Teacher left distraught after being barred from raising her own children ‘kidnaps girl, nine, by luring her with sweets before torturing and knifing her to death’ in Russia
- Ulyana Lanskaya, 40, ‘kidnapped a girl’, nine, after being barred from raising her own children
- Russian police say she then stabbed and battered Sofia Zhavoronkova to death
- Lanskaya lost parental rights after repeatedly claiming her healthy daughter suffered from cancer
A distraught woman who was barred from raising her own children allegedly kidnapped a girl, nine, before repeatedly stabbing and battering her to death, say Russian police.
Sofia Zhavoronkova’s head was completely ‘smashed’ and her face and body ‘disfigured’ during agonising torture, according to reports citing law enforcement.
She was covered in slash wounds and her head was ‘a broken, bloody mess’, reported Vologda-Poisk media.
Foreign languages teacher Ulyana Lanskaya, 40, was deprived of her parental rights by a judge after repeatedly claiming her healthy daughter suffered from cancer and needed urgent medical treatment.
Ulyana Lanskaya, 40, (pictured) who was barred from raising her own children is alleged to have kidnapped a girl, nine, before repeatedly stabbing and battering her to death, say Russian police
After her son and daughter were taken from her, she tried several times to collect children from local kindergartens, say reports.
On 16 October, she invited Sofia and another local girl to come to her flat after buying them sweets.
She had met the girls in the street on the way home from school.
Sofia’s friend went home in the evening.
On 16 October, foreign languages teacher Ulyana invited Sofia Zhavoronkova (pictured) and another local girl to come to her flat after buying them sweets
Sofia was reported missing and a huge police search started with 272 volunteers in Vologda city, with the girl’s mother Anna Zhavoronkova, 32, making an emotional appeal on social media.
Police eventually located her friend after volunteers scanned CCTV footage and saw the girls together.
The friend told them the address where she last saw Sofia.
Lanskaya was absent but police broke in and found Sofia’s body.
Police discovered Sofia’s body before later arresting Ulyana on a train as she headed for Murmansk
Her throat had been slit and head battered with a blunt object, say police.
Lanskaya was later detained on a train heading for the Arctic port of Murmansk, say police.
A local said: ‘She is an intelligent woman, with an education.
‘She used to be a tutor in several foreign languages.
Pictured: Anna Zhavoronkova, the mother of nine-year-old Sofia
‘But then something went wrong and she closed in on herself.’
She was upset when her children were removed from her care.
A mother had complained that Lanskaya earlier tried to collect her children from kindergarten without permission.
Police did not take action because ‘she was missing her own kids, and would not harm anyone’, said a report.
After her detention, the woman confessed to killing the child, said police.
Pictured: Russian police search what is believed to have been Sofia’s last known location
She stabbed and tortured the nine-year-old girl ‘to leave a trace in history’, she said.
Lanskaya repeated a claim that she was terminally ill with blood cancer and had kidnapped the child because she did not want to die alone.
Police say there is no evidence she is terminally ill.
Legal action has not been ruled out against the dead girl’s mother amid claims that Sofia was not properly supervised.