Yanukovych Claims He is Still Ukrainian President; Putin, Kerry Do Not Meet
BALDWIN: Welcome back. No backing down for ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. I (sic) spoke a little earlier this morning from his exile in Russia. He says he is still the president despite an interim government currently in place. Now, this comes as Russia's lower parliament says it will discuss Crimea joining the country. Crimea declares it's forming its own army to defend itself. Let's talk about this with Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent. So Christiane, first, just good morning to you.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: I want to get to this canceled Kerry-Putin meeting in just a second. But first, just on Yanukovych, we see him, you know, flanked in Russia by Ukrainian flags. Tell me, at this point, who is listening to him?</s>AMANPOUR: Well, look obviously the Russians are upping the ante. I mean, again, Yanukovych is not in Moscow. We're not sure how much coordination between he and the Kremlin. But clearly with this whole upping the ante of the referendum being drawn up much earlier than anticipating with even more sort of Russian-based news and information being fed into Crimea, and with all these sort of illegal machinations around their parliament and all sorts of issues that they're doing, this is simply upping the ante. He came out today and incredibly said that he was still the president, that he would be going back to Kiev, he said, just as soon as humanly possible. This, of course, as the new interim prime minister of Ukraine, Turchynov, is going to be in Washington meeting with members of the U.S. administration tomorrow. So clearly these, you know, war of words and war of righteousness, if you like, being waged in public. And Yanukovych also said he threatened to bring his claims right to Washington, to the Supreme Court and members of Congress as well as the administration because he said that the Ukraine interim government is illegal and it shouldn't be helped by the United States. So this is the atmosphere.</s>BALDWIN: You mentioned the Ukrainian leader meeting with President Obama. That happens tomorrow. A meeting that did not happen, we've now learned, is between Vladimir Putin and also U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. That was supposed to happen yesterday. Hearing from Kerry, he was basically saying he needs to know that Russia's willing to come to the table, you know, take their diplomatic solutions seriously. So here we are. What's the next move?</s>AMANPOUR: Well, this is an extraordinary development in the annals of diplomacy that both sides are being briefing and leaking against each other, and it seems now that the Russians are trying to humiliate Secretary Kerry in releasing and making public some of this conversation. Obviously, the United States and Europe are trying to figure out ways, not only to make it more difficult for Putin -- in other words, here in London today, members of the U.S. and EU officials are discussing increased sanctions on Russia but not on Putin, on other individuals and other entities. And also, they've got to figure out a way to try to get President Putin to climb down from this mountain of righteous indignation that he has managed to put across and attempt to claim Crimea. They have to figure out a way to makes sure that Crimea has enhanced (ph) autonomy, some kind of interim solution to make it less bad than it is right now. Because if indeed what happens during the referendum does happen, that's going to be much, much more difficult for the U.S. to then get all sides to pull back.</s>BALDWIN: Just quickly, let's assume that Putin will not climb down that mountain. I mean, what then? What greater overarching --</s>AMANPOUR: Well, look. Let's be very frank. There's no massive measure to stop him. There's no military or martial measure whatsoever to stop him. There's only diplomacy and economic pressure. Vali Nasr, who used to be a State Department official is now dean at Johns Hopkins has written a very interesting article about pressure that could be brought in the energy front. For instance, the U.S. has all this natural gas and energy. Perhaps laws need to be rewritten to be able to export that. And yes, it might take time to get it to Europe, whose biggest producer and supplier is Russia. But perhaps you can do it on floating barges, et cetera. Plus perhaps Iran, if it comes in from the cold and this nuclear deal is signed, which is desperate to export its large, huge reserves of oil and natural gas, could make up for the Russian supply to Europe. This is what it's all about, Brooke. Putin thinks he has Europe by the short and curlies because of their dependence on oil and natural gas.</s>BALDWIN: Christiane Amanpour, we'll be watching all of these countries interwoven, the diplomacy, and, of course, again, the referendum in Crimea five days away now. Christiane, thank you so much. Chris?</s>CUOMO: All right, Brooke, coming up on NEW DAY, has Obamacare reached turning point? Before you throw something at the television, hear what is in a brand new CNN poll on the topic. Plus, why is the president being interviewed by a comedian? Inside politics is next.