tv Nightline ABC March 24, 2022 12:37am-1:06am PDT
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♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, seeking refuge. russians arriving at our border. >> we just needed to be somewhere far from putin, far from russia. >> camped out seeking asylum, fleeing putin's aggression. >> everyone can be arrested for anything. >> scared and desperate, leaving everything behind. >> we thought that it's going to be iron curtain again, and in two days we left. >> will they find the freedom they are looking for? plus, the reinforcements. the community hospital overwhelmed after nearly two years straight of fighting covid. >> we have less and less beds, somehow. it just kept getting worse. >> things so bad, the armed forces deployed. >> we made a commitment to defend our country from enemies foreign and domestic. the enemy just happens to be a
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care coalition, it's so good to see you all! alright! let's brainstorm. any ideas for new members? i'd like to nominate alaska airlines. this neck pillow i'm dating says great things! a caring airline?! wait, those exist?! it says here they were the first airline to switch from plastic bottles to boxed water. they also hire a lot of people from caring professions. i'm seeing former teachers and nurses. it's settled! alaska airlines is officially in the running! round of applause! ♪ ♪
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good evening. thank you for joining us. tonight, the war on ukraine has lasted longer than many imagined when it began nearly a month ago. and there's still no end in sight. today the u.s. officially accusing russia of committing war crimes as president biden headed to europe for an emergency nato summit. millions of ukrainians continue to flee putin's terror. but so too are some russians, arriving at our borders, hoping for freedom. >> reporter: here on the southern border where tijuana meets san diego and the pacific ocean stretches wide, the human toll from a war a world apart. >> we just needed to be somewhere, to be somewhere far from putin, far from russia, far from war actions. >> reporter: agada and her husband left russia after protesting publicly against the invasion.
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>> we've been protesters a long time. we were sure we would be persecuted for our actions. >> reporter: days ago they were waiting to claim asylum at the u.s. border, camped outside the port of entry along with roughly 40 other russians. here despite the uncertainty, small acts of kindness. a shared humanity in the shadow of suffering. it's now been a month of sustained fighting. russian forces continuing their onslaught of ukraine. and what u.s. officials today said includes war crimes. displacing millions, now refugees scattered around the globe. >> we have never slept in the street before. >> reporter: and as president vladimir putin intensifies his crackdown on dissidents, where even a whisper of dissent could lead to arrest. >> news stories about what totalitarian state looks like,
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but we never could imagine that it could be happening before our own eyes. >> reporter: now some russians opposed to putin's war, afraid, fleeing their home country, finding refuge in one another. >> we don't know how long we will stay here, but our plan is to find someplace where we can be safe, where we can be family, where we can build our future. >> reporter: steps from the port of entry, my colleague, will carr, met yulia and husband anton who fled st. petersburg, now seeking asylum in the u.s. >> we first took tickets to istanbul, turkey, and from istanbul to mexico city, and from mexico city, we end here. >> were you in fear for your life? >> yeah, of course. it is not possible to be positive about your freedom and life in russia if you are against putin and against the war. >> what's the current status of your clients and where are they located right now?
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>> my clients are currently at san ysidro port of entry. >> reporter: margaret cargioli is the couple's attorney. what's your clients' claim for asylum? >> my clients are fleeing russia because of their political opinion. they were surveilled by the russian government. >> reporter: many asylum seekers may be rejected under title 42, a public health clause of u.s. law implemented at the start of the pandemic that allows the u.s. to expel asylum seekers and others crossing the border without authorization. ukrainians may be exempted from the policy on a case-by-case basis. >> it is unfair and unjust that when you think of the images of haitians who are being threatened by men on horses, and then you look at now that customs and border protection officials are allowing ukrainians in. there is no justification for disparate treatment of those
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vulnerable individuals that risked their lives to ask for protection from the united states government. >> reporter: in february, u.s. customs and border protection reported 769 encounters with russian asylum seekers at the southern border. that compares to just 72 encounters in february of last year. >> what do you want people across the world to know about what you're going through and what is happening right here? >> well, i'd like -- well, i'd like people to know that i truly -- a lot of the people in russia who are against the war and who had to leave their homes. >> reporter: thousands of miles away in istanbul, turkey, eva rappaport from the russian anti-war committee is stepping up to help those who left so much behind with the support group called "the ark." >> they're buying the bare necessities, beds, bedding. they're young, they're well
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educated, they're sharing western values, and this is one of the reasons they're leaving russia. they want freedom of speech, freedom of expression. so this is one of the apartments we've rented. this one was a pretty good find. it's big, it has six bedrooms. >> reporter: inside we met two new arrivals, sasha and daniel. >> when we saw that sanctions are coming and flights all closed, we thought, there's going to be iron curtain again. we heard rumors about it. so we just ran. >> reporter: escaping st. petersburg with the only things that mattered. >> i took -- the main thing is here, you know. the main thing is here. >> reporter: since the invasion began, the kremlin has passed a law saying that anyone who spreads what they deem fake information about the war could face up to 15 years in jail.
