VIDEO Steven Seagal, filmed at the inauguration ceremony of Vladimir Putin / What the Russians asked the American actor

American actor Steven Seagal was present on Tuesday at Vladimir Putin’s investiture ceremony for a new term as president of Russia, the former Hollywood star saying that he is the greatest leader in the world, several newspapers and news agencies in Russia, including TASS.

“I just said he’s the greatest leader, the greatest,” Seagal says in a recording filmed at the event and widely shared on social media. Asked what he thinks about the future, he says “it would be best” with President Putin.

Seagal was also asked what he would tell Americans right now about Vladimir Putin, but he avoided giving a direct answer, saying that he was very excited to attend his inauguration.

Lenta, one of the most popular news sites in Russia, recalls that Seagal was also present at the inauguration ceremony of Putin as the president of Russia in 2018.

Putin decorated Seagal with the Russian Order of Friendship

Last February, Putin awarded the 72-year-old actor the Russian Order of Friendship, one of Russia’s highest honors.

The related decree published on the Kremlin website mentioned the “activity” carried out by Steven Seagal “as a special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry for humanitarian relations with the United States and Japan.”

The American actor, who spends a good part of the year in Russia, was again at the center of controversy after he visited pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk in August 2022 to film a documentary and said in a video message that the Ukrainians bombed the Olenivka prison immediately after “one of the killed Nazis started talking a lot about Zelenski and the fact that Zelenski ordered torture and other atrocities.”

Seagal stressed that Zelenski’s alleged actions not only violate the Geneva Convention on War Crimes, but also constitute crimes against humanity.

“So if Zelenski was involved in crimes against humanity, I wonder if that’s why this guy was ‘shot’ and killed,” he concluded.

The American actor obtained Russian citizenship years ago

In August 2018, Russia appointed Seagal as a special representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, with the role of “strengthening” humanitarian ties between the US and Russia, after two years earlier the American actor received a Russian passport from Vladimir Putin personally .

The Kremlin’s PR move came a month after Steven Seagal received Russian citizenship.

In May 2017, Ukraine banned the actor from entering its territory for 5 years, saying he was a threat to its national security.

A year later Seagal claimed that he was a representative of the interests of President Vladimir Putin and that he would like to become the governor of a Russian region. However, the Kremlin did not make him any offer in this regard.

More recently, he visited survivors and families of victims of the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow at the end of March.