Return to Transcripts main page
Connect the World
Israeli Strike Hit Lebanese Meeting on Emergency Relief; Inside Israel's Ground Offensive in Lebanon; Time Running Out to Save Innocents in Israel-Hamas War; Israel Reviewing U.S. Demand to Improve Conditions in Gaza; U.S. State of Georgia Shatters Opening Day Early Voting Record; Harris to Charlamagne: "Yes, We Can Say That" Trump Is "About Fascism" CNN Access to Secretive Ukrainian Drone Unit; Kylian Mbappe Denies Rape Allegations. Aired 10-10:45a ET
Aired October 16, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome, everyone. to our second hour of CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Omar Jimenez in New York.
The Israeli prime minister says he is opposed to a unilateral ceasefire in Lebanon as Israel resumes its airstrikes in Beirut.
And a CNN exclusive: unprecedented access to one of Ukraine's long-range drone units.
Also, football star Kylian Mbappe is facing allegations of rape. The 25- year old calling the reports "fake news."
(MUSIC PLAYING)
JIMENEZ: We're going to begin in Lebanon and new accusations flying this hour over renewed Israeli airstrikes. The Lebanese prime minister says a
municipal building in southern Lebanon was intentionally targeted while officials held a meeting on emergency relief.
Now the mayor of the city was one of six people reported killed here. And Israel's military says it was targeting underground Hezbollah
infrastructure in the area.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the IDF says it has killed a Hamas commander in charge of drone operations in Jabalya as well as dozens more Hamas militants in,
quote, "close quarter encounters and aerial strikes" as part of a stepped- up IDF operation in northern Gaza.
Jeremy Diamond is back with us this hour from Jerusalem and on top of all of this.
So Jeremy, let's just start with what we're hearing out of Lebanon.
What can you tell us about these new accusations that we're hearing from the prime minister there?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, the prime minister's office in Lebanon is saying that they believe that the Israeli
military intentionally struck this municipal building as these officials were having meetings about emergency relief efforts in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military has yet to actually respond to that accusation. What we do know though is that six people were killed in this strike. Some 43
others were injured in a strike on the city of Nabataea.
The Israeli military claims that there was an underground Hezbollah, some kind of underground Hezbollah infrastructure beneath that building and
other civilian buildings in the area.
And that's why they carried out this airstrike. They accused Hezbollah of using civilians in the area as human shields, effectively putting the blame
on Hezbollah for the deaths of these civilians.
But there is no question that civilians were killed in this strike. And it is, of course, just the latest strike that we have seen, in which the
Israeli military has claimed to be targeting Hezbollah.
But we have also of course, seen quite a toll on civilians in Lebanon, just as we have seen, of course, in Gaza, over the course of the last year.
In just the last 24 hours, we have seen airstrikes by the Israeli military, not only in southern Lebanon, also in the northern part of the country,
where a strike happened on a Christian village there, which is quite notable.
And there was also a strike overnight in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, once again, in the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh.
That was the first time that the Israeli military had struck the Lebanese capital in nearly a week, despite the fact that we had heard that there was
somewhat of an understanding between Israel and the U.S. government about not striking Beirut for the time being.
JIMENEZ: Jeremy, you've gone into southern Lebanon with the IDF.
I mean, what did you learn about Israel's ground operation there?
DIAMOND: Well, Omar, one of the major questions that I had going into this and one of the reasons why I wanted to go and see this Israeli military
position inside of southern Lebanon was to get a sense of how dug in are they.
How long is this operation going to last?
How deep are they going into Lebanese territory?
And what I found in this village about two miles inside of southern Lebanon was that the Israeli military has multiple outposts in this area. These are
positions where soldiers are sleeping in those areas, despite the fact that the Israeli military is calling these targeted raids.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIAMOND: In the ruins of this southern Lebanese village amid flattened buildings, crumpled cars and mounds of rubble, there are also Israeli
soldiers.
Two weeks into their ground operation, they now control multiple villages like this one but for how long and how much deeper into Lebanon will they
go?
