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Ukraine's President on MH17 Culprits; Remembering Life Aboard the International Space Station; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 16, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: one year since the downing of MH17. My exclusive interview with Ukraine's president, laying

down the gauntlet as the war drums keep beating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We need two things.

First, first, withdrawal of the Russian troops and, second, closing uncontrolled part of Ukrainian-Russian border, full stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And also ahead, as NASA gets closer to Pluto, we speak to the Italian astronaut who showed how to make dinner in space.

She's now back on Earth, remembering life aboard the International Space Station.

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SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI, EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY ASTRONAUT: The sensation of lightness, of liberty, you're inhabiting your space in the three

dimensions. If you want, you can have dinner on the ceiling and have a chat on the wall with your colleagues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

A year ago, Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot out of the skies over Ukraine and 298 innocent people were killed because of the Russian-backed

war there. As the families of the victims prepare to fly from Malaysia to Europe for Friday's sad anniversary, there are still no formal answers and

still no justice.

The investigation is still underway but CNN has learned from a source close to the probe that evidence points to pro-Russian rebels. Russia says it

had nothing to do with it.

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OLEG STORCHEVOI, ROSAVIATSIA DEPUTY CHIEF (through translator): I can straightaway tell you that there is a lot we want to say about this

document and a lot to contradict on some of its talking points.

We are ready to conduct all necessary research in the presence of specialists from different countries. In short, we have nothing to hide.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Meantime, the war that was raging then still continues on a steady boil. That's despite the February cease-fire reached

in Minsk. Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, joined me for an exclusive interview from Kiev to demand Russia accept responsibility for

the MH17 disaster and to warn that Russian-backed rebels are ramping up again.

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AMANPOUR: President Poroshenko, welcome back to our program.

POROSHENKO: Thank you. I'm really happy to hear you again.

AMANPOUR: Well, it's a pretty sad anniversary that we're marking right now, and that is almost exactly a year since MH17 was shot down.

Now Dutch accident investigators are basically saying that their evidence points to pro-Russian rebels as the people who shot this down and CNN has

written that with an exclusive source who's told us that.

What is your reaction to that?

POROSHENKO: The reaction is very simple. The -- it is exactly one year from the tragedy which happened on Ukrainian side and I -- that is, I still

remember how it happened and it was immediately make a decision by me that we transfer all the investigation from the Ukraine to Dutch investigator,

which the country who suffered the most for this disastrous tragedy.

And now after one year investigation, we delivered the information that we have a four main factor.

Point number one: the Malaysian Boeing was hit by the Russian surface-to- air missile. It was launched by the special Russian Buk launcher. It was made by the Russian trade operator and it was happened from the occupied

territory of Ukraine, occupied by Russian troops and Russian-backed terrorists.

AMANPOUR: You're saying that this evidence is what you expected, what the Dutch investigators have come out with. We probably won't see it publicly

for another several months.

But what do you make of the following?

The Australians are wanting the U.N. Security Council to support the establishment of a tribunal to prosecute those who are suspected of

bringing this MH17 down over Ukrainian territory.

But President Putin of Russia, in his conversation around the first anniversary, has told the Dutch prime minister that that would be

counterproductive.

What's your reaction to that from President Putin?

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POROSHENKO: I think it is -- unfortunately, this is predictable and it is very bad because, after the investigation, should be the second stage,

responsibility, responsibility of the terrorists who killing innocent victim in the Malaysian plane.

And in that connection, we strongly support the international criminal tribunal which was -- which should be adopted by the Security Council of

the United Nations.

And Ukraine would be a cosponsor of this initiative, together with the nations who suffered the most, with the Netherlands, with Australia, with

Malaysia and Ukraine. And we think that the -- if anybody wants to stop this process, this is take the responsibility on himself.

And this is not exactly what the global world need now, this is not just a tragedy which happened only with the plane, because Ukraine suffered from

this so-called -- from the very beginning hybrid war and today is a real war with the occupation of my territory, with the annexing of the Crimea,

with the Russian troops, which is present now on Ukrainian territory, with uncontrolled part of the Ukrainian-Russian border, through which Russians

supply to the terrorists the state-of-the-art modern weapon, including this Buk surface-to-air missile.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me --

POROSHENKO: -- still a lot of these things, including tanks and everything.

AMANPOUR: And we have been witnessing an upsurge in this fighting and there's plenty of reports about it. And you warned that there may be

another, quote, "invasion" this summer.

