Russia has started sending men who refuse to pay child maintenance to the front lines in Ukraine.

Sochi, a city in Russia is responding to pressure from ex-wives and sweeping up men dodging maintenance payments, ordering them to the front, revealed leading Putin TV propagandist Margarita Simonyan.

Then the money to pay alimony is taken from their military earnings as mobilised soldiers, or family compensation if they are killed, and handed to the mothers of their children.

According to UK Mirror, angry Russian women are also taking matters into their own hands by providing enlistment officers details of their former partners who fail to pay alimony ordered in divorce settlements.

TV presenter Dana Borisova, a former Playboy model, and Russian army pin-up, is also demanding a call-up for her own ex-husband with whom she is in a legal dispute.

She and ex-Maksim Aksyonov, 42, are in a long-running legal dispute concerning support for their teenage daughter.

“I have a malicious non-payer of alimony living in my neighbour's house - the father of my daughter,” alleged Borisova, now 46.

“Unfortunately, he did not yet receive a [military] summons.

“I sincerely think that it would be great if he showed responsibility, if not in relation to his daughter, then at least in relation to his country.”

She is convinced that "such non-payers can only be taught by being sent to the frontline…

“If not this, then what else can fix them?”

At 22, Borisova was hailed as a “national institution”, a pinup for Russian soldiers, credited with raising morale among draftees in a Defence Ministry-backed TV show called Army Store.

Other abandoned women highlighted by investigative outlet Verstka are reporting defaulting dads to military enlistment offices.

One woman, Lilya Sergeyeva, said her non-paying former spouse had been sentenced to “corrective labour” for failing to pay maintenance - but this did not help her or their daughter, 17, who he had played no part in raising.

Sergeyeva wanted him to serve in the war.

“It will even be good if he gets killed,” she posted.

State compensation payouts for relatives of those killed runs to £180,000.

Ardent Putin propagandist Simonyan, 42, told on video how loyalist Sochi mayor Alexey Kopaygorodsky, 37, is chasing defaulting Dads and sending them to the front.

She explained: ”[The Mayor of Sochi told me that] we took a list of persistent non-payers of alimony from the bailiffs and sent them [to the front].

“People who do not repay their debt even to their children will now not only do that but also will pay child support from very decent military payments. And these people will repay their Motherland.”

“The most interesting thing is that we do not see a single complaint from Sochi.”