‘Effective discipline’: 8yo boy needs surgery on injured knees after sadistic stepfather makes him kneel on buckwheat for HOURS

An eight-year-old boy required surgery to remove sharp grains from his knees after his mother’s boyfriend routinely forced him to kneel on raw buckwheat as punishment for minor ‘misbehavior.’

Photos of the child’s knees, which look like they were mutilated by a mystery disease, sent shock waves through Russia. Doctors had to use general anesthesia to remove the embedded grains, removing large pieces of skin.

The surgery and weeks of painful rehabilitation, however, were nothing compared to what the starved kid had to endure at home in the Siberian city of Omsk, where he lived with his mom, Alina Yumasheva, 27, and a boyfriend she met online, Sergey Kazakov, 35.

At some point, the prospective stepdad decided that the child was getting out of hand and needed discipline, but the method he apparently found online resembled medieval torture.

Whenever the boy was late home from school or misbehaved in any other way, he was made to kneel on a bag of buckwheat. A single punishment session could last from 30 minutes to nine consecutive hours, with Kazakov using a webcam to keep an eye on the boy. This footage has now become evidence in a criminal case, as they also captured him kicking the crying child and pulling his hair.

The boy's mother did nothing to protect her son, claiming that she once tried this harsh but “effective” punishment and didn’t feel any pain. Obviously, she hadn't knelt on buckwheat for nine hours straight.

The child was hardly a troublemaker – studying hard, never skipping lessons and voluntarily taking part in extracurricular activities – but he was too scared to tell anyone of the abuse, his teacher believes. However, after yet another harsh punishment in May, he fled their country house and shared his story with a neighbor, who instantly called the police.

The appalling domestic violence case only made headlines this week after prosecutors announced that Kazakov and Yumasheva were about to go on trial. They could face up to seven years in prison if convicted on charges of torture, deliberate infliction of moderate bodily harm, and failure to properly raise a minor. The man is in custody pending trial, while the woman has had travel restrictions imposed as she claims she didn’t know that her son was also being beaten. The boy currently lives with his mother, under the supervision of social services.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!