moderator yamiche alcindor.
Yamiche: Good evening and
welcome to Washington week.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine
is now entering its seventh week
and this week the world saw
Connor and brutality -- saw
carnage and brutality unlike we
have seen in this conflict.
A warning, some may find the
following images disturbing.
Russia's military withdrawal
from bucha, a suburb of Kyiv,
exposed atrocities against
Ukrainian civilians Thomas am
found dead with their hands tied
behind their backs, others with
gunshot wounds in their heads.
Terrified residents describe how
they survived as their city was
under siege.
>> We were in the basement for
35 days.
There was shelling all the time.
Sometimes there was no water,
sometimes no food.
Yamiche: A Russian attack also
killed dozens of people at a
train station in eastern Ukraine
that was being used for
evacuations.
On Tuesday in a fiery address to
the un security council,
Ukrainian president zelenskyy
took the body to task and
demanded more action.
Pres. Zelenskyy: Where is the
security that un security
council must guarantee?
There is no security.
Where is the peace the united
nations was created to
guarantee?
Now we need decisions from the
security council for peace in
Ukraine.
Yamiche: On Wednesday, president
Biden introduced a new round of
sanctions targeting Russian
banks and elites and Russian
president B Putin's own --
president Putin's own daughters.
Joining me is Simon ostrovsky,
special correspondent for pbs
newshour joining us from Kyiv.
Nia Malika Henderson, senior
political analyst for CNN and
Jeff mason, white house
correspondent for reuters.
Simon, you saw firsthand the
carnage and human of a station
in -- human devastation in
bucha.
What sticks out in your mind
from what you saw this week?
Simon: I remember how the week
started with a trip to bucha on
Sunday, when we toured the city
and saw dead bodies strewn
through the streets, some with
their hands tied behind their
back.
That became the headline around
the world.
But what a lot of people don't
realize, with all the coverage
that has been focused on the
town, is the atrocities
perpetrated during the period
Russia was occupying the area
were much more widespread than
just the town of bucha.
I have been traveling to towns
throughout the Kyiv region,
throughout the neighbor of --
the neighboring region,
throughout areas where Russian
troops came down from the north
towards Kyiv, into and held for
roughly a month, depending on
the areas that you go to.
We have heard stories like the
ones coming out from bucha
absolutely everywhere, stories
of soldiers coming to peoples'
homes, taking them away and
those men and women, their
bodies only being found once the
Ukrainian troops came in and
liberated the areas.
I think the other thing that is
important to understand is that
this was not a recalibration by
the Russian forces towards
eastern Ukraine.
This was a Russian defeat in the
areas around Kyiv.
They retreated.
Now they are sending their
troops to eastern Ukraine
because the Ukrainian forces
kicked them out of this area.
The fighting has been very heavy
in some of these towns.
A lot of the civilians who were
killed in these areas died in
fighting between Ukrainian and
Russian forces, in shelling, in
aerial bombings from Russia.
Sadly, and I think shockingly,
because of the orders that
Russian troops had to go around
and to cleanse the areas of
undesirable people, and I think
that is what is emerging over
the last few days.
Yamiche: Simon is talking about
all this carnage and the things
that he saw not just in bucha.
Jeff, Poland's president told
CNN this week that this was a
genocide carried out in Russia,
sorry, carried out in Ukraine by
Russia.
But president Biden, while
calling Putin a war criminal,
has not wanted to use the word
genocide.
Can you talk about how the
president is balancing his
personal thinking around this
versus U.S. Policy and how he's
talking about what is going on
as we see these devastating
images?
Jeff: I think we have seen with
president Biden over the last
several weeks during this awful
war that sometimes his personal
feelings get a bit ahead of U.S.
Policy.
He has not gone so far as to
call it a genocide.
He has called it a war crime and
doubled down on that this week,
which you played in your opening
clip.
He continues to call president
Putin a war criminal.
There is even discussion
starting about how to try that,
and how the United States would
be involved in that without
being a member of the
international criminal court.
In terms of that line you were
referring to, I think we will
continue to see president Biden
let his feelings come out and
the white house will say he's
speaking from the heart, even if
when he says something it does
not necessarily mean there is a
shift in policy.
There is not a U.S. Policy to go
for regime change.
But president Biden did say
Putin should not be in power.
He called him a war criminal.
Now policy kind of caught up
with him on that one.
You heard president Biden
referring to that as well.
I think we will continue to see
that and it is burning within
him to criticize what he sees
president Putin and Russia doing
in Ukraine and him wanting to do
as much as he can to stop it.
Yamiche: The white house
announced new sanctions this
week, including targeting
Putin's daughters.
What is the aim there?
Talk about how president Biden
is trying to balance being tough
on Russia with the limited
toolkit he has.
Jeff: It is largely an economic
toolkit.
