A mother allegedly jumped almost 200ft to her death with her newborn baby and toddler son in her arms, killing both children, say police.
Olga Zharkova, 34, and her two sons, aged three and one month, died in the fall from a 19th floor flat in Moscow, where detectives have launched a murder investigation.
The mother-of-two is suspected to have suffered from acute postnatal depression before taking her own life and killing her children in the 190ft fall, say investigators.
Zharkova, the wife of a Russian military officer, had reportedly written a note saying she did not want to leave her children in this “hard, gloomy world” and held the children in her arms as she fell from the high-rise flat.
“She complained to her acquaintances that she had postnatal depression,” a law enforcement source told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“She felt lonely and tired.”
Her husband Dmitry, 35, was treated for shock when he arrived at the scene.
Olga had complained that her husband was away from home for long periods on his military duties, say reports citing law enforcement.
The Russian Investigative Committee opened a murder probe into the deaths of the two children.
A “postmortem psychiatric analysis” will be conducted on the mother, said reports.