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just this week, a court banned facebook and instagram. a russian court finding meta, their parent organization, guilty of extremist activity. >> now repression is massive. everyone can be arrested for anything. >> reporter: the couple, outspoken critics of putin, regularly attending protests against the regime. while supporting vocal dissident alexei navalny. in august 2020, the kremlin critic accusing putin of being responsible for his poisoning with a deadly nerve agent. navalny returning to moscow in defiance only to be arrested for parole violations shortly after landing. the jailed opposition leader now sentenced to nine more years in prison, found guilty yesterday by a russian court of fraud. navalny's spokesperson says it comes as no surprise that putin would want to keep his critic behind bars. >> this fear is only his main tool to oppress russians right
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now. still, i am completely sure that there are a lot of people who just are not afraid. >> reporter: one of those who is not afraid, television producer marina ovsyannikova. on russian tv last week, running out to set holding a sign saying "stop the war, don't believe propaganda, they're lying to you." the broadcast cutting the feed, marina arrested shortly after the incident. >> it was my own anti-war decision. >> reporter: over the weekend, speaking in her first american broadcast interview via translator with my colleague, george stephanopoulos. >> you put your life in danger. what compelled you to take that risk? >> translator: this protest, you know, was a spontaneous decision for me, to go out live on air. but the dissatisfaction with the current situation has been accumulating for many years. >> reporter: as of now, she is not being charged under russia's new "fake news" law.
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as for daniel and sasha, they say there's no better time to be the change they want than now. >> russian society is divided now. a huge part is supporting this war. they're supporting. i think mostly because of -- they're afraid. >> reporter: the longing for home in the back of their minds, but all they can do now is move forward. up next, a different kind of war that's raged for two years. inside one small hospital on the front lines of the pandemic.
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♪ their mission was not a typical assignment. military members deployed to a community hospital in america's heartland, battling an unseen but ferocious enemy, the pandemic. here's abc's marieya villarreal. >> reporter: a picturesque setting in america's heartland. oklahomans gather to thank these troops for their service. reinforcements in a battle that's been raging for the past two years. >> we made a commitment to defend our country from enemies foreign and domestic. the enemy just happens to be a pandemic this time. >> reporter: lieutenant nicole hendricks was one of more than three dozen deployed to integris baptist medical center in oklahoma city on a mission to fight covid-19.
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since last summer, approximately 1, 275 members of the armed forces -- army, navy, and air force medical personnel -- have deployed to 57 hospitals in 30 states. >> our doctors, nurses, hospital staffs, have gone above and beyond during this pandemic. we have to let them know we have their backs. >> reporter: integris baptist is no different than any other hospital suffering through the strains of the pandemic. >> it seemed like every time a new wave would come, we'd of a less and less beds somehow. it kept getting worse. >> reporter: amanda collins is a nurse at integris baptist. her floor saw some of the first covid patients admitted to the hospital back in 2020. >> there were days you'd go home and be like, do i have it and i don't know it? or, who's going to get sick next? after awhile, as we saw so many people dying, it just got very stressful. >> what did that stress do to this hospital? >> people were like, wow, i am
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very overwhelmed. or just feeling kind of that burnout that we talk about a lot. so then we kept losing staff from that point. >> reporter: in january 2022, omicron hit oklahoma hard, including integris baptist. >> today we broke a record. not a good record. we had more covid-positive patients in our hospitals in oklahoma than we ever have. >> this is the -- right now, an empty icu room. it's the only empty icu room we have in the whole hospital because of all that's going on with the pandemic currently. >> we have doctors that are working for weeks on end. we have nurses that are taking extra shifts. >> at one point, about 35% of our beds were filled with covid patients. >> reporter: dr. matthew brit is a critical carry pulmonologist
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who's spent three decades working here. >> was there a government response, like send them here, we need the help? >> yeah. how quickly can they be here? >> reporter: they didn't parachute in, but when the troops arrived, they hit the ground running. lieutenant nicole hendricks and lieutenant tory easley were part of this fema-led mission serving in the 88th medical group inpatient squadron at wright patterson in ohio. >> give me an idea of what it was like when you first got here. people were like, thank god you're here, i'm taking a break? >> they didn't get to go away because we showed up. their patient loads just individually weren't as heavy because we were here. >> i got to train tory, and it was a very busy day, running like crazy around. she was so positive the whole time. she just kept saying, we're here to help. >> we mostly work with veterans and active duty and their families. so we don't have civilian patients there. so that part was different. >> reporter: 28-year-old lieutenant easley began serving in the air force two years ago,
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just as covid was declared a national emergency. >> from march 2021 to may 2021, i was deployed to detroit, michigan, as part of a d.o.d. and fema-run covid vaccination clinic, just to try to get more of michigan vaccinated. >> reporter: 39-year-old lieutenant hendricks has been in the service for more than a decade, spending the first ten years working as a drone sensor operator. what were some of your bigger deployments as a drone operator? >> i deployed to africa twice. then we do what we call launch and recovery, literally taking the aircrafts off. we're in charge of that, getting them off the runways. then we pass them as we say, or hand them over to the stateside crews who actually fly the missions. >> you're doing something completely different now? >> 100%. >> word comes down that the white house is going to be sending aid to some of the most devastated places around the country. did you know, oh, this is coming? >> there's always that possibility when you join the military.