Let me tell you or let me play for you what General Breedlove, the head of NATO, told me a few months ago about the current pattern of Russian

military maneuvers.

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GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, NATO: . what we have seen is a pattern of preparation, a pattern of moving forces forward, a pattern

of resupply, a pattern of training, bringing in air defenses, bringing in enhanced command and control, et cetera, et cetera. And these things in

the past have preceded further action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So what do you make of that?

And do you believe that there is a preparation for a relaunch and a reescalation of this war?

POROSHENKO: I don't -- I not only believe in that but I have also the confirmation of that from our own intelligence sources. And just for the

better understanding of the -- all the audience of CNN, just yesterday night, I lost eight of my soldiers from the artillery fire of the Russian

and Russian-backed terrorist troops.

And 16 Ukrainian soldiers were wounded, just for one day, and dozens of the civilians were hit, killed and wounded, just in one day. And this is the

reality of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, just a statistic during one day.

And we really confirmed that the concentration of Russian troops happening now and that's make -- and make it necessary, the enormous efforts to stop

this aggression --

AMANPOUR: Well --

POROSHENKO: -- not to allow them to escalate the conflict.

AMANPOUR: -- well, you know that those partners who are trying to help you are also saying that the Minsk accords enshrined some greater autonomy,

some greater self-rule for some of those separatists and that you haven't done it yet and President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel have told you this

week that you must do that.

And here is what President Putin said about that just recently.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): It was the partners in Kiev who insisted on having the leaders of the non-recognized

Donetsk and Lugansk republics in Minsk so they could sign all documents. They came and signed them. They announced that they are ready to implement

them.

Now we see they don't want to talk directly to them anymore.

Why, then, did they ask them to come and sign documents?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, Mr. President, what is your answer to that and to your partners, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, who say you must follow

through?

POROSHENKO: This is complete misinformation because the Minsk agreement was fully implemented by the Ukrainian side. We arrange the first cease-

fire; we withdraw our heavy artillery and weapons.

We demand immediate release of the Ukrainian hostages who are illegally kept in Russian prisons and in Russian-backed terrorist prisons.

We immediately demand the immediate access of the OEC inspector to the territory --

[14:10:00]

POROSHENKO: -- controlled by the Russian troops and Russian-backed terrorists and where the OEC inspectors simply prohibit to enter in to

check, to monitor the fulfillment of the Minsk agreement and withdrawal of the heavy artillery and weapons.

We make a special law which give a special regime for the local self- governance.

And yesterday we make a great victory. We make -- launch the process of the changing of the constitution. And Ukrainian parliament yesterday gives

288 votes for the launching the process for the decentralization, for giving more power to the region and give a specific mention in constitution

the specifics of self-governance regime in some districts of Donetsk and Lugansk.

This is exactly the obligation of Ukraine, which mentioning in the Minsk agreement.

How it can be interpreted any other way why the fact that Ukraine finishing all the implementation of the Minsk agreement and, on contrary, we don't

have anything positive from this side.

And I think the international community, our very strong and reliable partner, United States, Canada, European Union, Australia, Japan, the whole

world, we should insist that Russia should implement this -- his part of the job. They should stop killing Ukrainian civilians.

We continue to demand for the immediate release of the Ukrainian hostages which illegally kept in the Russian prison and including Ukrainian patriot,

the captain of Ukrainian air force, Nadiya Savchenko, member of the parliamentary assembly council of Europe, member of Ukrainian parliament,

illegally kept for more than a year in prison without any charges.

The most important thing. We need two things.

First, first, withdrawal of the Russian troops and, second, closing uncontrolled part of Ukrainian-Russian border, full stop.

AMANPOUR: President Petro Poroshenko, thank you very much for joining us with some troubling news, of course, on this very sad anniversary. We

appreciate you joining us from Kiev.

POROSHENKO: Thank you very much indeed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Despite war on the ground, high above us in space it is peaceful. Russian and U.S. astronauts are paying tribute to cooperation

between the two nations when, 40 years after their predecessors held a historic handshake during a Soyuz-Apollo mission at the height of the space

race.

And we stay up in the stars after a break. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on her triumphant mission -- although she didn't quite get to

see Pluto in all its stunning glory. That's next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. NASA has reached beyond our final frontier and revealed the first-ever high-definition photos of Pluto's

surface, which is 3 billion miles away. Last night, scientists at Mission Control in Houston provided even more pictures showing the dwarf planet's

massive ice mountains. They say it's as big as the Rocky range.

