Woman 'kills eight-year-old son by pouring gasoline into his mouth then setting him on fire

A Russian mother has been detained by police for allegedly pouring gasoline into the mouth of her eight-year-old son then setting him on fire.

The boy died in hospital in Kursk, Russia after suffering horrific 45 per cent burns.

Anastasia Baulina, 31, a cashier, was furious that her son Andrey 'betrayed' her by telling his stepfather that she had been visited by her alleged lover, say reports.

She had a 'quarrel' with her son and took him into the courtyard, dousing him in fuel from a canister, then set the boy on fire, it is alleged.

One report said she poured the fuel into the terrified boy's mouth before using a lighter and telling him: 'Let's see how it will burn.'

His sister Natasha, 12, said: 

(The fuel) was pouring into his mouth, as he was crying.

As the girl fled in terror, the mother and stepfather Pavel Baulin, 35, a farm worker, put out the flames and called an ambulance.

But the boy was critically injured, and he died two days later from the severe burns.

A murder investigation was opened and the woman - from Zheleznogorsk district - was detained.

Neighbour Nina Chetverikova told Life: 'I saw her at the bus stop. She had a quarrel with her husband. It seems she took it out on her children.' 

Baulina faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

A criminal investigation was also opened into why the boy was allowed back into his mother's care after he was earlier removed from her to an orphanage.