MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero planning to transplant the head of a Russian disabled programmer has scheduled the operation for December 2017, Fox News reported.

Thirty-year-old programmer Valery Spiridonov, suffering from genetic muscular atrophy and confined to a wheelchair for life, is a candidate for the history's first-ever head transplant surgery.

This $11 million-plus procedure is expected to last about 36 hours and may take place in the United States - an attempt condemned as "reckless" by Academician Anzor Khubutia, director of Moscow's Sklifosovsky emergency hospital.

Spiridonov said on Friday the operation would be a Christmas gift.

"It is scheduled for December 2017 and will be a kind of Christmas present," Spiridonov told TASS.

"No-one will make haste, anyway. It will happen when we are sure of its safety," he said, having no further information about the plans as a major presentation of Russian medical achievements and a software development project was, he said, keeping him otherwise occupied.

Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero announced plans in April to carry out the surgery on Spiridonov, suffering from genetic muscular atrophy and confined to a wheelchair for life.

The idea of transplanting a donor’s head onto a body was first related by Russian science-fiction writer Alexander Belyaev in his 1925 novel "Professor Dowell's Head."