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yu always have to be ready. >> reporter: their duties were no different from their civilian counterparts. what was the toughest thing about what you initially saw and had to deal with? >> they're a little bit sicker than i think what we're used to seeing on a day-to-day basis, for us, in large masses. >> a year ago if you said i was going to be in oklahoma providing covid support, i did not see that coming. >> reporter: major leah godwin ran the day-to-day operation on the ground. >> you would think for a covid support mission we'd be doing all covid, but we're here to give relief to the hospital, whether covid patients or in general. for us, the mission was pretty clear for supporting the hospital and what they need. >> reporter: by the end of their deployment, the hospital's covid numbers had drastically dropped from more than 300 cases to less than 20. it may be a little cheesy, but i have to ask. mission accomplished? >> i think so. >> i mean, our mission was to come here and support oklahoma,
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and i think in that sense, we did what we came here to do. >> the rejuvenation that they got from you coming to support was enough to carry us over these last 30 days. >> i just want them to know how appreciated they are. before they came, we were looking at some kind of scary scenarios that could happen. it makes me emotional knowing that they made a huge difference. and i hope they know that. >> tonight we're packaging up all of our gifts for all the different people in our wedding. >> on top of all of this, your work, the military coming in, another surge, you've also been planning a wedding. >> yeah. i'm thankful that numbers are down to a safe level for us to be able to have our wedding. >> reporter: amanda got to say "i do" and enjoy a honeymoon in jamaica with husband justin. as for the troops -- >> do you know where you're
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going next? what's the next big adventure, deployment? >> the next big adventure is home for now. >> mommy! >> reporter: while the military members have returned to base, this oklahoma community will continue to feel their presence long after they're gone. for "nightline," i'm mireya villarreal in oklahoma city. up next, remembering a pioneering american diplomat, madeline albright, the first woman secretary of state. want to feel your heart beat faster? ♪ (heart beat music) ♪ drive an electric car. made by a company whose evs have gone five billion miles... for every highway... every driveway... ...and every speedway. and where the loudest sound... ...is the beat of your electric heart. this is the new nissan.
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care coalition, where are we on alaska airlines? we found that people are raving about their customer care. i mean, take a look at this! wow! [dog barks] says here they have the most flights from the west coast. they fly to chicago, hawaii, cancun! wow! do they fly to my magical faraway kingdom of care-a-lot, way up in the clouds where anything is possible? they have direct flights to vegas. close enough! ♪ ♪
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♪ finally tonight, we leave you with a look at the remarkable life of madeline albright. born in 1937 in prague, her family arrived as refugees to ellis island when she was 11 after first fleeing the nazis and later the communists. albright became one of the most influential women in american government, first as u.n. ambassador under bill clinton, then secretary of state. the first woman ever in that job. no matter her success, her family's journey to america always with her.
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>> i stand here today in this office which symbolizes the power and purpose of the united states, my mother and father taught me to love freedom. no barrier or ceiling should stop me from serving freedom in my own life. >> albright encouraged the next generation of women following in her footsteps, describing in her memoir how she wanted to be remembered. >> perhaps some will also say that i helped teach a generation of older women to stand tall and young women not to be afraid to interrupt. >> madeline albright was 84.
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