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NEW DAY SUNDAY

Thousands Rally for Murdered Putin Critic; Spacewalk Expected to Begin Soon; Israeli P.M. to Address Congress Tuesday

Aired March 1, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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


VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: We will bring the space walk to you, more of it, as it continues.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: And best of luck to them.

And thank you so much for sharing part of your morning with us.

BLACKWELL: We've got much more ahead on the next hour of your NEW DAY. It starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

PAUL: Breaking news in Moscow. We want you to take a look here at live pictures. This is what is happening in the center of Moscow right now. Thousands of people rallying and marching in memory of Boris Nemtsov. And just in the last hour, we can see how the numbers of people have been building.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Many thousands here expected his call was for 100,000 and not sure if that number will show you up, but tens of thousands expected. The former Russian deputy prime minister was a fierce and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He was gunned down late Friday as he walked home from dinner. There is still a manhunt for his killer.

PAUL: Now, listen, as you continue to look at these pictures, I'm seeing reports that there are organizers district posters with his pictures, that they are carrying signs with slogans that read he was fighting for a free Russia and those shots were in each of us, but we know that they are going to march from the center where they are in Moscow, to the site where he was gunned down. The fifty-year-old died there on the street as he was walking and that there is already a huge memorial that has built up at that site, with flowers and condolence letters as well.

But we can really see how this -- they are expecting 50,000 people but his last radio interview, he called on them to join this anti-war rally, it was supposed to be an anti-war rally, it has become a march for him. But he said in that regular interview, our march can sober the Kremlin up. If a hundred thousand people come out and it could turn the Kremlin around, it would be an absolute shock for them.

And we have had reports today that from our own Matthew Chance who was spoken to people there where he died and people who are visiting that site who said, I wasn't going to be part of this rally, this anti-war rally that was planned, but now that he is dead, it has really brought my attention to this cause, and it's almost sad to think that his death may be what brings more people out to fight the battle that he was fighting.

BLACKWELL: And we'll have to see if this will, indeed, embolden the opposition or intimidate the opposition. Some have said that this is an absolutely new situation. There have been reports that opposition leaders, if, indeed, this is politically motivated, opposition leaders who have been arrested, who have been harassed, but now that one of them has been shot dead this turns a page in the history of the opposition.

Marchers today will go from the center of the city to the spot where Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin. As we said, he was supposed to lead this. Of course, now this has been a march for him.

We also have new surveillance video of the moment he was shot. It's hard to see, but follow the circles and the arrows. You can make out Nemtsov and a companion walking. And a snowplow, big truck comes along the street and moves in front of them. You see someone running to what may be the get-away car. It stops and then takes off.

A key witness in the case, maybe this woman. She is 23-year-old Anna Duritskaya. She was Nemtsov when he was shot.

PAUL: Do we have Frederik Pleitgen in Moscow?

BLACKWELL: I think he's on the phone with us. Yes.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, I'm on.

PAUL: Fred, go ahead.

PLEITGEN: Yes, absolutely. And we are going to talk a little bit more about the investigation.

There are actually new facts that have come out. You remember that we were talking earlier about how the police had thought they had identified a getaway car which was actually seen on surveillance video driving away and, later, they had apparently found that car on a parking lot somewhere in Moscow. The police is now saying through various Russian media outlets that, in fact, the car that they found, they now believe is not related to the shooting of Boris Nemtsov. They say they checked the owner of that car and it urns turns out the owner had nothing to do with it.

The other interesting, of course, going back to that surveillance video that we were seeing there of the moment when Boris Nemtsov was gunned down, it certainly dispels another theory the police had, and that was a car stopped next to Nemtsov and fire had been opened from that car on Nemtsov and that then the car had sped away. It does appear now possibly as though someone might have been hiding on that bridge and then waiting for Nemtsov and Ms. Duritskaya to pass there and then opening fire on them.

The interesting thing about that bridge is that there are several sort of staircases you can go up on the side of the bridge to then be there and be able to wait. So, certainly, there is some new information that is coming out. But, of course, as you guys said, the main key witness at this point, of course, is Anna Duritskaya, that model from Ukraine. She is being questioned by police.

They now believe that she is somewhere in an apartment here in Moscow and, of course, still very much cooperating with the investigation.

BLACKWELL: We will break down more of that video with former deputy FBI director in a moment. But, Fred, tell us, you've attended more than a few of these opposition rallies there at Moscow. How does this, in attendance, as it relates to the attendance, compare to others? And will this reach that number of 100,000 that Nemtsov called for?

