A Russian court sentenced a young mother and her brother to least eight years in jail each Tuesday after they acknowledged putting the woman's 9-month-old son on a four-lane highway outside Moscow in hopes he would get killed.

The Moscow Regional Court said 24-year-old Elena Osina and her 21-year-old brother Alexander pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the May 2011 incident. A passing motorist rescued the child unharmed after about 10 minutes, and the boy has since been adopted.

The motorist earlier told Russian media he thought he saw a kitten or a dog on the road before he stopped. The woman and her brother were watching what was happening near the road, investigators said.

Investigators said the boy had been lying on a poorly lit section and his survival was a miracle.

In previous testimony, Osina said life had become hard with the baby - her parents, who they lived with, complained and her boyfriend had moved out. After the verdict - in which she got eight years in prison and her brother got nine - Osina said on television she thought the sentences were too harsh.

"Everyone can make a mistake," she told Channel One.