'Your World' on Ukrainian's fight against Russian military

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Gen. Keane talks latest on movement of Russian troops in Ukraine

Ret. Gen. Jack Keane discusses how Ukrainians are fighting back against Russians and what the latest is on Russian movements on ‘Your World.’

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," April 1, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.


NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Could this be a false flag? And why are the Russians so upset about it? They claim that the Ukrainians stepped into their country, barged into their country and started bombing an oil facility in their country.

No mention of the fact that, whether that was the case or not, because the Ukrainians aren't saying anything one way or the other on this, it's bad for Ukraine to do this, but not bad for Russia to do this.

FOX on top of a little hypocrisy on top. Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto. And this is "Your World."

And what in the world to make of all of a sudden an issue that might not be the false flag that some thought it well could be, that the Ukrainians now have the wherewithal to do to Russia what Russia has been doing to them, cross over into their country and do some damage, in this case, of an oil depot.

Let's get the latest from Alex Hogan, who's been following this development and the significance of it -- Alex.

ALEX HOGAN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Neil.

Well, Ukrainians have not taken any responsibility for this strike. And this is also raising concerns of a potential false flag or potentially even propaganda on the Russian side of the war. Belgorod is about 20 to 30 miles across the Ukrainian border on the northeastern side of the country.

Russia says that two fighter helicopters blew up the site early this morning, injuring two people. The Kremlin says that the move will not help these latest rounds of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine taking place today. But keep in mind Russia has blown up several Ukrainian oil depots, including just two this week here on the western side of the country.

And funerals continue to take place here in Ukraine for loved ones who have been killed so far by Russian shelling. Ukraine says that 148 children have died just in the last five weeks. Now, as the battle continues, Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk and Luhansk area are holding their line.

Russian forces failed to gain any territory in last 24 hours in those regions. But it is a very different story in Mariupol. Take a look at this map. The red shows the now Russian-occupied land. The yellow shows the Russian-claimed land.

And caught in the fighting of all of this are the roughly 100,000 civilians who have been in Mariupol this week, according to the city's mayor; 2,000 people were able to make it out. But the Red Cross today is calling off its evacuation, saying it is simply too dangerous to get people out. These evacuations have largely been blocked.

Yesterday, Russian forces stopped 45 buses that were carrying civilians out of this contested area. They also stopped 14 buses carrying 12 tons of humanitarian aid. The only people who were able to get out of this region, Neil, were about 600 people traveling in their own private vehicles -- Neil.

CAVUTO: Thank you, Alex, very much. Be safe.

Alex in Lviv, Ukraine.

To Connell McShane now at the one-touch, taking a look at the kind of area we're talking about and now the controversy over whether this opens up a new cross-border policy on warring back and forth.

Connell, what do you have?

CONNELL MCSHANE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, as Alex says, we just don't know exactly what happened along that border in the early morning hours.

But where Belgorod is, is fairly significant here, because you're just barely across the border from Russia. So if you go down here, maybe 25 miles or so to the border crossing, this is Kharkiv. Now, we know how hard- hit Kharkiv has been and what a center of attention it's been in the war, maybe another 25 miles here.

So give or take Belgorod to Kharkiv, that's only 50 miles, very, very close to Ukraine, but still significant that it's in the Russian Federation. And now we will see how this develops over the next few days and whether there's any confirmation the Ukrainian side that they were behind this or some other story develops, but, right now, we just don't know exactly what happened.

But to the earlier point, and we will see that as we kind of zoom out on this map and take a wider look at the country, you have had so many of these strikes. Even over where Alex is in Lviv, you have had the strikes on the oil depots and oil facilities there. So now maybe you see the turnaround and it happening in Russian territory.

The other thing when we saw zoom out here, we have been talking about this for weeks, this effort by the Russians to kind of seal off the eastern part and the southern part of the country. That's why it's so difficult to get in and get people out of Mariupol. This is where Mariupol is right here.

So we, quite frankly, I think, expected to have and were hoping to have better news to report from this region today, having more than just a couple of thousand people getting out. But if the Red Cross can't get past this area here where the Russians control to get in, then, obviously, you're not going to be able to get people out.

From a Ukrainian perspective, if you are looking today maybe for some better or more uplifting news, I think it's still worth zooming in and looking at the area around the capital city of Kyiv. Now, the way this map has been constructed, it sort of tells the story what's been happening over the last, say, week or a little bit more than that.