PLEITGEN: I doubt it will reach the 100,000. I mean, it certainly is one that is going to be larger than many of the opposition rallies that have happened here, especially in the past couple of days. There were some large ones around the year 2010 with many, many people in attendance. But since then, the opposition here has very much fractured and very much been marginalized.

If you look at people like, for instance, like Boris Nemtsov and he was marginalized at this point in time Vladimir Putin is simply immensely popular here in this country. And one of the phenomenon we have been talking about over the past couple of weeks Vladimir Putin appears to become more popular among the Russian population, the more international sanctions are levied against Russia and Russia appears to become involved in for instance Ukraine. His policies are very much in favor here. His recent approval rating was 88 percent.

And at the same time, the opposition really hasn't managed to get very much in motion as far as numbers are concerned.

It seems as though the march at this point in time is going to be larger. But, of course, this much is now so much about the opposition to Vladimir Putin as it is about mourning of Boris Nemtsov. And you can see that by the crowds that are gathering. There's almost nothing in the way of signs that people are carrying. There's more Russian flags that people are carrying and flowers people are carrying, so this is very much a march that can display sadness and outrage over what happened and much less at this point in time, at least on the face of it, criticizing Vladimir Putin.

BLACKWELL: All right. Fred Pleitgen, I apologize, joining us from Moscow on the phone, attending this rally, covering it there in Moscow after the death of Boris Nemtsov. Thank you, Fred.

PAUL: Let's go to CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance. He is live at the site where Nemtsov was killed and where this rally will end, come to an end.

Matthew, I know that you've been talking to people there. What have they been telling you about whether they are going to attend and why they will not attend this rally?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are at this site right now. It's the scene where Boris Nemtsov was actually gunned down. You mentioned as well the rally is going to pass by us here. There is extremely tight security along the route and a lot of police have been deployed along the path of this mourning march is going to take.

You know, I have spoken to a lot of people since I've been here. I've been here since last night, watching a steady stream of people pay their respects, lay these flowers and enormous quantity flowers, lying all along this bridge and along with personal messages as wells. I mean, it's interesting, because Boris Nemtsov was a fringe politician and because he was an opposition figure, he didn't get much attention in the country.

But, obviously, in his death, people are reconsidering their few of opposition politics in Russia, potentially at least. We'll see how many turn out for this rally and get a better gauge of their opinion. Boris Nemtsov spoke a lot about how brutal Russia is, about and opposed to the conflict in Ukraine and wanted the economy to be looked at and improved upon. Again, not issues have been taken very seriously by the political majority in this country, but in his death, people are looking at that again.

You see some of the personal messages that have been put out here, photographs of Boris Nemtsov. Here is one of them which I'm picking up in Russian that says, thank you for your example of honesty and courage. And so, you know, all of these things that Boris Nemtsov talked about in life, I think perhaps only now are being considered by a wider audience in Russia now that he has been killed.

PAUL: Matthew, is there a helicopter over you? I feel like we can hear something. I'm wondering what kind of coverage this is getting in Russia.

CHANCE: Yes. There is a helicopter above us here. There is a police helicopter here. I don't know whether -- we can't see. Apparently, it's not in our view of the camera. Yes, there is a police helicopter hovering above where the rally is taking place. The rally is not come to this point yet. But will be following this route right around us here.

I'm hearing from my colleagues that state television is not broadcasting this march as yet and that might change as the rally continues. People want to see this on television or having to tune in to CNN or one of the international broadcasts here.

But there's a lot of police here, a huge police presence. They say to provide security to this crowd but they clearly sealed off this very closely guarded center of Moscow to make sure this rally can go ahead. But, you know, it is interesting, because it is just a short distance from the Kremlin. This is where the killings took place. It's astonishing all around me.

We saw that video, by the way, of the scene of a camera which apparently depicted the actual moment when Boris Nemtsov was killed. But all around along these walls here, the walls of the Kremlin, there is security cameras pointing in this direction.

It's interesting. I'd be very surprised there weren't more video and perhaps had more moments about the time when Boris Nemtsov was killed but it hasn't emerged at this point, Christi.

PAUL: All righty. Matthew Chance, thank you so much.

He did bring up something a lot of us have been wondering about. Surely, there has got to be other angles of video surveillance there. We will see, as he said, if they emerge.

BLACKWELL: Yes, that from Russian TV but there are cameras all around the Kremlin there. We have got some information about what those have captured.

For many in Russia, the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it sends a firm message. Criticize the Kremlin and this will be your fate.

