Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike drafted to fight in Ukraine after gaining too much weight to play star

A Russian who won a string of acting and advertising roles as a lookalike has been sent to fight in the war against .

, 41, won modelling gigs playing the Hollywood star but then saw the work drop off. The doppelgänger was initially hit by the pandemic when he put on too much weight to convincingly pass as DiCaprio.

Burtsev has been unable to reprise his former fame as the Russian face of the 49-year-old American - and was instead ordered like many unemployed men to sign up for ’s war.

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He had been reduced to odd jobs at a marketplace and hardware store, but was short of money. The dictator’s military recruitment is notorious for sending men to their deaths as “cannon fodder.”

Yet being a fighter for Putin pays well above the going rate because the dictator is so desperate to recruit new soldiers. By signing a contract and undergoing training he qualifies for a £16,000 payment, and this is followed by £1,625 a month while he remains alive on the frontline.

If he is killed, his family could qualify for up to £99,000. A picture shows tubby Burtsev - eight years younger than DiCaprio - already on the frontline clutching his army-issue gun.

Earlier, he had been an IT specialist. Weight has been an issue since 2016 when he started cloning DiCaprio despite 100lbs extra bulk.

He had hoped that his role as a lookalike would bring him fame, fortune - and a wife and children. But before going to war, the lonely Russian DiCaprio still lived with his parents and a cat in a rented state-provided flat in Podolsk, near Moscow.