The dotted yellow line around here is a radius of 25 kilometers around the city. Now, if we had showed you this map again a week or 10 days ago, these areas of Russian control would have been much closer, and these blue areas may not even have existed yet. This is significant.

What we have shaded in blue are what we're calling claimed Ukrainian counteroffensive. So you see, if you move west of the city, you have a lot of that, even east and slightly more than we had seen in the past. You have these Ukrainian counteroffensives that are moving the Russians back and away from the capital city.

Now, the last point here, Neil, we hear all the time about this change in strategy that may or may not be happening for the Russians to get away from and not be focused on Kyiv as much. Yes, there is maybe some truth to that from the reporting that we're getting. But, also, there's heavy fighting in this area.

These little yellow circles here on the side that are made in solid lines, that's where we have seen significant fighting just in the past 24 hours. That includes Irpin. So, although Ukraine has moved the Russians back and even taken back many of these cities, that doesn't mean the fighting is over by any stretch -- Neil.

CAVUTO: No, not by any stretch.

Thank you very much, my friend, Connell McShane following all of that.

To General Jack Keane on all these fast-moving developments.

General, I know the Ukrainians aren't talking about whether they did this or not. I'm kind of a view that who's Russia to be offended by someone crossing into another country and taking out an oil facility? That strikes me is a little odd. Your thoughts?

JACK KEANE, FOX NEWS SENIOR STRATEGIC ANALYST: Yes. Yes.

It's almost laughable to think that somebody would be offended, given the invasion that Russia has constructed here. I think President Zelenskyy said today that Belgorod was a place where Russians have been firing missiles into his country.

And I think he's sort of making a concession here that they likely conducted this operation. Lookit, this operation will not be decisive. But it is Zelenskyy who's doing most of the attacking inside of Ukraine. And he decided to punch Russia in the nose a little bit likely with this operation.

I don't think there will be large follow-up in terms of Zelenskyy attacking into Russia and outside Ukraine. What he's trying to do is, based on a success of his limited counterattacks that he's been conducting, particularly around Kyiv, also in Sumy and also in Kherson, what he's trying to mount is a counteroffensive campaign.

And that is why he is asking the United States and NATO for advanced weapons, not just the Stingers and the Javelins and those kinds of weapons. What he wants is long- and mid-range air defense systems. He wants combat aircraft, the MiGs. He also wants tanks, armored vehicles, and counterbattery radar.

That would assist him in what he sees is that as an advantage here. There's a stalemate, obviously, around those cities. And it was just very accurately reported what's taking place at Kyiv. And he wants to take advantage of this. He knows that the Russians have been hit hard.

What's happening at Kyiv, Neil, is there's five battalion tactical groups that are being retrograding. That's a military term. It means they're leaving. And they're leaving not to go someplace else. They're leaving because they have been severely damaged, and some of them are combat- ineffective.

They're going to Belarus to get refit and reconstituted. That takes time. It's highly unlikely that they could be used elsewhere and be decisive. So the only place right now, today, where the Ukraine -- where -- excuse me -- the Russians are conducting ground offensive campaign was accurately pointed out.

It's in the Donbass region in the breakaway provinces, where the Ukrainians are holding, and also in Mariupol, which I think likely the Ukrainians will have to escape and evade there at some point when they run out of ammunition.

So it's quite remarkable in terms of what has changed so dramatically here in favor of the Ukrainians, in my judgment. And the fact that they're thinking about conducting a counteroffensive to drive the Russians out of Ukraine is certainly testimony to the success that they have enjoyed.

CAVUTO: Yes, to put it mildly.

It's interesting too, General. It does help explain sense of urgency that President Zelenskyy has had about keeping the military aid coming, and the faster and the sooner, the better.

He raised that with our own Bret Baier a short time ago. This is from President Zelenskyy talking to Bret.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Short of NATO, short of Article 5 protection, you're saying a group of nations provides security guarantees.

Has President Biden offered the U.S. as one of those countries?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): It's hard for us to talk about NATO, because NATO doesn't want to admit us. I think it's a mistake, because, if we joined NATO, we would make NATO much stronger.

