Susanna Reid close to tears as The Sun’s Jerome Starkey tells how Putin’s ‘ring of evil’ snatched kids in Ukraine

SUSANNA Reid nearly broke down in tears while speaking to The Sun's Jerome Starkey about Putin's evil child-snatchers on today's GMB.

Recently returning from Ukraine, Starkey shared on Good Morning Britain the "appalling" and "unimaginable" truths behind the chilling abductions.

A warrant was issued for Vlad's arrest on Friday after he was accused of being personally responsible for the sickening kidnaps of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Ukraine claims that around 16,000 children have been forcibly taken from their homes and taken into Russian territory.

Starkey recalls meeting a man while in Ukraine who believed his son was "probably executed" after mysteriously disappearing.

The Sun man said: "His wife, his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren were among 70 people who were living in this village who were forced onto a bus at gunpoint and driven onto Russian territory".

Some Ukrainian families were desperate for Starkey and his team to contact their loved ones due to the lack of mobile phone signal in the area - but this was nearly impossible to do, according to the defence editor.

It has also been reported that these children are abducted from institutions such as orphanages, care homes and boarding schools under the pretence that they're going on a school trip.

A Sun investigation found that after being abducted, these stolen kids were being sent to sinister "re-education camps" in a bid to turn them into "Russian zombies".

Children inside the camps are said to have been put through the process of "information zombification" to rid them of their Ukrainian heritage and make them pro-Russian.

This is all while being told they have been abandoned by their parents and bribed with sweets and gadgets.

Starkey revealed that the children are most likely being taught Russian and being forced to sing the Russian anthem every morning as part of the brainwashing scheme.

"Ukraine certainly thinks this is part of a concerted effort to sort of wipe away and erase their Ukrainian identity," he added.

Earlier this month, a Putin crony who is accused of snatching children from Ukraine and taking them back to Russia bragged about her crimes during a meeting with the Russian president.

In the shocking footage, Putin and his children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova casually discussed how she brought back a child from Ukraine.

Many children have been left orphaned or separated from their loved ones by Putin's ruthless invasion - meaning Belova's team of sick abductors have been free to sweep up innocent youngsters. 

The clip, filmed over a month ago, seemed to prove the allegations made by Kyiv that the Kremlin has approved the mass deportation of children from captured Ukrainian lands - a war crime.

In the short video, Putin's children's commissioner tells tyrant Vlad that she was only able to adopt the child - a boy named by Russian media as Filip - because of him.

Putin asks her: "Have you adopted a child from Mariupol?"

Giggling and blushing, Lvova-Belova replies: "I have, thanks to you, Vladimir Vladimirovich."

Following the shocking crimes, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked British journalists - including Sun reporters - earlier this month for their "vital support" in his nation's war against Russia.

The wartime leader, 45, commended Brit reporters for their efforts in covering the war for more than a year.

It came after Starkey won the coveted Press Awards’ News Reporter of the Year award for his dispatches from the war’s frontline.