A Russian ‘food influencer’, Maxim Lyutyi, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for causing death of his month-old son who he only ‘fed’ sunlight.

The infant, Kosmos, perished from “pneumonia and emaciation” while en route to a doctor’s appointment in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Krasnodar. Lyutyi wanted his baby boy, Kosmos, to be like Superman, instead, he died of “pneumonia and emaciation”, the court said.

The court sentenced him for intentionally putting the newborn on a strict diet that deprived him of all kinds of nutritional food and forced the child to go on for hours only “feeding on the sun”.

The infant’s mother, Oksana Mironova, was reportedly forbidden from breastfeeding her child. Mironova’s attempts to secretly nourish her baby were thwarted by Lyutyi’s unwavering belief in the ‘sunlight diet’ – an extreme practice, akin to breatharianism, which posits that one can subsist solely on sunlight.