We are not a weak state. We are not proposing to make us stronger at the expense of NATO. We are not an addition. We are the locomotive. I think we are one of the important components of the European continent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: You know, General, that one kind of confused me, because didn't he offer, as sort of like a negotiating point, maybe a concession, an olive branch, whatever you want to call it, not forcing the NATO issue, and maybe embracing the whole neutrality thing.

What did you make of that comment?

KEANE: No, your instincts are absolutely correct here, Neil.

I mean, once you put neutrality on the table, that really means you're not going to have military alliances. That's the idea of neutrality itself. And you're certainly not going to have them with NATO, which has been the very issue right from the outset, going all the way back to 2008, when President Bush invaded the Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, and the Germans and the French pushed back on it.

There's been pushback ever since that time. So NATO really isn't an issue in terms of helping Ukraine be neutral, nor -- and I understand what President Zelenskyy is trying to do. But I don't see how you can have it both ways, be a neutral state, and also have military alliances with other states.

Those two are opposing objectives.

CAVUTO: You know, you were mentioning -- and I thought it was a fascinating argument -- that we have -- is our heart really in it to see Zelenskyy win and then Ukrainians come out of this on top, that we're so worried or seemingly so worried about the impact and the reaction that would have of a failed Vladimir Putin and what havoc he could wreak on the world.

Do you still have that view? Do you still have that concern, that maybe we're not in it to win it?

KEANE: Oh, yes, certainly.

Just listening to President Zelenskyy deal with that, he's expressing that frustration. I mean, we have not adjusted to the realities on the ground. He has an opportunity in his mind and with his military, and the fact support it, to begin to drive the Russians out with a counteroffensive, and he's asking for these advanced weapons.

And there's resistance to this. Now, I know none of this is easy, because these are sophisticated weapons.

CAVUTO: Right.

KEANE: If we don't have them, we have to get them from other people. But that's what I mean about being all in.

Are we really all in to help him win, or are we really pushing to get a deal and a cease-fire? And if he -- Zelenskyy -- the more progress Zelenskyy makes offensively in terms of crushing the Russians, one, that's a heck of deterrence for the Russians ever thinking about invading NATO, if Ukraine can do that to him.

And, two, it gives Zelenskyy huge leverage going into some kind of negotiations with the Russians trying to settle an outcome, which will be driven largely by territory.

CAVUTO: You know, General, we have another bite Bret Baier's interview with President Zelenskyy.

But you get the impression listening to Zelenskyy, whether he's talking to a parliament or legislative body here in this country or Canada or Japan or Germany all over it, now getting a sense of the urgency of all of this.

Again, this is from Bret's interview with the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Do you believe that President Biden wants Ukraine to win or that President Biden and his administration fear Putin's reaction if Russia loses?

ZELENSKYY (through translator): I have faith that President Biden, like any true American citizen, believes and wants the truth to win, and the truth is on this side of Ukraine.

I believe that they want the values that make our nations closer to win. We want simple peace for our nation. We don't want a million of quality bulletproof vests or some special brand helmets. Just give us missiles. Give us airplanes. You cannot give us F-18 or F-19 or whatever you have. Give us the old Soviet planes.

That's all. Give them into my hands. Give me something to defend my country with, my state. And if you want it, and I believe that the United States, the people of the United States want that, but if this process gets longer, continues to be delayed, if we can see that this -- the process of transferring those weapons is getting slower, then people begin to ask the question, is it really true?

Maybe there is some game behind it. I don't want to believe that some partners of ours are playing games.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: That's very revealing, General, and addresses your point head on. And he was trying to be politically cautious in how he answered that, but his ending comments seemed to signal a concern that maybe we are holding our punches.

KEANE: Yes, I will tell you what, Neil.

That's very revealing. I give -- God, I give Zelenskyy a lot of credit here. I mean, he started out knowing full well, I don't want to bite the hand that's feeding me.

CAVUTO: Right. Right.

KEANE: That's why certainly he was being very condescending to the president of the United States.

But then he goes on to explain what his real problem is, that he doesn't have the weapons to win. And it's too slow in getting them. And he doesn't feel there's a commitment to him. And he doesn't think -- he doesn't want to believe that people are playing games with him, and not giving them the weapons because they really want to -- they really want the war to end and a deal being made, even though that deal likely if ended now would be very unfavorable to the Ukrainians.

