CNN’s Brianna Keilar Breaks Down in Tears While Reporting on Deaths of Ukrainian Children (Video)

The host became emotional on location from Lviv

CNN’s Brianna Keilar started sobbing Thursday during her report on the deaths of Ukrainian children amid the Russian invasion of the country.

Reporting a “News Day” segment from Lviv, Keilar detailed how “this war in Ukraine has stolen childhood on an unimaginable scale.”

When Keilar began to recap the deaths of 6-year-old Sofia and her younger brother Vanyushka, her voice began to waver, and she became more emotional as she described how their uncle listened to the deaths of his niece and nephew on speakerphone.

Keilar also described a father who recognized his children’s dead bodies on Twitter because he saw their luggage lying next to them.

“The Ukrainian government says nearly 200 children have been killed in this war here so far,” Keilar said. “That is the official count though it is likely a gross underestimate that doesn’t include those killed in places where active fighting is underway, where officials are still working to confirm deaths.”

In Mariupol, where Russia bombed a drama theater in which children were sheltering, with the words children clearly written in Russian on the pavement outside, the mayor says 210 children have died as Russia attacks his city.

Keilar started to sob when she reported the death of a 6 year-old Ukrainian girl who died in the Russian shelling near her home.

“She was wearing unicorn pajamas an ambulance rushed her to the hospital where she died,” Keilar said through tears.

Keilar finished her report noting that Russians don’t believe the photographic evidence of dead children.

“They do not believe that the pictures of the these kids are real,” she said. “They think they are fabricated by the Ukrainians. But they are real.” 

Keilar then renamed all of the children whose deaths she reported, reminding viewers that many unknown children have suffered similar fates in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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