That is why so much the U.S. Has
done along with its western
allies has been in the realm of
sanctions.
Targeting Putin's daughters is
another example of getting close
to the president of Russia, the
president of the United States
by president Biden and western
allies have done sanctions on
oligarchs.
Rich people around president
Putin, but this is going all the
way into his family.
I think the strategy is to
tighten the screws as it were
around president Putin to impact
the people who he cares about,
impact the people around him,
and have a hope that that will
impact the policy he is
implement and.
It hasn't so far.
It has not led to president
Putin pulling back on his
military advancements and goals
in Ukraine, but it is making it
much harder in Russia for Putin
and the military writ large
because of the financial fallout
that is happening.
Yamiche: And Nia, Jeff is
talking about the tightening of
the screws around the neck of
Vladimir Putin, but the
president of Ukraine says there
is not enough being done.
His speech to the U.N. Was
incredible in some ways because
he was saying you need to do
more.
How is that -- what are the
politics of that, given this is
attention that continues -- this
is a tension that continues to
build with the west wanting to
be some pathetic but not doing
nearly what -- to be sympathetic
but not doing nearly what
Ukraine wants.
Nia: In his speech, zelenskyy
said you all see this, these
mass killings of civilians and
their bodies laying on the
street.
He went into great detail about
what the scenes were of those
massacres of innocent civilians.
He seems to be trying to shame
the west into more action,
asking these international
bodies that claim to stand for
peace and security, asking them
to actually live up to what they
claim to stand for, to send many
more weapons, the kind of
weapons that would advance the
Ukrainian cause much further, as
well to cut off the spigot of
funding to Russia in the form of
paying for oil and gas and coal
exports from the country.
Billions of dollars is still
flowing into the Russian economy
because Europe is so
inextricably tied to Russia and
they need that fuel.
You have seen some moves by
European countries to try and
wean themselves of particularly
coal in the near months, but it
is at this point a situation
where U.S. Central he have
European countries funding the
war efforts.
-- Where you essentially have
European countries funding the
war efforts.
In terms of tightening the
screws with sanctions and
turning Putin's daughters and
billionaires in Russia as well,
as long as this money continues
to flow to Putin, you've got
zelenskyy knowing that is
essentially funding this
horrific effort against his
people.
You heard Biden in his speech
last week say this is a long
slog, most likely.
The sanctions so far haven't
worked and you have in Putin
someone who is fixated like a
madman on Ukraine and doesn't
understand the rules of war.
We have seen those horrific
scenes, and zelenskyy, over and
over, to anyone who will listen,
essentially saying, the west,
your thoughts and prayers and
sanctions are great, but do much
more in terms of helping Ukraine
defeat Russia.
Yamiche: Simon, Nia is talking
about this long-haul, this long
slog ahead.
You talked about pressure
retreating.
-- About Russia retreating.
What more can you say about the
strategy Russia has to keep this
going, and as Ukrainians are
saying they are ready to fight
on and defend their homeland?
Simon: Well, I think the
Ukrainian authorities have
warned that there is going to be
a major offensive that they
expect in the east in the donbas
region.
There has been fighting for
weeks now where the Russians
tried to join their southern
force.
That has gone all the way to the
border with crimea and a city
they have occupied.
That force wants to join with
troops in the north that are
fighting in the donetsk regions.
If they do that, they would
encircle quite a large force,
the Ukrainian force in the
donbas that has been fighting
there since 2014, 2015, when
this wra actually started --
this war actually started.
I think the Russian has in many
cases arisen to the level of a
war crime with what we've seen
with the bombings of cities like
mariupol, which seem
indiscriminate, where civilian
areas are being targeted, and
places in the journey of region
where Russia retreated.
I heard stories from that
village where the entire
population of the village was
held as a human shield in the
basement of a school, that the
Russian troops that were staging
their were using as their
headquarters.
What I am afraid of and worried
about seeing in the future is
when we do hopefully eventually
see Russian troops pull back, we
will find these kinds of things
we see in bucha and the Kyiv
region have been happening and
are happening right now in the
areas that Russia continues to
occupy.
That is why load them are
zelenskyy is speaking with such
-- why zelenskyy is speaking
with such urgency to get as much
help as he can.
Ukrainians, after seeing what
they saw, know that they have no
time to spare in order to save
their people.
Yamiche: Before we go to the
domestic politics, what is the
white house bracing for when you
hear all that Simon is talking
about?
Jeff: I think it is bracing for
it to get worse.
I think they are bracing for
more images, bracing for more
battles.
This kind of thing, of course,
in addition to being outrageous,
also raises pressure on the
Biden administration, on the
west in general to do more.
Those are all things the white
house is preparing for and
seeing coming on the horizon.
Yamiche: Certainly white house
officials are concerned about
how all this will impact
domestic politics and gas
prices.