So, yes, that's a heck of an interview that Bret did with him. And I'm glad to see President Zelenskyy come forward like that. My admiration just continues to grow for him, really quite extraordinary leader that we're seeing here.

CAVUTO: Amazing. General, thank you very, very much.

General Jack Keane following all these fast-moving developments.

Of course, you can catch the full interview with President Zelenskyy with Bret on "Special Report" coming up less than two hours from now.

We talked about what's going on in that neck of the woods as well and the plight of refugees, better than four million now that have left the country or in the process of leaving the country, and all the unusual individuals around the world who tried to help that process, but a special, special kind of involved in other part of the guy who owns the Minnesota Vikings and saw what was going on over there and just concluded, this is no game. This is real. I got to go over and help. And he did.

And he's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My sister afraid this bomb. And she see this, all this -- what happened in my country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: It is an enormous crush of people, never so many people, better than four million now trying to leave a single country. It broke records after World War II and during World War II, when it was people leaving from many, many countries.

That was then. This is the huge task now, to safely get these people to a new life, or at least temporarily a new life.

Enter the owner and the president of the Minnesota Vikings, Mark Wilf, on what he's doing to help that process out.

Mark, very good to have you. Thank you.

MARK WILF, OWNER AND PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA VIKINGS: Thank you, Neil. Thanks for having me.

CAVUTO: Explain what you're doing in this and what got you going on it.

WILF: Well, I went with a group from the Jewish Federations of North America. We were one of the first major organizations, humanitarian organizations to go there. We're the backbone of the North American Jewish committee, representing over 300 communities.

And we raise funds. We advocate for communal security, social services, and, of course, the Jewish community, but all kinds of vulnerable populations around the globe. So, it was a fact-finding mission with national leaders around the country to go and see what was going on, meet the refugees, and the needs.

And the problem is overwhelming. And critical needs will be lasting for many, many years to come, no matter how the military situation resolves.

CAVUTO: No doubt.

And I understand a good many of the people you're trying to get out of there or help there, they have their own physical ailments. It's one thing this say, all right, we have got safe passageway out of the country. But are they up to getting to that safe passageway? So what do you do?

WILF: That's right.

We met, for instance, one refugee, a mother. Her name was Anna with two young children, a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old. And she spent 22 hours on a train crammed 20 people in a compartment for four people. She waited another 20, 30 hours on the border to come across. Her 6-year-old even fainted at the border, came across.

And we met her in Warsaw, trying to relocate her. So this -- she's just one of millions of refugees. And we're going to have to roll up our sleeves, all of us, all groups. And we're very privileged here.

And, for me, it was also a personal element. My own parents were Holocaust survivors very -- a few miles away from Medyka at the border. And to see this was overwhelming. And just to know, today, we can have a hand to help out is important.

CAVUTO: You know, it's interesting too, Mark, especially given your own personal connection to horror here with your parents, I mean, you have to think about what the Russians have been doing to make those passageways problematic.

And the Ukrainians have been arguing that the 10 that were supposedly open are in fact not open, not all open, and, sometimes, individuals along those routes are targeted. So how do you deal with that?

WILF: Well, we also have infrastructure on the ground within Ukraine.

And we're also feeding and caring for the people there. But we're trying to get them out from the border area. There was a center there where -- a shopping center where thousands of refugees are being transmitted all across. And we have to do our part here in America.

I know, most recently, President Biden authorized over 100,000 refugees to come here. So the whole world is going to have to help in this situation. And, yes, there are problems on the ground. And every day is a different story. And we just have to make sure we keep doing our best to help.

CAVUTO: Mark, where do they mostly go, when you're trying to get them out of the country or find a safe haven even in the country? We know that over half of the four million have gone to Poland. But what's the latest? What can you tell us?

WILF: Well, you see it on the screen here, largely Eastern Europe and these seven or eight countries you're showing here.

CAVUTO: Right.

WILF: But Western Europe has to take it up. I know the state of Israel -- we in the Jewish community are relocating not just Jewish, but also non- Jewish people are coming to the state of Israel as well. So this is going to be, as we all know, the largest refugee situation since World War II in Europe.

And this is going to be all hands on deck. And, like I said, no matter how the political or military situation comes out, this problem and the infrastructure needed will be here for years to come. I know Jewish Federations are raising money and many other organizations are. And Jewish Federations.org is a place that people, if they want to learn about Ukraine, other great organizations.

