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Russian Strikes Increase as Ukraine's Interceptors Run Short; Officials Say Hackers Used Autonomous A.I. Agents to Attack Taiwan; Two Army Pilots Killed in Apache Helicopter Crash in Texas; Ex-cop Accused of Plotting New Orleans Attack is Released After Grand Jury Declines to Indict; Army OB-GYN Pleads Not Guilty to Charges of Sexually Abusing Patients, Secretly Recording Exams. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 13, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: -- to get over that hump. Now, while wind shear and sinking air can put a big dent in tropical activity throughout the Atlantic, it doesn't eliminate it altogether. Previous El Nino seasons, like the destruction brought on by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, have proven that it only takes one landfall to make this a catastrophic season.

So be hurricane-ready this year by downloading the all-new CNN Weather app.

And Brianna, wind shear has been at near record levels across the main development region here across the Atlantic Basin and to see it in real time, we're actually focusing in on two disturbances that have formed across the Central Atlantic and as we kind of project these out into the future, the colors here indicating the wind shear, it is headed into what we like to call the hurricane graveyard because the wind shear here across the Caribbean is so strong that it's likely to topple and dissolve those storms before becoming a serious threat to North America. Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right. We'll keep our eye on that. Derek, thank you.

Ukraine says it's running out of desperately needed interceptor missiles from the U.S. to protect itself from Russian attacks. We are live from Kyiv with a one-on-one interview with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy right after this.

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[13:35:25]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia targeted a train carrying more than three hundred people, killing the train's engineer and his assistant. He went on to suggest that the drone strike was a deliberate attack on civilians.

This follows a recent wave of ballistic missile attacks from Russia. Moscow is attempting to exploit Ukraine's near-zero stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles. The situation has prompted an urgent plea from Zelenskyy himself and CNN's Nick Paton-Walsh sat down with Ukraine's president. He joins us now live from Kyiv.

Nick, what did Volodymyr Zelenskyy share with you?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Look, this is a startling direct plea from President Zelenskyy about precisely what he needs from America's stockpiles, existing stockpiles of Patriot interceptor missiles, the only thing really that can stop Russia's ballistic missile attacks.

We've had nights when none have been intercepted, suggesting they're possibly at zero. Civilians now experiencing the deadliest month in July since April 2022, and a real sense here in the capital that the atmosphere has totally changed, from people ignoring sirens, walking calmly through them, to rushing to subways and shelter when they hear them, because they are so deeply at threat.

Here is the urgent plea we heard from President Zelenskyy, really directly to President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATON-WALSH: Are you out of interceptors now? Do you have none left?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: No. I will explain to you how it works. So this year, we have two-and-a-half times less interceptors than we had in 2025, first. Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before. We pay 100 percent to Americans. I have the package from the United States and then my personal involvement.

It doesn't work either way. It's my personal talks, meetings, and phones, phone calls each day. With everybody, I try to exchange something to missiles.

This year, I'm asking American partners to sell me five percent -- five percent of missiles what they have in their stocks. If they sell us five percent, we will go through the winter and save people's lives. If they can sell us 10 percent, we will destroy all the Russians' ballistic missiles.

PATON-WALSH: And has that request been answered yet? Have you had a clear indication as to whether --

ZELENSKYY: The answer is for today is next. I have one percent. This is in what I live each day. From one percent to five percent, I have some months and a million phone calls and anything else. What can I do? I do some things which I can't even share. It doesn't mean that it's out of the law, no, but I can't speak about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PATON-WALSH (on camera): Now, let's not forget, a wartime leader forced every morning to basically beg allies with what sounds like outlandish deals to get those interceptors that urgently save lives here every single night. Every night, they are awaiting the possibility of another massive Russian strike.

Now, it is because of the war really against Iran by the United States and Israel and reaction from Gulf allies that there is this global shortage of Patriot interceptors. And indeed, Ukraine had asked President Trump for a manufacturing license to build them themselves, to try and make up that shortage globally. That's something President Trump was pro. Then there seemed to be hostility from the U.S. manufacturers, according to some media reports. And then President Trump sounded less keen.

