Not because of Under Siege 2, The Glimmer Man or On Deadly Ground - although they're all reasons enough to brand Steven Seagal a national security threat.

No, as it turns out, the '90s action star has been banned from Ukraine for a much more simpler reason - his very cosy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter from the Ukrainian Security Service, Seagal has committed socially dangerous actions... that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine’s security."

Seagal has been a Russian citizen since 2016 and has been sighted in the Crimea entertaining pro-Russian forces. As well as this, Seagal also has a friendly relationship with Ramzan Kadyrov, the current head of the Chechen Republic. Kadyrov's government is currently under investigation for state-sponsored violence against LGBT people, incidentally.

Seagal's career in mainstream films pretty much ended around the middle of the '00s and has been only ever cropped up in bargain-bin, straight-to-DVD films since then. Being banned by an entire country, however, that might help with the movie career. Not only that, his buddy Putin and the current leader of the free world, Donald Trump, are friendly with each other - so there's that, too.

 

Via Guardian