Israeli Humvees now slice straight through the border into the rocky terrain of southern Lebanon.
Nearly two weeks ago, Israeli ground troops came in here in the first major Israeli ground operation in nearly two decades.
And they're now taking us into one of their positions inside Lebanon.
Arriving on the ground, it's immediately clear this village is now firmly in Israeli hands. supplies are being brought in. Tanks are parked in a
courtyard. And troops have settled into homes where Lebanese civilians once lived.
So we're about two miles inside of southern Lebanon.
[10:05:00]
And you can see the destruction around us that's been wrought by this ground operation, also by Israeli strikes over the course of the last year.
What we're also seeing is that this is a clear Israeli position that has been established with artillery fire now firing off in the distance. And
it's interesting because the Israeli military, of course, is describing all of this as limited targeted raid.
But we are also seeing, of course, that they have established positions inside of southern Lebanon for an offensive that they insist is not going
to go much deeper.
This is an established Israeli military position inside of southern Lebanon. How is this a raid?
COL. ROY RUSSO, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: Well as, as you can see and as you walk by, those -- those outposts that we are right now holding are
temporary. There's no outpost designed, built and operated by the IDF. These are tactical, temporary, time-limited.
DIAMOND: Colonel Roy Russo, the chief of staff of the 91st Division, says his orders are to clear the area closest to the border and nothing more.
RUSSO: There's no objective that was designed for us to go into Beirut or Dahiyeh or something like that. No, we need to eliminate the threat as a
tactical range that enable Hezbollah to pose a threat on the community.
DIAMOND: Deeper inside this former Hezbollah stronghold, Colonel Russo and his troops show us what they say that threat looks like.
COL. YANIV MALKA, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: You can see here anti-tank missiles. You can see rockets. You can see brand new AK-47.
DIAMOND: Multiple stashes of weapons which the Israeli military says Hezbollah planned to use in attacks on northern Israeli communities, a
claim CNN cannot independently verify.
Israeli troops are now fighting to clear other villages like this one to remove what they say is a key part of the Hezbollah threat that has
displaced some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
Soldiers here say Hezbollah has shown itself to be a tough well- trained enemy, carrying out tactical ambushes that have already killed 10 Israeli
troops.
Israel's war in Lebanon already stretches far beyond the battlefield of these border communities. More than 2,300 people have been killed in
Israeli strikes across Lebanon, including several hundred women and children, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
And more than 1 million people have fled their homes as Israel intensifies its attacks ordering residents of a quarter of Lebanon's territory to
evacuate.
And that is an enormous cost for this kind of ground operation. That kind of strikes that you guys are conducting.
RUSSO: Right. I think the responsibility of Hezbollah, I think if they haven't launched an attack on October 8, we wouldn't be here.
DIAMOND: As the cost continues to mount for Lebanon civilians, Colonel Russo says he believes the Israeli ground operation will be counted in
weeks not months.
But as smoke rises beyond the tree line, a reminder that this war is far from over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DIAMOND: And Omar, despite that timeline from Colonel Russo, of weeks, not months, we know, of course, that there is a history of Israel going into
Lebanon and getting entrenched. They're getting bogged down and going deeper into the country than they had originally intended or than they
originally announced.
And certainly we are already hearing calls inside of Israel for this operation to not only continue but also expand. So major questions about
whether or not this operation will indeed remain limited to these border areas or whether it will go deeper and last longer, Omar.
JIMENEZ: All right. Jeremy Diamond in Jerusalem. Thank you so much.
We're also getting news out of the United Kingdom right now, as we understand the U.K. is considering placing sanctions on two far right
Israeli ministers.
As we just heard from the prime minister, Keir Starmer, today, the government is looking at sanctions against Israel's minister of national
security, Ben Gvir, and finance minister Smotrich.
It was in response to a question over comments that they reportedly said they were -- that starving 2 million people in Gaza might be justified and
moral. That situation we're going to keep an eye on as well.