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AMANPOUR: It took the New Horizons spacecraft nine years to get there and capture these images and the whole idea captivates the Italian astronaut,

Samantha Cristoforetti, who's just returned from traveling 84 million miles in space in 199 days, which dwarfs Hillary Clinton's much vaunted million

miles around the world in four years as secretary of state.

Now the charismatic Cristoforetti has well and truly shattered the glass stratosphere, completing the longest mission of any European space agency

astronaut. She's also gone viral on social media, having brewed the first espresso in space. And now she's given her first post-galactic television

interview.

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AMANPOUR: Samantha Cristoforetti, welcome to the program.

CRISTOFORETTI: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's an honor.

AMANPOUR: So after really breaking this record of such endurance and longevity and space, how does it feel being back on Earth?

Was it hard to adjust?

CRISTOFORETTI: It is. It's a little bit hard. In fact, I think it was easier to adapt to being in space than it is to come back. Gravity can be

tough for the first few days. I really felt like I had a giant that wanted to squeeze me on the ground.

And then you have to get used to a more complex environment and the space station is technically a challenge. It's a challenging place to work in.

But we are very much trained for all the science we do up there and all the technical work. But on Earth, of course, you have a lot of more little

things that you have to deal with.

And believe it or not, it's hard to learn how to do those after you had not --having had to do that for several months.

AMANPOUR: What was hardest to adapt to when you got back?

CRISTOFORETTI: Well, really, at the very beginning, simply walking was difficult. I mean, it was hurting, it was tiring after walking just a

little bit. I really felt like I wanted to lay down because if you think about it, when you are in space and you're floating and that's wonderful to

float. But it's really like you're laying down. You're not carrying your weight around. So just carrying my own weight the first few days was

incredibly exhausting.

AMANPOUR: Have you been following as everybody else has NASA's Pluto mission?

CRISTOFORETTI: Yes, I have. I've been following as my schedule's a little bit busy these days. But I've been following as much as I could. And

that was just exciting. I mean, things that we have a prober, a robot, which is really our eyes, that the eyes of humanity out there and we're

able to take a peek 3 billion miles away from home, it's just mind boggling.

AMANPOUR: You are an Air Force captain. You're also now an astronaut. You always wanted to fly.

Did you ever think that you'd fly like this?

What was that like?

What was the sensation like?

CRISTOFORETTI: Oh, I loved it from absolute to the very moment. It's like -- especially if you've dreamed of flying all your life and there's

different ways of flying, like I'm a pilot and then of course you need an airplane and you have an interface between you and the environment, which

is the airplane. And it's wonderful.

But when your own body is able to fly all the time, you're like Superman up there. It's like -- I call it an explosion of freedom. The sensation of

lightness, of liberty, you're inhabiting your space in the three dimensions. If you want, you can have dinner on the ceiling and have a

chat on the wall with your colleagues. It's just -- I loved it and I do miss it a lot.

AMANPOUR: Dinner on the ceiling, it sounds good.

You also, because of the kinds of things you say and the way you say them, you attracted a lot of followers. You have hundreds of thousands on

Twitter, a lot of people following you, you know, the wonderful classic picture of your espresso.

And what sort of dialogue were you having with mere mortals back on Earth? What do you think made you so attractive to them up there?

CRISTOFORETTI: A few of us, we are lucky enough that we actually get to go there. But space exploration is really a collective endeavor. I like to

call the space station my humanities outpost in space. And it's one of the first steps that we are making as human beings, of humanity, to become a

space sparing species.

And I really hope that as many people as possible, maybe a little bit also through me, felt involved and felt that they were part of it.

AMANPOUR: Well, you did a lot of training, a lot of experiments; a lot of what you were doing was part of the exploration and the eventual, I guess,

travel to Mars.

Do you really want to colonize space?

Is that where we're headed?

CRISTOFORETTI: I think all of us, if they try to imagine humanity in 500 years, they will imagine a civilization that is able to travel to space,

that inhabits other planets as well, that is not just confined to our home world.

And so to me it's inevitable. And it's just -- now it's about making those first steps, of having the courage of taking those first steps. And then

we go from there.

AMANPOUR: And presumably you would want to go to Mars.

CRISTOFORETTI: I would love to have the chance, yes.

