According to Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Seagal is “a well-known actor, which gave grounds to make him a Russian citizen.” But beyond the same justification given for the six or seven straight-to-video action movies Seagal makes every year, Russia had other reasons. The Michigan-born actor, Peskov says, “has been insistent for a long time” in his asking to become an official Russian, and “is known for his warm feelings to our country, he never made a secret of it.”
As a testament to the glasnost with which the country greets him, in 2014, Seagal performed with his blues-rock band at a Ukraine concert for pro-Russian separatists. According to reports, this was intended to encourage them.
Seagal’s loyalty to Putin is so unflappable, Putin once even proposed that Seagal become Russia’s “honorary consul” in the U.S. during a 2013 summit with Obama—a suggestion that was met, according to Buzzfeed, with a “You’ve got to be kidding.” Nevertheless, Seagal did serve as a diplomatic envoy between Russian leaders and American lawmakers during the latter’s investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing. And as the goateed face of Russia’s weapons industry, he’s been called upon to lobby easily impressed U.S. legislators to end restrictions on the sale of Russian weapons. In short, Steven Seagal has long put himself squarely in the middle of American-Russian relations, a role that Seagal said in a statement he hopes to continue to play “despite the unfortunate propaganda going on,” in this bizarre, late-’80s fever dream that is our current political existence.
As of now, Seagal has not been granted any further official role in Russia’s government, though Russia Beyond The Headlines notes that he is eligible to receive a standard Russian pension of 5,000 rubles—or roughly $80. Unfortunately, to collect it he’ll need to spend more time in Russia than America, so Seagal will be forced to make a tough decision between that $80 and his movie career.