I can tell you on the ground, there are tent cities we see from all countries, from all religions that are helping out. So, anyway, people can help out send goods over, donate funds, maybe advocate here for more people to come to resettle.

So it's a lot of fronts to this, and it's going to be here for a long time to come.

CAVUTO: We wish you luck with this.

Mark Wilf, thank you, the Minnesota Vikings owner and president, taking a personal interest in what's happening in Ukraine and helping out however and wherever he can. And that is a huge task, to put it mildly.

All right, a huge jobs report that showed continued growth of the economy. The flip side of that is an even bigger run-up in inflation that's gotten to be a big problem for a lot of folks -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, it has been nearly three decades in existence, and, for the first time, some Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, have voted to unionize. More could spread.

More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're the only country in the world that comes out of crises stronger than we went into them.

That's what we're doing here. I want to thank you all for showing up today. And we will have plenty of time to answer questions about other items other than the jobs report next week.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

QUESTION: What about inflation? What about inflation outpacing wages, Mr. President?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, the president didn't want to deal with the bad part of that report that shows jobs certainly going at a sizzling pace, 11 month in a row now that we have seen better than 400,000 jobs added to the economy.

Unfortunately, even with the wage gains we saw in that report, they're being eaten up by the higher cost of buying everything. And that is what we call inflation. And we know that is a perennial problem that pops up in all of these press conferences when the questions are entertained.

Let's get the read from Jacqui Heinrich on how this is all falling out at the White House -- Jacqui.

JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Neil.

Well, the president just left the White House for Delaware for the weekend. He didn't take any questions on his way out. He didn't take any questions earlier today when he was giving remarks on this jobs report. He only spoke for eight minutes about the 431,000 jobs added in the month of March and the new pandemic era unemployment low of 3.6 percent.

He notably did not take any questions on inflation. But it was the first time that we have heard the president not only blame Vladimir Putin for the high gas prices that we have been seeing, but also now for higher food prices as well.

Food prices, though, have been steadily increasing since long before Russia invaded Ukraine. In January, overall inflation was up 7.4 percent. In February, it went up to 7.9 percent. And Putin didn't even invade until February 24. So the impact of the invasion on inflation really won't be visible until the March inflation report comes out on April 12.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: On the availability of food, we know that different markets around the world are impacted by the lack of production in Ukraine and other -- because of the war, and we know that that could impact global food prices.

(CROSSTALK)

HEINRICH: ... didn't happen yet. This is the first time we have heard the president blame Putin for higher food prices.

PSAKI: I think what the president's looking at is what the impact has been in a lot of areas that are leading to price increases on people's pocketbooks and where we could see it increasing over the course of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEINRICH: So, although the March jobs report came in slightly below expectations, the labor force participation rate is almost back to where it was before the pandemic.

And economists expect a full recovery by the summer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Our recovery has now created 7.9 million jobs -- more jobs created over the first 14 months of any presidency in any term ever. And that's striking.

But what's even more striking is this: In March, the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent, down from 6.4 percent when I took office about 15 months ago, the fastest decline in unemployment to start a president's term ever recorded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEINRICH: And, notably, the White House is still measuring growth in jobs against recovery from the pandemic vs. progress at increasing from pre- pandemic levels -- Neil.

CAVUTO: Jacqui, thank you for that, Jacqui Heinrich.

So, the economy is strong in terms of new job creation. But getting in the way of that is the price of everything you pay. That could stilt it going forward.

Is Bob Nardelli worried? Let's ask the former Chrysler CEO, the former Home Depot CEO.

Bob, what do you think here? I mean, we talked about the wage gains in the report of about 5.6 percent dwarfed by nearly 8 percent run-up in inflation. So what we're making, we're paying out and then some. What do you think?

ROBERT NARDELLI, FORMER CEO, CHRYSLER: Yes, there's no question, Neil.

First of all, it's good to see you're looking well.

CAVUTO: Thank you.

NARDELLI: And thanks for having me on today.

So, this inflation issue, Neil, has been with us for some time. I think it's a misnomer to blame the Russian invasion on the Ukraine. We have seen this certainly -- my favorite topic is certainly on energy. And what we saw is that, on the first day of the inauguration, a carte blanche blanket of drilling and pumping.