Now, there has no evidence and CNN has no reports of evidence that that Kremlin or Vladimir Putin were directly involved with the death of Nemtsov. But that's what many people believe and how they are receiving it. So, how critical was the opposition leader of Vladimir Putin? Last year, he spoke to CNN's Anthony Bourdain.

Now, the footage you're about to see is a footage of an interview previously aired on CNN but this segment never made the final cut. In it, Nemtsov talks about what it's like to live in the shadow of the Kremlin and the consequence for the rest of the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS NEMTSOV, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: First of all, Tony, Putin is not your problem but problem of the Russian people. It's really strange. The Western governments and Russian people will be very much curious about Putin because they have their own problems, crisis in Europe, Syrian problem Iran problem, unemployment problem in the States.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, PARTS UNKNOWN: Right.

NEMTSOV: You know, American budget deficit, very expensive health care, et cetera, right?

That's why every nation, especially big nations are involved in their domestic deals. It's a first point.

Second, people outside the country are not interested in corruption inside Russia because this is Russian money. You know, Russian people own this money, not American. That is why American administration must be interested in corruption inside Russia. They're interested about securities like you mentioned.

Well, problem is that general -- general security problem for Russian people and for the rest of the world is that we build very unstable and very unpredictable system. System when everything depends on one person is very unstable.

Let's imagine that, for example, Putin break his hand (ph), I don't know, leg (ph), he's sick, what's happened with this country? Nuclear power. Remember all the United Nation council of security, right? What's happened to this country? Without balance, without understanding Putin (INAUDIBLE). That's why this is really very unstable and unpredictable country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We will continue to have the conversation about the implications of the murder of Boris Nemtsov throughout the morning.

But another big story happening this weekend, right now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is en route to the U.S. Coming up, hear what he has to say about his historic visit to Washington.

PAUL: Plus, Venezuelan President Maduro says several Americans have been arrested in his country and they are accused of espionage. We'll have the new details from overnight.

BLACKWELL: And astronauts at the International Space Station, they're working on this space walk. We've got live pictures here from the ISS. We'll take you there live with more details in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: NASA astronauts are beginning a space walk outside the International Space Station. We got live pictures here for you. The team of two working to fit the space station with parts that will allow private commercial spacecraft to dock.

PAUL: An earlier space walk was cut short because one of the astronauts had water inside his helmet and experts at NASA say, it's a known issue and astronaut safety was not in jeopardy and they are fine. Today's space walk is expected to last about six and a half hours. And best of luck to them.

BLACKWELL: Absolutely.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on a plane right now heading to the U.S. Before boarding the plane this morning, while on the tarmac, Netanyahu said this, I will be the messenger of all of people of Israeli, including those who disagree with me and those who don't agree with me -- or those who agree with me, rather, and those who don't agree with me. My apologies.

Let's bring in CNN's Erin McPike.

Erin, this trip is surrounded by controversy.

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Victor.

Netanyahu was scheduled to land here at 5:00 today and that will kick off several days of a very controversial visit after several weeks of very heated buildup.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCPIKE (voice-over): As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the United States for a controversial visit, there are signs he may be trying to tone down the angry rhetoric between him and the Obama administration. During a visit to the Western Wall before leaving, he said he actually respects President Obama and in a statement, he said, quote, "I believe in the strengths of the relationship between Israel and the U.S. and in their strength to overcome differences of opinion. Those that have been and those that will yet be."

And from the White House, a similar sentiment the day before.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Even the prime minister himself has said that the level security cooperation between the Netanyahu administration and the Obama administration is unprecedented.

MCPIKE: Mr. Netanyahu sparked a controversy when he and House Speaker John Boehner went around the White House and arranged a visit and speech on Capitol Hill without consulting anyone in the State Department or the administration, in an open effort to derail U.S.-led nuclear negotiations with Iran.

That move was seen as a breach of etiquette and an open sign of a deteriorating relationship with America's closest ally in the Middle East.

The Tuesday speech has angered Democrats who accuse Netanyahu of driving a wedge into U.S. foreign policy.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: To have the prime minister to contradict exactly what the president, in very sensitive negotiations is trying to do, and that's trying to guarantee that Iran does not have nuclear weapons.

MCPIKE: Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky says she, along with other Democrats, will boycott the speech.

SCHAKOWSKY: The most prevalent sentiment is that they do resent the fact that John Boehner, without consulting with the White House and without talking to Nancy Pelosi, has turned this most prestigious venue in the entire world into a political setting.

