed at times, but I can't lose my cool because those who did this to me, they probably want me to sit here crying and weeping.

WATSON (voice-over): Don't let the silence in these halls fool you. There is deep seething anger in this hospital at the country that launched this unprovoked war on Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Ivan Watson joins us now. The administrator of the hospital I mean given what we have seen elsewhere in Ukraine, they must be fearful of getting hit themselves.

[20:45:13]

WATSON: Absolutely, absolutely. And if you look at statistics published by the United Nations today, they say that there have been 85 attacks, since Russia invaded Ukraine on health facilities, 85 attacks that have killed at least 72 people. And if you if you count the days, that's more than one attack a day Anderson. So, the Ukrainians have accused the Russians of deliberately targeting hospitals. And we've seen for example, the famous case of a maternity hospital bombed in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Now, the Russian government insists no, this isn't the case. But it's the sheer evidence that suggests the alternative. And the organization, the eight organization Doctors Without Borders. They say that in two days, three separate hospitals have been bombed in another Ukrainian city in the past few days, that's Mykolaiv. So, this is part of why the doctors are so worried that if this information gets out, that they could be targeted, and the hundreds of patients inside as well as nurses, doctors, everybody would be terrorized by this type of an attack.

COOPER: Yes. Ivan Watson, appreciate it. Thank you.

Still to come, Russian-Americans worried about their relatives serving Russia's military, desperate for information calling Ukrainian hotline. What they think of this war and how it's impacting their families, next.

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[20:50:43]

COOPER: Since the first days of Russia's war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian government has run a hotline for families looking for loved ones serving in the Russian military, also serves of course as a way for Ukraine to inform Russians about what's actually happening. Calls have come in from across Russia, Europe and as far away as the United States.

CNN's Alex Marquardt spoke to some of those Russian Americans who made the call desperate for information about their loved ones. Here's his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Suburban Virginia is a long way from the fighting in Ukraine, where evidence of war crimes by Russian forces is mounting. There's a particular kind of pain seeing felt these days here in the United States by people like Marat, Russian-Americans who have relatives who are part of Russia's invading army.

MARAT, RELATED TO MEMBER OF RUSSIAN MILITARY: I didn't believe this. At first, I was shocked. I started calling my relatives to find out if this is true, what's going on.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): He had found a distant cousins photos and ID in a chat about Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Marat's family confirmed that the cousin who we are not naming had been sent to Ukraine, and is now back in Russia. But they told him little more.

(on-camera): What do you know about his condition?

MARAT: He is in the hospital.

MARQUARDT (on-camera): You say that some of your family members gave you signs not to contact them? What did they tell you?

MARAT: They told me that we'll deal with these ourselves. Please don't get involved. We'll do this within the circle of immediate relatives.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): After arriving in the U.S. in 2008, Marat served for eight years in the U.S. army and became a citizen. He says he and his parents in Russia are fiercely anti-war. Other relatives, however, are a different story.

(on-camera): What does it feel like as a Russian-American to be watching this conflict go on?

MARAT: I think we're all going through this. On one hand, we have the relatives who cared for us, you know, and on the other hand, the same relatives, they support the invasion. It's something that that is very hard to deal with. Where do you draw the line? So for example, if your mother supports the invasion, what do you do? I think to answer this question, with your immediate relatives, you just have to work with them.

MARQUARDT (on-camera): Hello, is this Marat?

MARAT: Yes, it is.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): I first spoke with Marat when I was in Ukraine. He had called the Ukrainian hotline that offered to help Russian families track down Russian soldiers.

Anna from Brooklyn, New York, whose identity we're protecting, had also called looking for her cousin.

ANNA, RELATED TO MEMBER OF RUSSIAN MILITARY: Those soldiers that were sent to fight day. It wasn't their decision. It wasn't something that they wanted to do. MARQUARDT (voice-over): Her cousin is so young, around 20 years old, that Anna calls him her nephew. He got married late last year. The family thinks he had been deployed toward Ukraine's capital Kyiv.

ANNA: Now we don't have any contact with him. And we don't know what's happened. If he's still alive, if he's well, maybe he's, you know, maybe he's been captured. We don't know.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): Like Marat, Anna is treated with suspicion kept at arm's length by her family in Russia, because she's against the war.

ANNA: I believe that there is a war in Ukraine. And they just treat it as a military operation, basically. So.

MARQUARDT (on-camera): They believe that the Russian army is fighting against Nazis like Putin.

ANNA: Yes, yes, exactly. That's what they've been told. And they firmly believe it and any other information that, you know, I'm trying to give them they think its fake information. You know, they just think that I'm brainwashed.

MARQUARDT (on-camera): What has this done to you as a person?

ANNA: I'm just heartbroken. I feel like I'm very helpless. Yes. Because there is nothing they can do or say, you know, to change their minds. I'm afraid it's getting already too late, because so many people died.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): Many of those people in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where Anna and her family actually have Ukrainian cousins who she has no news from.

ANNA: I don't know what's happened to my nephew, because nobody can get in touch with them, all those relatives in Mariupol. And my friends are all, you know, they all refugees now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[20:55:04]

MARQUARDT: And Anderson, Anna told me that she doesn't bring up the war with her mother because if she does then they argue or her mother shuts her down. And her mother is now one of millions of Russians, who's getting this fire hydrant of lies from Russian state media, all of this propaganda with little to no independent media. And if it's not propaganda, then maybe Russians will face punishment, threats of years in prison if they face if they spread what Russia -- the Russian state calls fake news. So there's really this culture of fear that is now taking root in Russia. Anderson.

COOPER: Yes, so many families divided. Alex Marquardt, I really appreciate the update. Thanks so much.

Coming up, Ivanka Trump voluntarily talking to the January 6 Committee. What we know about her testimony, next.

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COOPER: January 6 Committee heard today from a key figure Ivanka Trump the daughter of the former president former White House senior advisors met voluntarily and virtually with House lawmakers investigating the attack on the Capitol.

[21:00:03]

Committee chairman, Bennie Thompson says she answered questions though he says her answers were not especially broad, his words are nor overly chatty, also his word. In addition, the chairman noted he's not aware of She invoked her Fifth Amendment rights.

In the committee's request to meet with her lawmakers that they wanted to know about her efforts to get her father stopped the violence. They also want her take on his quote, mental state in the days following January 6. As you may recall, she was with her dad most of the day and she was in the Oval Office for key meetings.

Stay with CNN for the ladies from Ukraine.

The news continues. Let's go to Jake Tapper in "CNN TONIGHT." Jake.