And that has that started this whole process. Look, I'm glad that he's decided to release a million barrels of oil a day. But what concerns me is there's no plan to backfill that. Remember, at the pandemic, when we had this national disaster, we didn't have any respirators. We have another national disaster. We're not going to have a surplus of oil and energy.

So we're seeing everywhere, Neil. I'm involved in large corporations and small. I'm on the phone Sunday trying to expedite parts to be able to keep production running for us and for some of our key customers. So this is this is a problem that, with all due respect, is not going to solve itself, what I heard from the reporter a moment ago, is going to solve itself in the second half of this year.

This is going to be with us. And it's something that we're going to fight for some time now that we have got ourselves in the ditch.

CAVUTO: I'm wondering if it's already happening, Bob, because, like you, I follow these numbers very, very closely.

And tied with the run-up in inflation in this latest spending report, consumer spending only moved up about two-tenths of a percent, about a tenth the rate it was advancing just the month before. It might already be happening.

NARDELLI: It's with us, Neil, for sure.

Unfortunately, the general population is suffering when they go to the pump. I know that my family in L.A. are paying $7 a gallon. Here in Atlanta, we're paying $5.20 for premium for a gallon of gas. People are having to pull back on other items.

They're starting to pull back and basically down-select off of key brands into more commodity brands to be able to keep food on the table. To be able to keep medicine, they're going with generic brands vs. name brands.

So we're seeing it all over. I'm seeing it in the companies. I said before that we're serving. In listening to our employees and our associates, they have great concern over where we are as a country as it relates to inflation.

And it just doesn't seem -- some of these are so simple, Neil, to be able to rectify. All they got to do is open up the drilling operations that they shut down. Then you can go ahead and redo the pipeline. And this is -- the traction that they're talking about, these 9,000 leases, Neil, you and I both know -- you're an expert on this.

You have got exploration, construction and production. You just don't walk out on a lease and start pulling oil out of the ground. So that's a distraction that they're just trying to get off the main subject, in my opinion, Neil. This is something that we can solve.

CAVUTO: You're right about a lot of stuff. There were close to 30,000 such leases a little more than a year ago. So the industry has pared it down. But no lease is a gold mine or a rush.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, if you think of oil guys as just being money-grubbing SOBs, it would be in their interest to make more money at these prices getting that stuff out of the ground.

NARDELLI: Yes.

CAVUTO: But that's neither here nor there.

I do want to get your thought on another development today that caught people by surprise, this Staten Island warehouse facility of Amazon's that voted to unionize. And I was looking at some of the pay structures there. I mean, they're very generous, benefits very, very generous.

And it got me thinking anything about Starbucks, a couple of shops that have also gone union in the face of hourly wages that are well north of 20 bucks and benefits that are extremely generous. And Google experiencing this as well, a push to unionize some of the technical divisions, even in the face of benefits and despite all of that, that are second to none in the technology world.

What do you think is going on here? Because, on the surface, Bob, you would think, all right, these are very generous and well-paying environments, but apparently not enough. Are we missing something here?

NARDELLI: Well, it is interesting to -- the event you're talking about, here's a disgruntled employee that basically went to GoFundMe and start a union called Amazon Labor Union.

So it's an upstart union. It's not one of the traditional UAW, I -- UAE, et cetera. So...

CAVUTO: But he got a couple of thousand people there to agree with him, right?

NARDELLI: Yes.

CAVUTO: I mean, it couldn't be forced on them. So what is it?

NARDELLI: Yes, so he got 2,654 positive votes and 2,130 negative votes.

CAVUTO: Right.

NARDELLI: That's about 59 percent of the 8,000 employees that could have voted, Neil. So you have a big population. You have got about 40 percent that didn't vote.

So, here's -- depending upon any objections that are filed, here's an important line that I read from one of the reports. Union negotiations will still have to bargain with Amazon. I have been around 50 years, Neil. And I will bet you the 2,654 employees that voted for this have no idea that, when you go to negotiate at the table now with Amazon, you will start at zero.

Whatever you had relative to wages, benefits, to your point, you're talking about $18.25 base wages right now. And then you have generally about 30 percent on top of that, with perks and benefits and so forth. When you go to the table, you start at zero. Then you have work rules that you have to negotiate.

