Two husky dogs savaged the boy, 9, tearing off his face from his eyes to his lower lips in the process – leaving his taxi driver father Valentin Korolev, 48, distraught
Russia: Father discusses his son being in hospital after dog attack
A boy whose face was eaten by wild dogs in a horror attack was “flown to Moscow on Vladimir Putin’s personal orders” to save him, a Russian MP has said.
Tragic Valya Korolev, 9, is the same age as Putin’s secret son Ivan – who turns ten this month – which may explain his close interest in the shocking case. Two husky dogs savaged the boy, tearing off his face from his eyes to his lower lips. “He has no face, really no face,” said distraught Valentin Korolev, 48, his father, a taxi driver.
At the time of the attack, Valya’s distraught taxi driver father Valentin Korolev, 48, said: “It’s hard, it’s very hard. My son is lying in [hospital in] Krasnodar right now. He has no face, really no face. The dogs ate him from his eyes to his lower lip. I honestly can’t say anything.
“The fragments of the face that we extracted from the dogs are being sent by helicopter to Krasnoda. My son was coming down to me, bringing me a broom to sweep snow off the car. He didn’t make it, I waited and waited. Then the neighbours told me ‘Run here, the huskies attacked your son and tore his face off’. They called an ambulance, the police.”
The dogs were destroyed and the body parts – including his nose and cheeks – removed from their stomachs but surgeons were unable to reattach them, and were critical of the time it took to recover the ravaged facial features. “It took too long,” said Korolev. Valya is now in hospital in Moscow, after Putin instructed his emergencies ministry to fly the boy to the capital from Krasnodar region in the south of Russia.
Kremlin MP Nina Ostanina revealed that Putin had ordered the plane to collect the boy and take him to the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital, and that his distraught parents had thanked the Kremlin ruler, according to reports. Valya is in a medically induced coma a week after the savage attack, but faces years of treatment to rebuild his face.
“When we were at the hospital, they let me see him,” said Mr Korolev. “I took him by the hands, and as soon as I started talking to him, he started moving.” The dogs had been left starving for more than a week by a neighbour, and attacked Valya after tunnelling out of their garden. The case is among the worst of a spate of dog attacks recently in Russia.
In another, a girl Veronika Kurilenko, also nine, was killed after she was encircled by strays which ripped her apart in Stavropol. Doctors told Valya’s father they would do “everything possible, and maybe even impossible” to rebuild the boy’s face. He will need an artificial nose and lip implants as part of treatment that will last until he is an adult.
Ostanina said: “Let’s hope that little Valya survives and never again encounters human or animal cruelty.” Putin is known to have two children with his long-time partner Alina Kabaeva, 41, an Olympic gold-winning rhythmic gymnast who now controls a large pro-Kremlin media empire.
Ivan was born in Switzerland in March 2015, and he will be ten soon, while Vladimir Junior was born in Moscow in May 2019. The children have never been seen in public.