American actor Steven Seagal has made a surprise appearance in Russia for Vladimir Putin’s fifth inauguration ceremony.
The Hollywood star arrived at the Kremlin in Moscow for Tuesday’s event in a long black robe, wearing his trademark glasses and famous beard.
Describing Putin as the “greatest world leader”, the 72-year-old then said the future would “be the best” during the Russian’s firth term.
When asked what he would tell Americans about Putin right now, Seagal bizarelly replied: “I’m very looking forward to it.”
Seagal, who received his Russian citizenship in 2017, first bonded with the Putin over a shared love of martial arts and the pair have formed a bromance over the years.
Last year, the The Under Siege and Hard to Kill actor described himself as “one million percent Russian” after receiving an Order of Friendship medal from Putin for his support of Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
Seagal did not put any blame on Putin over the Ukraine war and has claimed an “outside” entity is provoking both countries into fighting.
The martial artist told Fox News Digital that he looks at both Russia and Ukraine “as one family”.
“Most of us have friends and family in Russia and Ukraine,” he said on Monday as he refused to take sides.
“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.
“My prayers are that both countries will come to a positive, peaceful resolution where we can live and thrive together in peace.”
The Michigan-born actor has previously described his father as “pure Russian”, as his paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants.
Seagal still has some relatives in the country and was gratned Russian citizenship in 2016, where he also met with Belarusan president Alexander Lukashenko to eat carrots and chat about that year’s harvest.
Discussing Seagal’s Russian citizenship, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced to the press: “This [was his] desire, he had really applied.
“He had been really persistent for a long time and been asking to grant him citizenship, he is actually renowned for his quite warm feelings toward our country. He never made a secret out of it, at the same time he is quite famous, as you know, actor.”
In 2017, Seagal appeared on Good Morning Britain to defend Putin amid claims he had influenced the American election.
Speaking about his Russian citizenship while live from Moscow, he said: “I have lots of relatives in Russia and you know I love Russia, I love the country, I love the people and, you know, I think that one thing that’s sort of not widely known, there are millions and millions of people in America who have dual and multiple citizenship so this is not an uncommon thing.
“The thing that makes it controversial is all of the propaganda flying, particularly from America about Russia, therefore it becomes kind of a controversial situation.”
He told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid he’d had many direct dealings with Putin as he lavished praise on the Russian leader.
Seagal said: “As I’ve said many times I think he’s one of the great world leaders, he’s brilliant, he’s articulate, he’s a great tactician. Him and I started out becoming friends over the martial arts. The martial arts has to do with a lot of things.
“It’s a philosophy, it gets into the history of tactics and the history of the world and the world in conflict and the world in peace and so him and I basically, we don’t have a political relationship, we really talk about the martial arts and the philosophy and people and dilemmas in life, that kind of thing.”