Huge cat named Crumbs weighs as much as a human child after living abandoned at hospital

A cat who weighs in at a whopping 17kg and was even too large to walk has been put on a much-needed diet.

The Russian cat called Kroshik, which translates as Crumbs, was named after his love of snacking but his overfeeding has led him to grow to the size of a small child.

He was living in the basement of a hospital where he was being fed biscuits and soup by well-meaning workers but now the ginger tabby has been rescued by animal rescue staff and taken to a shelter in Perm.

Kroshik, who weighed in at just over 17kg, or nearly three stone, is thought to have been abandoned by owners and then made home at the hospital. Images show him growing so rotund that he struggled to lift himself off the ground to walk.

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And vets at the city's Matroskin Shelter were even unable to perform an ultrasound scan on the stray because of his thick layers of fat. Centre volunteers have now put him on a strict diet and plan to give him workouts on a treadmill once he can walk again.

They told local media: "Kroshik's story is an extremely rare case when someone loved a cat so much that they fed him to such a state." They aim to reduce his weight by almost three quarters so he is down to around 10 pounds.

Meanwhile people have commented on what has been called arguably the largest cat in the world. In a post shared to Reddit's BeAmazed subreddit, a woman could be seen dwarfed by Kefir the oversized Maine Coon as she struggled to hold him up for the camera. "Kefir, the biggest cat in the world: it is so big that people think it is a puma, a lynx, or generally some rare breed of dog," the Reddit user wrote in the caption.

The cat is owned by Yuliya Minina, from Stary Oskol in Russia. She regularly shares shots of her furry friend to Instagram, often in hilarious poses. "Anyone else getting The Grinch vibes?" one social media user asked in response to Kefir's laughably evil-looking facial expression. "It looks like The Grinch," agreed another.

Scared, a third responded: "I'm getting terrified vibes. That would be scary in real life – the damage a small p***ed cat can do is bad enough." A fourth joked: "I wouldn't want to p*** off that cat. You can tell by the look on its face it knows it can kill you if it feels like it."

A fifth user wrote: "I love cats, but that one seems to have an attitude by the looks of it. Imagine that thing marking its territory?" Calling Kefir's domestic cat credentials into question, one person declared: "I'd bet a lot, that this is in fact, an albino Lynx." And a second Reddit user stated in response to the post: "Check out this giant cat. My man, that's clearly a rare breed of dog."