Responding to that interview request you just heard, a White House official has said that the U.S. produces some of the most exquisite weapons systems in the world and is expanding overall production for U.S. warfighters and partners and allies. They're currently exploring several potential pathways for future defense industrial cooperation with Ukraine, but there's no guarantee or anything has been decided upon.

I paraphrase it, and they say it's critical that all future industrial cooperation prioritize the security of U.S. technology.

[13:40:00]

Now, that is not a glowing yes in response to Zelenskyy's plea. It's frankly the opposite. It suggests that cooperation on a license is far off, and there's no mention there of the need for an urgent replenishing of Ukraine's stocks here.

Put all that strategy and the geopolitics of it aside, that means tonight, there'll be many Ukrainians running to the subway, to the shelter when they hear any siren because they simply know that the interceptors they've relied on for years are gone.

SANCHEZ: A desperate request there from the president of Ukraine. Nick Paton-Walsh, thank you so much for bringing that to us.

Up next, an update on the case of an army gynecologist accused of secretly filming his patients. Stay with us.

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[13:45:18]

KEILAR: It appears to be the first of its kind attack, at least the first publicly disclosed one. Officials say hackers deployed autonomous A.I. agents to attack Taiwan. Last month, those agents were able to map 21 government systems, hack into 85 government user accounts and extract 2,500 personnel records. The attack also impacted Taiwan's Nuclear Safety Agency. Experts suspect that the hackers are from China, but neither Taiwan nor the Israeli A.I. firm that discovered the attack was able to confirm its origin.

Even though using A.I. to write code and search for vulnerabilities in cyber attacks is quite common, this incident went way further. And that's because in this case, an autonomous system coordinated with up to eight A.I. agents to effectively run a hacking campaign rather than merely assisting a human hacker. And this is an attack that comes at a precarious time, especially with reports of advanced A.I. models from Anthropic and OpenAI engaging in unauthorized actions.

We're joined now by Editor-at-Large for TechRadar, Lance Ulanoff. Lance, what stands out to you about this attack?

LANCE ULANOFF, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TECHRADAR: I mean, what stands out is that they're telling us about it. I really think that this has been going on for a little while now. Look, we know that these AIs are jumping the fence and doing things they shouldn't be doing. But also, we understand that it no longer takes a lot of money or time to conduct this kind of attack. And that's the really scary thing, is that somebody with an idea of a system that they want to attack can unleash this Agentic A.I.

And Agentic A.I. is sort of like you have some on your phone, little bits, but this is sort of much more powerful stuff. You need better hardware for it, but you just set it loose on a task and it will work at it. And the other thing that kind of jumped out here is that, you know, what Agentic A.I. knows to do is it can work on lower-level systems and really hack away at them, finding unseen vulnerabilities and then kind of tunnel its way up to some of the bigger systems.

KEILAR: Yeah, and so other countries are watching this, right? They know that they're vulnerable in ways that they may not even understand until they get hacked. How do they stop this from happening to them?

ULANOFF: That's an excellent question. You know, I think they really need to better understand the tools that are available for these hackers and know them as well as the hackers do and work with them and also set up. Because, you know, if you remember when we had that incident with the A.I. kind of jumping the fence and going and attacking a system and then what they did to combat it was used another A.I., other models that were open source.

And here's the thing, if we have a disparity, if we have some companies that don't have the best A.I., maybe don't have the access to open source tools, maybe they're only supposed to use ones from the U.S., they may not be able to combat this as well. So we need full access to the best possible tools. Everyone needs to be trained on them. And everyone has to have the expectation that they can do things that you don't anticipate.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's a whole new world out there. So dozens of states, they just experienced non-A.I. cyber attacks on their water systems where U.S. officials were wondering why the hackers didn't actually go farther and causing damage to water facilities. There were these water pressure drops, there was flooding, but drinking water safety was not compromised.

The question I have about this is that when these kinds of attacks perhaps become autonomous A.I. attacks, how concerned are you that there aren't any guardrails, that A.I. won't moderate and that the attacks end up spiraling to the worst outcome? What stops that? ULANOFF: Right. Well, it is a real concern. Certainly, if they didn't use A.I. before, they will try and use it later. There are big questions about the foundational models and whether or not the U.S. government is going to get a look at them before they're released to the public. But the reality is that even in testing before they're released, there is some danger that these AIs can do things that people don't anticipate.

