An Iranian refugee toddler is fighting for his life with skull and spinal injuries after being thrown on his head by Vladimir Vitkov, a 31-year-old Belarusian.
The unprovoked attack happened minutes after the Iranian toddler, Yazdan, and his pregnant mother arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on June 24, fleeing the violence in Iran.
Video evidence shows the Belarusian man picking up 18-month-old Yazdan by the ankle and throwing him head-first onto the hard floor.
The man then assumes a fighting stance and puts on his sunglasses before being subdued by bystanders and arrested by the Russian police.
The child was previously placed in a medically induced coma, but doctors working on the child report that his brain was not damaged and that the boy will not require neurosurgical treatment, according to the Daily Mirror.
Vitkov was returning home through Moscow from Egypt, where he had recently been fired from a job as a construction worker at a nuclear power plant after failing a drug and alcohol test.
The Belarusian man was immediately arrested and has reportedly already confessed, “I tried to murder a child,” said Vitkov, who reportedly was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the attack.
Ksenia Mishonova, the Moscow regional children’s ombudswoman, labelled Vitkov a “drug-addled monster,” and called for him to be punished with “hard labor until he is feeble with old age.”
Thousands have attempted to flee Iran after the outbreak of the most recent war with Israel on June 13.
Iran has been an ally of Russia in its war against Ukraine, providing Moscow with ballistic missiles and drone technology that is used to attack Ukrainian servicemembers and civilians.