And as we move toward Gaza, we know that countless civilians and innocents are suffering horrific injuries from Israeli airstrikes. They're facing
severe lack of aid and have no safe place to turn. Jomana Karadsheh examines the human cost of this conflict and a warning: her report
contains disturbing video.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Trapped in the nightmare that is Gaza are the innocent who did not choose this war and time is
running out to save their lives.
Oded Lifshitz turned 84 in Hamas captivity. The great grandfather was shot and injured on October 7 by militants who stormed his home in Kibbutz near
Oz the site of one of the worst massacres of that day.
He was separated from his wife of more than 60 years; 86-year-old Yocheved was also abducted, thrown onto the back of a motorbike in her nightgown,
before being released days later by Hamas. For more than a year, Sharone hasn't stopped fighting for the release of her father and the other
hostages.
SHARONE LIFSCHITZ, DAUGHTER OF HOSTAGE: We are so exhausted and so heartbroken again and again.
[10:10:00]
We don't have the luxury of giving up.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Their hopes for a ceasefire deal that would secure the release of the hostages shattered over and over again by failed
negotiations and now with Israel's new war in Lebanon, the world's attention appears to be shifting. It is for all involved a race against
time.
LIFSCHITZ: We are losing this race. Anybody who is interested in history see people that are caught in the tide of time, in political, military,
fanatical regimes that are putting their own survival or their own agenda above human lives. And I feel that we now know what it feels.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Human lives turned into political ponds with no escape in this howl on Earth, where life has become a slow death for those
who survived the devastating bombardment.
An Israeli strike left 14-year-old Hamad with severe burns all over his body and Israel's siege left doctors with very little to save lives but not
enough supplies to sterilize wounds.
When we filmed with him, his rooms were infested with maggots that fell to the floor every time his dressings were changed. A week after filming,
Hamad died. It was too late for him.
But thousands of others in urgent need of medical evacuation could be saved, yet only a fraction of them have been allowed out by Israeli
authorities in recent months.
Baby Shihad (ph) can barely breathe and feed. The growing tumor is compressing his tiny heart. His mother, Tamara, struggles to hold it
together as she tries to comfort her boy.
Today, he's going into surgery to try and save his life because he can't be evacuated, she says, I just want my son to get better. There are no
specialists available in Gaza and they don't have the medical equipment they need. The doctors say they have no choice but to operate to try and
keep him alive.
These are children. They're not carrying weapons. Tamara says.
Why can't he be evacuated?
Against all odds, the 4-month old made it through the surgery but now lives on borrowed time. More than a month later, he still suffering from weight
loss, diarrhea, vomiting and fever.
His mother is pleading the international community for treatment abroad. Palestinian and Israeli lives that could be saved with a deal, if only
there were the political will.
More than 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza. The Israeli military's admitted mistakenly killing three of them. It's also said it is most likely
responsible for the death of at least three others. And in recent weeks, Hamas executed six hostages as Israeli forces closed in.
LIFSCHITZ: These were young people that had every chance of survival and have survived almost a year. It's heartbreaking. It's a failure. We have
been in the burning house since the 7th of October and we have been screaming that the flames are rising and that they're going to consume more
and more people.
We have been saying that military pressure is killing the hostages.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Odette Lifshitz is a man who's long believed in peace that now seems like a more distant dream than ever.
LIFSCHITZ: My father used to drag Palestinians regularly from the border in Gaza to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank. And I think that there's
a lesson in it and the lesson is in how do we share in humanity.
KARADSHEH: If your father could hear you now, what would you say to him?
LIFSCHITZ: Forgive us. We have tried so hard we hear your voice in our hands and as we try what we can we try the way he tried all his life. He
tried for many years to alert this disaster and it's befalling us. And here now saying, work for peace. Work for the possibility of humans in this
region to live together.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: Thank you, Jomana, for that reporting.
Now according to reports, Israel says it is reviewing fresh demands from the Biden administration that it take immediate steps to improve the
humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk violating U.S. law.
Over the weekend the U.S. gave Israel 30 days to meet its demands, including dramatically increasing the number of aid trucks allowed into the
territory.
