A girl's parents were left terrified after a thief stole their BMW with their sleeping daughter still inside.
After driving for nine miles, the thief dumped the frightened three-year-old at a bus stop.
The terrified child named Milena was spotted “scared and cold” by a woman driver who stopped and rescued her.
The girl’s mother Olga and her boyfriend had been unloading groceries at their home near Moscow and left the car running with the doors open.
Yury Khrenov, later detained by police, confessed to stealing the car, claiming he did not know the child was inside until he had driven for nine miles.
He told police: "I was walking back home, I was drunk, I saw a car with the engine on, I got in and drove away. I did not plan a crime."
Khrenov later said he saw a child in the back of the vehicle, but "she was not crying".
Khrenov added he let the three-year-old go at the bus stop and then kept driving, before stopping and watching the scene from behind the bushes, but police are seeking to verify his account.
He said that when a car stopped and a woman picked up the child, he drove away.
After that, he added: "I set the car on fire because I was afraid.”
The BMX X5 was later found near Bykovo village, in the Ramensky District of Moscow Oblast.
A massive search was launched for the three-year-old after her mother reported her missing.
Driver Olesya Bushuyeva said: “The little girl was standing there in the shrubs, in darkness, by the bus stop.”
The girl was standing there alone for up to an hour, say reports.
“At first, I thought my eyes played a trick on me,” said Olesya.
“We stopped and opened the door.
“She immediately climbed inside the car and right on my lap.”
The woman called the police.
“She was scared and cold,” she said.
“It was hard to understand her.
“We only got that her name was Milena and her mother’s name was Olga.”
Police spokeswoman Tatiana Petrova said: "The girl was reunited with her parents."
Khrenov, 24, a previously-convicted car thief, confessed to stealing the BMW X5, and is detained pending criminal charges for child abduction and car theft.