Those work rules certainly are a little restrictive at times. And we're in an era of automation and innovation. I have seen these distribution centers lately. And there's a lot more robotics going on in there than I saw a 10 to 15 years ago.

So, for some reason, they feel they have the opportunity and the upper hand now because of the employment or the lack of being able to get people. Now's the time to flex your muscles and try to get all you can get. But I'm telling you, from experience, when they sit at that table, it's going to be a shocker when Amazon says, OK, we will start at zero, and we will go from there.

I think it remains to be seen what will happen.

CAVUTO: We will watch it. We will watch it, Bob. But, again, there's something in the water at a lot of these places where it is happening.

So we will keep a close eye on it, my friend. Thank you very much, Bob Nardelli, on all of that.

When we come back, the Ukrainian Parliament member who's on tour now trying to, well, let the world know about Ukraine's plight. But what he's doing is a little different than your normal tour -- after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXEY GONCHARENKO, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: You see this flag of Ukraine. And I think it's very symbolic. We are wounded, but we are not destroyed. And we are -- and we will not surrender.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GONCHARENKO: That is a city council of Derhachi near Kharkiv, which was attacked just yesterday by two missiles.

And you see this absolutely civilian object is completely destroyed. And you see this flag of Ukraine. And I think it's very symbolic. Ukraine now looks like this. We are wounded. But we are not destroyed. And we are -- and we will not surrender.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: A Ukrainian Parliament member who's taking his act on the road to show you exactly what is happening as he travels the roads, many of them badly damaged in areas that have been bombed to smithereens.

Alexey Goncharenko is his name. He's kind enough to join us right now.

Alexey, I think a lot of these videos you have been providing, I mean, are very powerful. You see. And a lot of people who didn't know how bad it was looking there get a chance to see just how bad it is looking there. What's the reaction you have been getting?

GONCHARENKO: Oh, yes, it's quite hard, because just also, today, I visited Irpin, which is a town, satellite of Kyiv, near 50,000 people, population before the invasion, and now it is completely destroyed.

And I spoke with people there. They were sitting in shelters, in basements for one month, just imagine this, without connection, almost without supplies, without electricity. And it is absolutely awful what's happening with people in such towns and cities like Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol. And that is very bad situation.

What is good, that is, Ukraine now liberating such towns. Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv, which was of strategic importance. And now we're liberating the small towns and villages and bigger towns around Kyiv.

And it is very, very important from a strategic point of view and from a humanitarian point of view, because we are now liberating hundreds of civilians from awful situation where they were before.

CAVUTO: You know, Alexey, when I watch a lot of the videos you have been kind enough to provide, these look like neighborhoods, not military outpost.

This looks like civilians were, as we feared, being directly targeted, that this isn't about going after military operations. These are average' folks homes and shopping centers and theaters and all of that. And it brings it to a tragic life that I don't think we have seen before.

GONCHARENKO: That's true. That's something -- well, it's in tactics of Putin just to destroy civilian areas, just to put terror on people just to scare the nation, like they did in Syria, like they did in Chechnya like many years before.

That is their tactics. That is their playbook. And it's awful, because it ruins millions of lives. That's why we have more than 10 millions of refugees. Just imagine this number, more than 10 millions of refugees in the middle of Europe in the 21st century. Almost five of them -- five millions crossed the border .More than six millions are internally displaced.

Why? Why? Because such awful war conduct like Putin is showing and war crimes. In these areas which are now liberated, we have a number of evidences of sexual crimes against women, including teenagers, of crimes against humanity, just killing civilians, and certainly robbery, and like awful robbery of the properties, of the houses, buildings.

So, all bad war crimes that you can imagine were committed on our territory and still are committing on our territory by Russian troops.

CAVUTO: Well, to your point, Alexey, it's one thing to hear about it. It's quite, quite another to see it.

And what you did here is, as tragic as what you're showing is, it really brings it home to people all over the world, what you and your countrymen are going through.

Alexey, please be safe.

GONCHARENKO: Thank you very much.

CAVUTO: Alexey Goncharenko, of course, the Ukrainian Parliament member who wants to show the world what is seeing and his people are experiencing day in and day out.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: This is a health directive determined by the CDC. So let me start there.