[10:15:00]
If Israel doesn't comply, it could risk violating U.S. laws on foreign military assistance, which could in turn jeopardize U.S. military support
in Israel.
Humanitarian assistance reaching Palestinians and Gaza has fallen by over 50 percent since its peak, according to the U.S. State Department. Last
hour, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations was asked about the situation on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANNY DANON, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: The problem in Gaza is not lack of aid. The problem is Hamas, which hijacks aid, stealing, storing and
selling it to feed their terror machine while civilians suffer.
Despite all these challenges, Israel continues to uphold international law, going above and beyond our obligations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JIMENEZ: Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon for us.
So Oren, can you just run us through what's at stake here?
I mean, what are the likely consequences if Israel doesn't comply with the Biden administration's demands?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: What the consequences could be is very stark for Israel. The U.S. is the most significant by far arms
supplier to Israel, providing billions in aid a year.
And certainly that number has gone up since the beginning of the conflict one year ago. So the administration here in this letter from Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, making it quite clear, they demand to see -- the U.S., that is -- demands to see
improvements in the humanitarian aid going into Gaza.
At least 350 trucks a day going through the four major crossings as well as the opening of a fifth crossing and more aid on top of that, improvements
that the U.S. wants to see within 30 days here.
The U.S. says this is part of what is required by law. That is a continuous review and assessment of whether those receiving U.S. military assistance
are abiding by U.S. law.
Regarding that assistance, as well as international humanitarian law, clearly, the administration has repeatedly and quite loudly said, Israel
isn't doing enough for the humanitarian situation.
They're not buying the argument you just heard, put forward there by Israel's ambassador to the U.N., an argument Israel has tried to make
repeatedly. At stake is that the arms supplied to Israel could be restricted.
We have seen one shipment of 2000-pound bombs paused. That's been paused for months and remains paused. But the threat, the warning here on the
table is that the list of weapons supplied to Israel, the list of restrictions on those weapons could grow if more isn't done and fairly
quickly here, within 30 days.
That's the warning given to Israel here. That being said, the U.S. also just sent in a THAAD anti-ballistic missile defense system. So the
defensive weapons, those are not the question.
The question is the -- at least from what we see here -- is the offensive weapons that Israel has used to carry out its bombardment of Gaza and now
its strikes in Lebanon.
JIMENEZ: And I guess on that latter point, I mean, we have seen points where clearly Israel has been in disagreement with the United States, at
least at a leadership level over how to proceed militarily.
And the U.S. has made demands like this or in this nature before but then has also continued to supply Israel with weapons and other military
support, some of which defensive, as you just mentioned.
So is this letter any different from what we've seen previously in this war?
LIEBERMANN: That's an excellent question. This letter is certainly a more significant step than we have seen the administration take to this point.
So perhaps that signals a change in thinking here. And there will be more political will to restrict arms to Israel because we haven't really seen
that in the past.
Even with the warnings on the humanitarian aid situation, all that's been held is this shipment of 2000-pound bombs. So it is therefore then a
question of political will. It's worth noting that the 30 days that the U.S. has given Israel here to fix this problem is after -- that deadline is
after the U.S. election.
Is there more political will after the election?
That's the true question here and that's what we will have to wait to see here because you're absolutely right to point out that, despite these
repeated warnings and very public warnings and open warnings in the past, the U.S. hasn't really restricted the supply of weapons to Israel in any
significant way.
JIMENEZ: And you do bring up a good point that, after the U.S. election, the posturing, either from -- or at least the perception of what the future
of the United States foreign policy is, could shift dramatically, depending on who's elected there. Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, really appreciate
it.
All right, still to come, a first today for Kamala Harris. The Democratic presidential candidate has agreed to sit for an interview with the right-
wing cable operation, FOX News. More on that straight ahead.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:20:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
JIMENEZ: Welcome back. Let's get you up to speed on some other stories going on right now for our radar, for example.
Two giant pandas have landed in the United States from China. The pair landed in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday after traveling on a FedEx cargo
plane, nicknamed -- if you couldn't already tell from what was on the plane -- the Panda Express.
