Men who dodge their child-support payments should be forced to work off their debts and earn their families’ respect in the Russian military, a controversial lawmaker has suggested.

In an interview with Russia’s 360 news site on Monday, State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milonov lamented the fact that so many divorced men “tell the bailiffs that they have no work, they have no property…so they cannot support [their family].”

Those who persistently dodge their alimony payments should be offered contracts with the Russian armed forces, he said, arguing that this would not be a punishment, but a form of “support.”

“We give a chance to these fallen people who drink away their children’s money to think about life and think about how they can be useful to their children,” he explained. “The child will receive the money he needs, and he will finally begin to respect his father.”

In a separate interview with Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak, Milonov said that serving in the military would be “a decent job that will turn him from a s**t-stained dog into a normal person.”

Milonov explained that his proposal would only affect long-term delinquents who owe substantial sums. “I am interested in situations when the installments are not paid in full or almost in full for 5-10 years, the child is half-starved, there is not enough money for food and clothing because the father is such an immoral person,” he told 360.

A member of the pro-Putin United Russia party, Milonov is an outspoken proponent of traditional family values and opponent of what he calls Western “degeneracy.” Milonov was one of the sponsors of the 2013 “gay propaganda” ban, supports a ban on male sterilization, and has called on the state to create a dating app aimed at promoting marriage.

Milonov is also an outspoken supporter of the Ukraine operation, and volunteered to fight in Donbass in 2022. Earlier this year, he suggested that men who divorce their wives should be sent to the front line, before calling on the Russian government to close down sex shops and drop their inventory on Ukraine.

“We need to take all the stuff from sex shops, load it onto bombers and drop them on the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Let these rubber p***ies slap them upside the head,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station in June.