Steven Seagal Has Been Banned from Ukraine and Labeled a Threat to National Security
In the immortal words of CineFile Video, Steven Seagal is hard to kill but easy to love. Ukraine apparently disagrees, as the action star, energy-drink entrepreneur and Russian citizen has been labeled a national-security threat and banned from the country for five years. Other cultural figures have likewise been declared personae non gratae after they have “committed socially dangerous actions … that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine’s security,” according to a letter published by Apostrophe (via the Guardian).
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Seagal, whose work in “Under Siege” rivals Jean-Claude Van Damme’s in “Bloodsport,” has called Russia’s decision to annex Crimea “very reasonable” and is a well-known supporter of Vladimir Putin. That obviously doesn’t sit well with Ukraine, who in 2015 included the actor on a proposed blacklist of cultural figures who “speak out in support of violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”
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Seagal is also a well-known environmentalist and animal-rights activist. His most prominent semi-recent film appearance was in “Machete,” and he continues to star in direct-to-video action films.
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