They'll be housed at the National Zoo for the next decade and they go on display for the public in January.
Meanwhile, two bomb hoaxes targeting Indian airliners Tuesday. One threat forced an emergency landing in Canada while Singapore's defense minister
says another caused his country to scramble two fighter jets.
Additional bomb threats have also disrupted other flights by Indian carriers in recent days, though it's not clear what the motive may be.
And day two of early voting is underway in Georgia. And if day one is any indication, expect plenty of company. More than 300,000 votes were cast on
Tuesday, according to election officials. That was 123 percent higher than the previous record for first day voting set in 2020.
And that clearly shows the excitement that we have and the enthusiasm headed toward Election Day. It's a close race but, days wise, it gets even
closer. We're less than 20 days to Election Day in the United States. Polls continue to show no clear leader.
Vice President Kamala Harris was on a radio town hall Tuesday with Charlamagne tha God. She said she will win but that the race will be tight
until the very end. Harris touched on wide ranging issues from reparations, Black business ownership, to accusations that her opponent is fascist.
Today, after holding a rally in Pennsylvania with more than 100 Republicans, she will sit for her first-ever interview with FOX News.
On the other side of things, Donald Trump will appear soon in a town hall that he taped in Georgia in front of an audience of women for FOX News.
Later today, he is set to take another town hall with Luis Bichon (ph).
And then he hosts a big money fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. Let's go to Washington now and bring in CNN's Eva McKend, who has been following all
the ins and outs of this unpredictable race for the White House.
So Eva, let's start with Vice President Harris. She touched on a lot during her talk with Charlamagne tha God.
I mean, what stood out most to you?
EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: She did, Omar. She really used that platform to push back against this sense of complacency, trying
to really underscore how urgent this election is and telling people listen, do not give up this awesome right that you have to participate in this
process, to get out and vote.
She also pushed back against this idea that she is too scripted, too rehearsed. She maintained that is actually being disciplined. Being
disciplined is important. And that she is repetitive because she wants her message to sink in with voters.
And then she also argued that the former president really is not meeting the moment here and is fundamentally unfit for the role. Take a listen to a
little of her conversation with Charlamagne tha God.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's two very different visions for our nation.
One mind that is about taking us forward and progress in investing the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their
challenges. And the other, Donald Trump, is about taking us backward.
[10:25:00]
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, RADIO HOST: The other is about fascism.
Why can't we just say it?
HARRIS: Yes, we can say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKEND: Now, Omar something else that stuck out to me is she really wanted to set the record straight on this narrative that, in her career in law
enforcement, that she was focused on being overly punitive when it came to Black men in particular and drug crimes.
And she pushed back against that saying, listen, when it came to marijuana, I was especially progressive and that I have a long history of championing
the legalization of recreational marijuana. And if that legalization were to come to pass she would want Black men, Black entrepreneurs, to be able
to participate in the industry.
So we're going to see her make her pitch to another part of the electorate today in Pennsylvania, when she plays up this country over party message.
This is to a largely white audience, to conservatives.
And then in the latter part of the week, we're going to see her campaign back in Michigan and then head to Georgia. Omar.
JIMENEZ: Yes. And we are likely going to see a lot of this activity between now and Election Day just par for the course. Eva McKend in D.C.
Thank you so much.
Still to come.
CNN gains access to one of Ukraine's most elite and secret battle units and to one of its most top secret weapons. That exclusive report from the field
next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
JIMENEZ: Welcome back to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Omar Jimenez.
Ukraine's wartime president has unveiled his long anticipated victory plan in front of the country's parliament and it includes a push to join NATO
and the European Union as well as steps to strengthen defenses.
Now some of the points in the plan are being kept confidential but Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated to Ukrainian lawmakers that he's ruling out
ceding any territory to Russia.
On the ground in Ukraine, CNN has been given exclusive access to one of Kyiv's long long-range drone units, seeing first-hand one of Ukraine's most
top secret weapons. Fred Pleitgen has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ukrainian drones attacking southwestern Russia, sowing panic among local
residents. Russian air defenses frantically trying to take them down before they slam into their target.