AMANPOUR: And when you were up there in space, we had a little controversy --

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AMANPOUR: -- down here on Earth about women in science. A very well respected Nobel scientist basically declared that women in the lab were an

occupational hazard because we fall in love with them, he said, as a man, they fall in love with us and then they cry when they're criticized.

What do you say about women in the lab and women scientists?

Is that really a place for a woman like you?

CRISTOFORETTI: Yes, yes. I think so. And I'd really like to try and encourage as much as possible -- boys of course as well, but especially

girls to give science and technology a chance.

Sometimes, especially, unfortunately, girls don't really get the chance, don't -- I like to try and encourage them to stay open and to allow

themselves to be captivated by the beauty and the fascination of science and technology.

Maybe it's not as immediate, as enjoying, for example, a work of literature, or a work of art, but if you try and get beyond that threshold,

if you make that little effort, then it's just as fascinating when you're understanding how our world works.

AMANPOUR: And from your home country, from Italy, the pope made a huge declaration on the climate a few weeks ago. And you have taken a lot of

pictures from space of our planet Earth.

What do you see that makes you think of the climate and the survival of planet Earth when you're so many -- I think -- millions of miles above us?

(LAUGHTER)

CRISTOFORETTI: Well, I'm not quite that far. The space station --

AMANPOUR: How many?

(CROSSTALK)

CRISTOFORETTI: -- it's about 400 kilometers --

AMANPOUR: OK.

CRISTOFORETTI: -- we're not that far.

But still, even from that distance, you have a very immediate perception of the fact that we are all traveling on this planet Earth, which is really

like a spaceship. Everybody's a crew member, which means that we have to take responsibility and we have to work hard.

And everybody makes mistakes. And sometimes we cause trouble just by making mistakes. And you're allowed to make mistakes because we're humans.

But we're not allowed to be unaware or careless.

And just in the same way, you know, all human beings are crew members on Spaceship Earth. And we cannot be unaware and we cannot be careless. We

are crew members. We have to have the awareness. We have to have the understanding of our impact on the environment, on our spaceship.

And we also have to understand that, just like on the space station, I came back. Another crew is up there and I had a responsibility of leaving them

a spaceship in good shape. Well, we're also here on this planet just for a short time. And then another generation will come. And we have a

responsibility to leave them a Spaceship Earth which is in good shape.

AMANPOUR: Crew members on Spaceship Earth, that is really well put.

Finally, what was your creature comfort?

What did you miss most on Earth that you wanted to have up in space?

CRISTOFORETTI: Well, I think probably a shower. That's pretty much on the top of my list. After you've been up there for a few months, just washing

your skin with wet towels and stuff like that, you're really craving that sense of cleanliness that you get from having water flowing on your body.

AMANPOUR: All right. Samantha Cristoforetti, thank you so much indeed for joining us.

CRISTOFORETTI: Thank you so much, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And leading the way for a legion of women and girls interested in space, but she is not alone. The New Horizons spacecraft that spotted

Pluto this week is fueled by a NASA team; a quarter of them are women. It is a small step for womankind but one giant leap in the right direction --

to sort of paraphrase Neil Armstrong. He was the first man, the first person on the moon, an American -- talking about that space race.

When we come back, we honor another pioneer celebrating the journalism of the incredible Marlene Sanders, a life tearing down the boundaries -- next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, you may know our colleague and friend, Jeffrey Toobin. He's a lawyer, an author and he's a legal analyst for CNN

and "The New Yorker." But you may not know about his mother, a brilliant journalist and a fearless trailblazer and tonight we remember Marlene

Sanders, who's passed away at the age of 84 after a long battle with cancer.

Imagine a world where women were banished from the board room and kept out of the boys' club of journalism. That was business as usual in the early

'60s until Marlene Sanders broke through, a woman of firsts. She was the first woman to become a vice president at ABC News. She was the first

woman to broadcast on television from the Vietnam War and the first woman to anchor the evening news on a major U.S. network.

Her life and career leave a legacy of achievement and dedication, beginning as a production assistant, her talent saw her climb the ladder at ABC and

CBS News, leaving her mark, coverage the women's liberation movement before becoming a professor of journalism at New York University and passing on

all that valuable knowledge and experience to the next generation of journalists, women and men.

As a woman, she broke boundaries; as a journalist, she showed us the world and as her son, Jeffrey Toobin, says, she was also a great mom.

And that's it for our program tonight. And remember you can always see our whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

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