So in the case of infrastructure, we have to really harden it. We have to look at everything and understand the vulnerabilities as deeply as possible. Because if there's anything hidden, if there's a vulnerability you don't know about, guaranteed an A.I. will be able to figure it out.

KEILAR: Yeah, they seem to get in there and tunnel away, as you said. Lance Ulanoff, thank you so much for being with us. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

The army confirms two pilots from Fort Hood were killed when an Apache helicopter slammed into a field and burst into flames in central Texas yesterday.

[13:50:00]

The crash sparked a wildfire that burned about 100 acres, prompting evacuations. You can see in this footage debris scattered across a charred field. No word yet on what caused the helicopter to go down.

Also, a former police officer accused of planning to kill black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody after a grand jury declined to indict him. Officials say that Christopher Gillum was found with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun when he was arrested in April.

Court records show a Louisiana grand jury found there wasn't enough evidence to support a state terrorism charge, which could have carried a sentence of up to 15 years. He had been held without bond and was released shortly after the grand jury's decision, with no other charges pending.

And Army Gynecologist, Blaine McGraw has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing and secretly video recording patients during exams. Stars and Stripes reports his charging document, 46 pages long, outlines nine charges and 272 specifications of crimes allegedly committed between 2021 and 2026.

That includes allegations of abusive sexual contact and sexual assault. He's accused of crimes against 93 women while serving as an OB-GYN at Fort Hood's Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center in Texas and Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii.

Up next, the WNBA is responding after one of the league's best stars speaks out against allowing transgender athletes to compete. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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[13:56:32]

KEILAR: The WNBA is facing a controversy about transgender athletes, even though no openly transgender woman has ever played in the league. A task force of team presidents and general managers met yesterday to discuss an issue that it says was created by bad faith efforts. The topic became a headline after one of the league's most recognizable players, Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever, said she supports barring any transgender women from playing in the WNBA.

CNN Sports Anchor, Don Riddell is with us now. Don, not only did Cunningham's comments ignite demonstrations on both sides of this debate, the controversy is being elevated by some former NBA players who have declared themselves eligible for the next WNBA draft. What is the league doing about this?

DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: This is just an absolutely extraordinary situation. The WNBA is enjoying a surge in popularity right now, but unfortunately, the basketball isn't the biggest story.

Instead, what's making headlines is the bickering between the players along simmering racial fault lines and now we have this transgender issue, a non-issue really, which has just exploded over the last week or so. As you rightly pointed out there, there aren't any trans players in the league and yet, Cunningham's call to ban trans girls and women from girls and women's sports has made it a real thing.

And the actions of political agitators, who probably couldn't tell you that much about the league, are now using the WNBA to push their own divisive agendas in the culture wars. All of a sudden, we have this bizarre situation where former NBA players, Larry Sanders, Enes freedom and Royce White say they are declaring for the WNBA draft next April.

The league's collective bargaining agreement says the WNBA is for women. But in 2026, that's a little too vague for some. That's the back story and that's how we got to this virtual meeting, including the biggest stakeholders in the game. On Wednesday, the league put out this statement, saying "There are no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA and we strongly denounce the bad faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others."

This whole narrative has quickly got out of control and the league is really playing catch up. Last Friday, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to team presidents and GMs saying, we recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players' Association in the weeks and months ahead.

Strong leadership is going to be really important here. Some players are in support of Cunningham, others like Cheryl Reeve and Stefanie Dolson support transgender athletes in general. Many others have simply declined to get involved, but what is clear is that while controversies like this one rage, the league's core product, the basketball, is going to be sidelined.

Many people are getting all of this drama on their social media feeds and not the action, and that's a serious issue that the WNBA needs to get on top of.

KEILAR: Yeah, very well put. Don, thank you so much for that report.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

SANCHEZ: Sailors under stress. Lawmakers demanding answers about conditions on board the USS Abraham Lincoln. The aircraft carrier has been deployed for more than 250 days, a record.

Plus, Flock under fire, the surveillance company facing criticism after reports of police officers misusing the technology. Flock is promising more oversight, but critics say it is not enough. And forget straight A's --