This massive drone strike carried out in late September by Ukraine's defense intelligence agency, the GUR. And they granted CNN unprecedented
access to the entire mission.
Their target, a Russian ammo depot the Ukrainians say is storing missiles supplied to Moscow by Iran.
[10:30:00]
Even though Tehran vehemently denies giving Russia ballistic missiles.
PLEITGEN: All of these missions have to move extremely quickly. They have to be very precise because, obviously, if they get discovered by the
Russians, the Russians want nothing more than to kill everybody around here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
PLEITGEN (voice-over): When you're as badly outgunned as the Ukrainians, even strategic airstrikes become hit and run operations. The launch
location totally secret. The mission run in near complete darkness.
We can only identify the unit commander by his callsign, Vector.
PLEITGEN: How fast do you guys have to be able to do all this now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): I hope it will be in 20-40 minutes.
PLEITGEN: OK. Tell me how much the Russians want to kill you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): They want very much because we are the -- one of the major goals for them because of these UAVs which are going up
to 1500-2000 kilometers. These UAVs move the was inside their country. And they're afraid of that.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): After installing the warheads and punching in the flight path, they push the drones to the takeoff area, the pilots going
through final checks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): We have been preparing the route for several days. The task was set in advance. We have calculated everything
and are confident that everything will work out.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Then they get the go.
PLEITGEN: The launch was one of the most difficult and most sensitive parts of the mission. They have to follow the UAV very fast with their cars
to make sure it gets into the air all right.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The drones disappear quickly into the night sky. The GUR has been behind hundreds of long-range missions into Russia, they
say, including this September attack on an ammo depot between Moscow and St. Petersburg, causing massive explosions visible for miles.
The Ukrainians believe they hit hundreds of missiles and explosives. And in July, they hit an oil refinery on Russia's Black Sea coast, causing a major
fire there. In total, the GUR says, these drone units are responsible for about a third of a successful strikes deep into Russian territory.
It all starts with accurate planning. In a secret location, the team gets the mission brief from their boss, whom we can only identify as Serge.
Serge tells me he's overseen more than 550 missions into Russian territory since Russia's full-on invasion in 2022.
Vector takes the laptop with the mission details and they're off. Staying on the move means staying alive.
PLEITGEN: Operational security is extremely important for this team. So we're on our way to the next secret location right now. They remain on the
move almost all the time. Right now, we're going to a place where they're going to do the detailed planning for the flight paths. And we will see the
actual drones.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The weapons depot is about 400 miles from the Ukrainian border in the southwestern Russian village of Kotluban. A major
problem, a mesh of powerful Russian air defenses guarding the area.
PLEITGEN: How good are the Russian air defenses and how difficult is it to overwhelm them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Unfortunately, especially last year, it's really good but maybe not perfect because we are successful guys and
we find the windows in this work, in these techniques.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The drone pilots try to find even the smallest corridors to avoid Russian radars. They gave us permission to show a
simplified version of the flight path they calculated for this mission with dozens of waypoints and changes of direction.
But they'll also launched dozens of decoy drones like these, which they want the Russians to detect and to shoot down. They even put tinfoil on the
wings to give them a bigger radar signature.
PLEITGEN: So you want the Russian radars to see this and think that it's a bigger drone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Of course, yes, very good.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): But these are the actual strike drones. The Ukrainian made Antonov AN-196 named Ljutyj, Ukrainian for fierceness or
rage. They carry up to 500 pound warheads and fly around 1,300 miles.
And they fit into the back of these no-descript trailers for covert deployment. The Ukrainian say they get good results with the Ljutyj drones.
But what they really need is permission from the U.S. and its allies to use Western-supplied longer-distance weapons.
PLEITGEN: Why do you need the permission for using Western weapons deep inside Russian territory?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): We want to win, we want to finish this war as soon as we can. And we understand that if you have better equipment,
better weapons, we can finish it very quickly.
I don't want my son or other children to have war in the future. So we want to finish it in my life. So for protecting their life from such disaster
like we received from Russia.