MCPIKE: The Israeli leader will also speak to a conference hosted by the American pro Israeli group AIPAC on Monday morning just before U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power offers her remarks. The two speeches may highlight the clash between the U.S. and Israel as they haggle over how to approach nuclear negotiations with Iran. However, some foreign policy watchers say the U.S./Israeli relationship is too important to let wither.

AARON DAVID MILLER, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: The relationship itself will recover from this, because as I mentioned earlier, unlike Lehman Brothers, this one really is too big to fail.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCPIKE: Now, Netanyahu's election is March 17th. The White House continues to maintain that it will not meet with or host world leaders within two weeks of their elections, so the White House isn't seen to be tipping the scales in any kind of way, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Very important few days. Erin McPike at the White House, thank you, Erin.

PAUL: You know, the fierce debate is all-time high to Netanyahu's address to Congress. We wanted to get more unless in this intense U.S. military relationship.

I want to bring in Aaron David Miller for that. He served as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations for six secretaries of state. He's vice president for New Initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Good morning to you, sir. Thank you so much.

First of all --

MILLER: Good morning.

PAUL: Good morning.

Wondering -- I'm getting some information here that CNN has obtained about the prime minister's speech on Tuesday. It looks like it's going to run about 30 to 40 minutes. And says that the prime minister will be very respectful of the president and the White House, we're told. When we first heard about this, you know, it seemed as though the White House essentially felt that Netanyahu and Representative Boehner had plotted behind President Obama's back to bring him here.

But this is really about much more than a snub, isn't it?

MILLER: It is. I mean, it's the intersection of differences over policy between the president and the prime minister, and to some degree, it's a clash of personalities as well. You have a kind of perfect storm. The end game on Iran is coming, which is of great sensitivity to the Obama administration, and even more sensitivity to the Israelis.

You've got a Republican-controlled Congress for the first time in the Obama administration eager to put its own stamp on foreign policy and to separate itself from the president. Then you have Israeli elections that are less two weeks away.

So, you got a perfect storm that has broke and brought out the worst in both the Israeli government and the Obama administration.

PAUL: You know, some of this new information we are just getting to regarding this speech is an official saying Netanyahu wants to de-partisan the issue of his address to Congress. Do you think that's possible?

MILLER: I mean, it is over the long term, but there's a lot of broken crockery that is going to need to be repaired. I mean, you know, when you look on Tuesday, you will not see Joe Biden sitting in the back of the prime minister. You're going to probably see three dozen representatives and four or five senators who won't attend. You have sort of -- not a sort of. You have a cold shoulder from the White House.

I think the most dangerous aspect of this and I don't think it's fatal but it is dangerous, is that what has been deemed traditionally bipartisan D's and R's and support of a strong United States/Israeli relationship has begun to fray. Now, it hasn't fractured.

And I think what your earlier report, Erin McPike suggested, is that both the Israelis and the Americans have a mistake of putting this back in the box. The problem is, final point is Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected on March 17th and he may well be, the same personality and policy, differences are going to remain with this president. So, you're going to have 20 months, I hope not, but I suspect of a continuing soap opera between these two, as we have seen since 2009.

PAUL: All right. Hey, Aaron David Miller, we appreciate your insight on this. Thank you for being with us.

MILLER: Terrific. Thank you.

PAUL: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Live pictures of the other big story of the week. In Moscow, marchers, thousands of them, taking to the streets to protest the murder of one of Russia's most prominent opposition leaders as the hunt for his killer continues. Live coverage when we continue in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

PAUL: We want to show you live pictures what is happening in the center of Moscow right now. Look at that crowd that has congregated in the heart of the city again in the Russian capital here. We have been seeing a number of people turning out there increase by the minute as our cameras have been stationed here all through the night really. But just in the last hour and a half or so, this crowd has really increased as they pay tribute to Boris Nemtsov that was shot and killed two days ago on a bridge not far from where this rally is taking place.

In fact, the rally is going to be moving from this center of Moscow and passing right by the place where he died.

BLACKWELL: Let's go to CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen, joining us by phone from Moscow.

Fred, how does this compare to other opposition rallies that have convened here? I know this is a memorial march now but have the crowds been this large?

PLEITGEN: They certainly haven't been. This is, by far, the largest rally that the opposition would have been able to garner the past couple of years. Certainly, if you look at the recent times, and especially since the conflict over Ukraine has kicked off with Russia, of course, very much at odds, of course with the West, the message the opposition has been sending so far.