A ‘monster’ filmed throwing a toddler to the floor in an airport lounge in Moscow has confessed to seeking to kill the helpless boy.
Disturbing video footage captured Belarusian national Vladimir Vitkov, a 31-year-old worker at a nuclear power plant construction site, violently throwing an 18-month-old child to the ground at Sheremetyevo terminal in Moscow, Russia.
The child had arrived in Russia minutes earlier after he and his mother fled the bombing in Iran, say reports.
Little Yazdan, aged 18 months, is now fighting for his life with serious skull fractures and spinal injuries.
Vitkov was rumored to have been on the same flight as the child and his mother, who were seeking refuge from the turmoil in Iran, where they had been visiting family.
They had reached Afghanistan after fleeing Iran.
Prior to the incident, Vitkov had lost his job at a nuclear power plant construction project in Egypt due to failing a random check for substance abuse. He was on his way back home through Moscow, as revealed by a friend.
‘He was valued there, appointed a foreman,’ the friend told Daily Storm.
Appalling footage shows the moment a male tourist suddenly picks up and hurls a helpless 18-month-old boy head first on the ground in the arrivals hall of a Moscow airport
The tourist – identified as Vladimir Vitkov, 31, from Belarus – is seen on security footage looking closely at the boy who is next to his suitcase
The boy is now fighting for his life in a coma with serious skull fractures and spinal injuries
Little Yazdan, aged 18 months, is now fighting for his life with serious skull fractures and spinal injuries
‘But there are constant checks, you have to blow into a pipe before work.
‘Apparently, he drank or smoked something there – and because of that he was sent home.
‘He was at the airport because he was returning from work in Egypt.’
The boy was thrown head first on the ground by the stranger, who was reported by Russian law enforcement to have been high on drugs.
He ‘confessed’ when a police interrogator asked: ‘Explain what you did.
‘I attempted to murder a child.’
‘Where did this happen?’
‘At Sheremetyevo Airport [in Moscow].’
Vitkov ‘confessed’ when a police interrogator asked ‘explain what you did, to which he replied ‘I attempted to murder a child’
Vitkov had been fired from a nuclear power plant construction job in Egypt after failing a spot check for drugs and alcohol, and was returning home via Moscow, according to a friend
‘What was your motive?
‘My motive? I don’t know – I was under the influence of drugs.’
Reports said cannabis had been found in his possession and there were traces of the drug in his blood.
Mash news outlet reported today that he had drunk three bottles of whisky and obtained cannabis in Cairo before the incident.
The Moscow region children’s ombudswoman Ksenia Mishonova labelled him a ‘drug-addled monster’, and called for him to be punished with ‘hard labour until he is feeble with old age’.
‘I am always very, very careful, but here I no longer have the strength not to say simply – [this was] a stoned drug addict, a monster,’ she said after seeing the boy in hospital.
‘I cannot call this person anything else.
‘I believe that he is not sick at all.
Yazdan’s distraught mother (right) had arrived in Russia minutes before the attack with her toddler after they had fled the bombing in Iran, it was reported
‘In our country, drug addiction is like a disease — it is not a disease, but this is my position.
‘He is an absolute monster, a criminal who should be judged in the most severe manner for what he did….
‘God simply saved the boy
‘In any other situation, a slightly different tilt of the head, and he, of course, would not have survived.’
By a ‘miracle’ the child’s brain was not damaged, she said, adding that he was now out of a medically-induced coma as doctors assessed his condition.
The boy’s distraught mother Hajizada Sahar had repeatedly asked her if her son would recover, she said.
Dr Tatyana Shapovalenko, chief doctor at the Roshal Children’s Centre, Moscow, said:
‘The child was admitted with a severe craniocerebral injury.
‘He has an open fracture of the skull bones, a fracture of the base and vault of the skull, a subdural haematoma.’
She said he did not require neurosurgical treatment.
Vitkov is pictured with wife Olesya and his daughter, around the same age as the boy he attacked.
The family lives in the Gomel region of Belarus.
