In Olenivka, Ukraine, a Russian-run jail housing hundreds of Ukrainian detainees, actor Steven Seagal was photographed touring a prison camp.
Speaking to Ukrainian captives through metal bars, Seagal, a close friend of the Russian president, can be seen. He was also captured on camera inside the destroyed prison, sitting on a bench and looking at some shrapnel.
In 2017, Seagal was banned from entering Ukraine for five years after President Putin gave him citizenship and personally handed him his Russian passport in 2016 after he showed support for Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The Ukrainian security service said Seagal was barred from the country because he was a person ‘committed socially dangerous actions … that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine’s security.’
Seagal, who is a well-known supporter of Putin, has served Russia’s foreign ministry as ‘special representative’ since 2018 and is a citizen of Russia, the US and Serbia.
He has also praised Putin for being ‘one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader, alive today.’
In February, Seagal told Fox News ‘most of us have friends and family in Russia and Ukraine.’
‘I look at both as one family and really believe it is an outside entity spending huge sums of money on propaganda to provoke the two countries to be at odds with each other,’ he said.