A mum-of-two who had her wrists axed by her jealous husband has proudly shown off her new bionic hand.
Margarita Grachyova, 25, had her hands chopped off when her husband Dmitry, 26, drove her to a forest, tied her up and forced her on her knees before swinging an Ann axe.
He confessed to carrying out the Medieval-style attack because he suspected she had cheated on him.
Margarita recently flew from Russia to Germany to be fitted with the specially-designed artificial limb on her right arm.
She told her two young children: "Now your mum has hands like a robot."
Margarita continues to recover from December's attack and has inspired Russians with her extraordinary optimism about life despite the brutality she endured.
Doctors managed to reattach her left hand - even though eight bones were broken, crushed by blows from the axe - and she is expected to eventually gain 70 per cent use of it.
But the right hand could not be restored - and she is now learning to use two types of artificial limbs which she can alternate - fitted in Duderstadt, Germany.
Margarita, who recently returned to Russia, said: “I am in great mood, ready to solve all my problems.
“I am rehabilitating my left arm and working with the prosthesis for my right arm. I am not making any plans yet.
“My health is my priority now.”
She added: “Many thanks to all those who helped me to get used to my new life. I know it is just the beginning of my way.
“I need to get used to my new limbs and to learn how to operate them.”
She is still unable to dress herself and her mother Inna Sheikina helps her.
German medics have used electrical impulses to stimulate the muscles in her left arm.
Inna said: “At first we planned to order one artificial limb. There is a very good modern one, which allows her even to work with a computer.
“But at the same time it is a very fragile model, it often breaks.
“When doctors found out Rita (Margarita) has two young children, they recommended the second limb as well, more basic but stronger, for day-to-day uses.”
Her ex-husband is undergoing psychiatric checks ahead of his trial.
After the appalling attack, she told how he bound her so she couldn’t run and forced her onto her knees with her arms on a tree stump - and was ecstatic after severing her limbs.
First he battered her fingers with the axe, she said, adding: “he was totally calm when he did this to me”.
Margarita said: “Unfortunately, I felt all the pain very much. I was dreaming that I would faint.
“I kept thinking all the time, why am I not fainting?
“When he raised his axe, I just closed my eyes, I didn’t look at it (when my hands were chopped off).
“At one moment I started rolling off the stump and he cut my thigh with the axe – I have scars there too.”
She had believed that he would hold back from axing her at the last moment.
She said: “I still can’t understand how this could happen. I’ve lived with him for so many years.”
Until she had demanded a divorce, he was not violent.
“Then something flipped in his mind,” she said.
He saw text messages with her males work colleague and believed she was having an affair, which she denied.
Margarita said: “This is something from Medieval times, inconceivable, unreal, it just could not happen.
“I think he had read somewhere about this exact sort of torture.
“He acted very cleverly, he even tied up my arms before the attack in the right way and in certain places in order to prevent a huge loss of blood.”
She is convinced “he did not want to kill me this time” - but she revealed that from his detention cell he sent her a note threatening to murder her if she does not rescind their divorce - and wait for him to be be freed.
He could face between ten to 15 years in jail, or undergo psychiatric treatment if he is judged not to be sane.
After the attack, he picked up her severed hands and bundled her back in the car.
Margarita said: “Only when he had chopped off my wrists and was driving me to the hospital, he kept repeating - ‘What adrenalin! What adrenalin!’ – and he said it with real delight in his voice.
“Once on the way he checked my pulse, he was making sure that I was alive.
“But apart from that he kept telling me on the way to hospital that I should wait for him to come out of jail, or he would cut off the hands of my relatives.”
Margarita said he has written her notes saying he will kill her if she doesn't wait for him to be released.
She added: “He seriously thinks that now he has punished me, we have a hope of a happy life in future.
“I just don’t understand how he pictures this in his mind. This is what I am afraid most of all. His threats are real.
“Before, he threatened to pour acid on me or to hurt me in some other ways.
“He kept his word. I don’t have any kind of protection.”
She is refusing to speak to him or his relatives.
“I don’t have any words left for him. I am trying to forget this story and to think positively about the future,” she said.