Lifestyle blogger is jailed eight years for starving his newborn son to death after demanding the child lived on a ‘diet’ of SUNLIGHT instead of food and milk

A lifestyle blogger father has been jailed for eight years for causing the death of his newborn son by demanding he live on sunlight instead of food and milk.

Maxim Lyutyi, 44, and his partner Oxana Mironova, 34, failed to properly feed their baby Cosmos, who died of ‘pneumonia and emaciation’ when he was less than a month old.

The Russian father will serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.

He took the baby away from his mother for a day at a time and doused him with cold water to make him hard, news channel Mash reported.

‘The body could not withstand the abuse: exhaustion developed and breathing problems arose. But even in this condition the child was not shown to doctors.”

Lyutyi “intentionally caused grievous bodily harm” to Cosmos by insisting the baby be fed mainly with sunlight, a Sochi court heard.

He admitted his guilt at a trial last week, after previously trying to pin the blame on Mironova, who has already received a non-custodial sentence of two years of ‘penal work’.

He had claimed that she had an iron deficiency, which caused the death of the baby who weighed three and a half pounds.

Lyutyi told the court he was guilty of “negligence.” “I admit my guilt,” he said. “If I knew that my son was born prematurely, that his mother had contraindications to pregnancy, then at the first symptoms of the child’s disease.

‘I would contact a hospital immediately, regardless of the mother’s wishes and beliefs…’

He urged future partners to take care of their health before conception and pay more attention to the baby than he had done.

He said on video: “Your honor, dear court, I still insist [I did not deliberately kill my child…].

“This is purely a crime of negligence…with no such intent. I emphasize once again that I loved and cared for my son.”

Lyutyi was held in custody for a year, where he was found to be eating meat – pasta and stew – ignoring his own philosophy.

The court was previously told that Lyutyi wanted to raise the newborn on prana eating – a diet that requires people to live for long periods without food and water and ‘feed on the sun’.

He was accused of forbidding Mironova from breastfeeding the child and was described as a ‘radical raw food fanatic’.

“He wanted to experiment with the child, feed him purely with the sun and then announce to others that this is how you can eat,” the source said.

A court official said Lyutyi was also fined £860.

Oxana’s mother Galina accused the sinister Lyutyi of leading a “cult.”

“I was against my daughter joining this sect,” she said. I felt everything and told her that Maxim was crazy, but she didn’t listen to me. Oxana lived there like a guinea pig. Each time she grew colder towards me… She was his slave.’

Another relative of Mironiva said: “Oxana told me she was afraid of him. She often wanted to leave him, but he stopped her… He wanted to raise [his son into] a man who eats only the sun.’

Oxana’s cousin Olesya Nikolayeva said: ‘He forced her not to feed the baby. Her friend believed that the sun nourished the baby.

“Oxana secretly tried to breastfeed the baby, but she was very afraid of Maxim. How is it possible to feed the baby with sunlight? A baby needs its mother’s milk.’

Lyutyi had delivered his child at home and refused to let Oxana go to a maternity hospital.

Finally, they decided to take the emaciated child to the doctors, but the medical staff could do nothing to save the terribly malnourished baby.

Oxana’s mother previously said that she sent her daughter money to help her in any way she could, but that she could not feed the child enough under the watchful eye of her partner.

“(Lyutyi) forbade her to feed the child. Oxana told me that she secretly fed the baby, but she didn’t have enough money because he didn’t give her anything.

‘I sent Oxana money for food from my pension. She secretly bought baby food.’