But I would also say that implementation of their decision requires an interagency process, specifically leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, Jen Psaki talking about how the administration is weighing this Title 42 issue. Of course, that is what allows U.S. authorities at the border, if they capture of someone trying to get into the country, they can send them right back to Mexico or further south, if need be, but not stay in the United States.

They're hanging this on the CDC for the time being over a health issue here. Whatever the details, there is some concern that, if we drop this program altogether started in the Trump administration, we're going to have a serious problem on our hands.

Ron Vitiello has been saying that for some time, the former acting ICE director.

Ron, good seeing you.

Let's say Title 42 ended. What do you see happening?

RON VITIELLO, FORMER ACTING U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT DIRECTOR: Thanks for having me on, Neil.

CAVUTO: Thank you.

VITIELLO: What we're hearing is that thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico waiting for the Title 42 rescission, because this administration has been talking about it before they were in office.

And so they have never liked it. You have many people in the House on the Democratic side that ran on the ideology of abolish ICE. And so they have effectively done that with some of these executive orders. They have taken all the tools that have abated the last surge on the Southwest border. Title 42 is the only one that's putting just a minor brake on what we're seeing.

And what we're seeing now, a million apprehensions halfway through the year. So we're going to end the year in somewhere in the range of two million encounters by CBP. We're going to go from chaos to catastrophe. And Title 42 is the last thing that's out there.

And if we're going to talk about this as a health issue, because it is a Title 42 -- this is HHS authority delegated to the department -- I was on three airplanes this week. I had to wear a mask. So if I still have to do that, and all the rest of America has to do that, why are we going to open -- why are we going to take the last modicum of control at the Southwest border?

Why are we going to remove that?

CAVUTO: You know, another curious issue I have, Ron, is that these encounters you talk of, up to two million, when there are encounter episodes, you obviously can't take everybody.

So, some are able to get through. So what do you do?

VITIELLO: Well, it's a very good point, right?

You're not -- if you come to the Southwest border right now, and you don't want to be caught or found by the Border Patrol or the Department of Public Safety in Texas, you have a pretty good chance of it, because many Border Patrol agents, instead of being on the line protecting us, patrolling, seizing drugs and encountering criminals, they're back at the collection point.

They're back at the Border Patrol station processing people, the care and comfort mission. So they're distracted. And what that means is the cartels can have free rein and essentially an open border. That means more drug smuggling. That means more poison in the United States. That means more human trafficking.

And that fentanyl and that heroin and those narcotics don't stay at the border. They come all over the country. And we saw what happened last year, where over 100,000 Americans fell to the scourge of opioids.

CAVUTO: Right.

VITIELLO: And that's not a coincidence. We see what happens on the border, and it affects all of us.

CAVUTO: And I do remember you warning about just that.

What I am curious too, forget about the encounters that you're experiencing now and could, and that is with Title 42 in place, by the way. Wouldn't the removal of Title 42 galvanize and incentivize those who want to come here to rush here?

VITIELLO: That will be the problem. They're overwhelmed as it is right now. The border is totally out of control.

But taking that last modicum of allowing the portal to expel people quickly under the auspices of the pandemic HHS authority, when you take that away, you're going to go from chaos to catastrophe. It's just going to get much worse.

We have got to stop voting for people in this country that want to abolish legal authorities like the police, like ICE, and they want to have an open border. That's not good for us. We're not going to have a country we can recognize if we keep this border unpatrolled, unprotected and open as it is.

CAVUTO: It's just out of control, to your point, and this could make it even more so, Ron. Thank you very, very much, Ron Vitiello, the former acting ICE director.

We will be keeping a very close eye on that, by the way, tomorrow in our special coverage at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Also keeping you up to date on the latest developments in Ukraine.

And, for that, we will be talking to the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, also the Polish ambassador to the United States, on what they make of the giant refugee problem, what they make also as well about maybe Ukrainians themselves taking the offense to the Russians, because the Russians now, whether it's a false flag or however you want to describe it, are stunned, we're told, that the Ukrainians have the ability to go into their land and do something in their land.

Now, whether it is an actual false flag or not, the reality is that, if the Ukrainians have that ability, where does this war go now, and how far does it expand now? We will explore that.

Don't forget, in the meantime, Bret's upcoming interview with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, what he has to say about American support, about global support -- coming up.

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