A GIRL handing out "save the planet" flyers was allegedly kidnapped and killed by a female teacher whose own kids had been taken away from her.

       Russian police say nine-year-old Sofia Zhavoronkova was subject to five hours of torture and had her head "smashed" and face and body "disfigured" after she was lured home by Ulyana Lanskaya - an English language tutor.

       5

       Sofia Zhavoronkova was allegedly kidnapped and killed by a teacher Credit: East2West 5

       Ulyana Lanskaya has been arrested by cops in Russia Credit: East2West

       Little Sofia had created homemade leaflets with "save the planet" messages on, which she handout out to strangers with a friend.

       Lanskaya, 40, had seen the girls distributing the messages to passers-by and praised them for their green initiative.

       “Well done, girls, come on, I'll buy you something tasty,” she told them, according to the mother of the other girl.

       Lanskaya took the girls to a cafe for cake, and bought sweets and ice cream for them before luring them to her home, it is alleged.

       The teacher then reportedly told the other girl to go home, unharmed, before she allegedly attacked and killed Sofia.

       “Sofia came up with the idea of handing out flyers. She herself wrote them on sheets from her notebook,” the unnamed mother of Sofia's pal said.

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       Lanskaya is reported to have been distraught after the authorities barred her from raising her own son and daughter, and said Sofia looked like her own child.

       The teacher had repeatedly claimed her healthy daughter suffered from cancer and needed urgent medical treatment, and had threatened her child with a knife, it was reported.

       After Sofia’s death, police detained Lanskaya on a train heading towards Arctic port Murmansk.

       She confessed to carrying out the murder, according to authorities.

       Later in court, wearing military fatigues, she said: “I confessed because I'm very ill. I feel unwell, I don't have so long to live.”

       Investigators say there is no evidence she is terminally ill.

       Lanskaya admitted to inviting the girls to her flat “for tea”.

       She was covered in slash wounds and her head was “a broken, bloody mess”, Vologda-Poisk media reported.

       MURDER PROBE

       Sofia was reported missing and a huge police search started with 272 volunteers in Vologda city, with the girl’s mother Anna Zhavoronkova, 32, making an emotional appeal on social media.

       Police eventually located her friend after volunteers scanned CCTV footage and saw the girls together.

       The friend told them the address where she last saw Sofia, and when police broken in Lanskaya was absent but they found Sofia’s body.

       Her throat had been slit and head battered with a blunt object, police say.

       Lanskaya was remanded in custody for two months pending a murder investigation.

       At the funeral, hundreds of mourners carried flowers in the tragic girl's memory.

       A local report said: “People are silent, do not talk at all. Everyone is crying.

       “Even men, leaving the church, step aside, light a cigarette and wipe away their tears.”

       One weeping woman said she came because “my granddaughter is the same age”.

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       The nine-year-old had been handing out homemade leaflets when she was allegedly killed Credit: East2West 5

       Lanskaya has been remanded in custody after appearing in court Credit: East2West 5

       Flowers and toys left in Sofia's memory Credit: East2West

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