Steven Seagal can now add Ukraine to the list of places he’s been banned from, right next to “That Blockbuster where the clerk wouldn’t stop calling Executive Decision ‘a Kurt Russell flick.’” Per The Guardian, the country issued a five-year ban on entry to the actor this week, accusing him of committing “socially dangerous” actions that might damage the country’s security.
Those actions presumably have less to do with breaking boards and setting new standards for bad efforts in film-making, though, and more to do with Seagal’s friendship with Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Russia and Ukraine have a long, complicated, and largely ugly history, one exacerbated in recent years by Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, and support of rebels revolting against the Ukrainian government. (Bizarrely, Seagal was involved there, too, bringing his blues-rock band to play for pro-Russian separatists.)
Last year, Seagal accepted Russian citizenship in recognition of his efforts to support and promote Putin’s government. (He was previously put forward by Russia as an “honorary consul” for talks with the Obama administration, which went over about as well as you’d expect.) That was presumably the final straw, and he’s now joined the fate of Russia’s 2017 entrant in the Eurovision song contest, being banned from Ukraine until at least 2022.