[10:35:00]
PLEITGEN: So far, the U.S. is not allowing Ukraine to fire American supplied weapons deep into Russia as Russia has escalated its own aerial
attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure using heavy guided glide bombs, cruise missiles designed to take out whole aircraft carrier
strike groups and nuclear capable strategic bombers.
All the Ukrainians have are their little drones, launching them in swarms to even have a chance to penetrate Russia's air defenses. They blast the
Ukrainian folk song, "Hey Falcons" as the GUR's own birds take to the skies.
Back at base, it's crunch time. Russian social media starts exploding with reports of an attack on the Kotluban weapons depot. The GUR operatives
sometimes chuckling as they listen in.
While the Russians claimed to have shot down the drones, a video posted on social media shows what appear to be those drones impacting and major
explosions in the area of the arms depot. And Ukrainian defense intelligence showed CNN the unblurred version of this video. now heavily
blurred for operational security reasons.
And it shows 11 blasts coming from the same place, they say, so large, they're confident they hit their targets. CNN was also able to
independently verify through a source what seems to be a direct hit on the facility.
We're not publishing the image to protect the source's anonymous but it showed an explosion at the facility and what seems to be wreckage scattered
around.
A Maxar image shared with CNN shows the same heavily damaged building with some debris still laying on the floor, signs that the Russian military may
have cleaned up the site.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
PLEITGEN (voice-over): A small but important victory in their ongoing covert war against a powerful enemy -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: Thank you, Fred, for that reporting.
We'll be right back.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
A defiant denial from French football icon Kylian Mbappe, who says rape allegations being reported in Swedish media are, quote, "fake news."
News outlets in Sweden are quoting a police report that says Mbappe is, quote, "suspected on reasonable grounds" of rape. Now the reports say it
relates to a visit the footballer made to a night club in hotel in Stockholm on Thursday.
And Mbappe's representative says legal action will now be taken against Swedish media for what's come out. Melissa Bell is following the story from
Paris.
So Melissa, what exactly are the allegations in question here?
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've heard from Swedish authorities themselves and I'm thinking here of the Swedish police
specifically Omar is that they say in the wake of all of this speculation is allegations that we've heard aired in the Swedish press now for several
days.
[10:40:04]
That a criminal complaint report has been lodged with them regarding these allegations of rape. What we understand from the coverage around it is that
this is an allegation that targets Kylian Mbappe.
As you say, events last Thursday in a Stockholm hotel and night club, we don't know a great deal more about the specific nature of the allegations
nor anything about the complaint for the time being.
Still what you're seeing is very strong pushback from those around Kylian Mbappe to try and protect his reputation from a lot of the harm that will
already have been done to it, given how pristine it was thus far. Have a listen to what his lawyer had to say.
And this is a woman who's been wall-to-wall here in France, given the media interest in the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIE-ALIX CANU-BERNARD, MBAPPE'S LAWYER: He's very calm because he knows what he didn't do. He's keeping an eye on this media frenzy but from a
distance, even if he's somewhat protected from us.
Naturally, it's going to have an impact. As I said, he's 25. An allegation of this nature, even if we don't know if it's aimed at him, it hasn't
stopped the media from saying he's the target from that moment on.
It's certainly complicated to live with even if I'm not in his head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: Complicated also for his lawyer to deal with. What she's explained elsewhere on French media outlets, Omar, is that for now, even the
defamation case, that they're wanting to bring against the Swedish media and possibly the person lodged this complaint is difficult because they
don't know exactly who they're talking about.
The way the Swedish system works, she explains, is that everyone is kept very much in the dark and the person protected is the person making the
complaint.
So it's been difficult for them to defuse this particular story, which has continued to gather steam even as we await to hear more from Swedish
authorities about what's next in this process, Omar.
JIMENEZ: And we will wait to see, as you say, what's next here in this process.
Melissa Bell, really appreciate the reporting and putting that in perspective for us.
All right, everyone, that is it for CONNECT THE WORLD. Stay with CNN. We have a lot more news to follow. "NEWSROOM" is up next.
END
