Hollywood actor and martial arts master Steven Seagal became a Russian citizen.
Famous actor Steven Seagal, who stars in different action movies, has finally got his Russian citizenship after filing an application.
This was after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to grant US actor Steven Seagal Russian citizenship. The decree was published on the Kremlin website on Thursday.
“Vladimir Putin signed an executive order according Russian citizenship to Steven Seagal,” announced the sober decree.
This news was among other items of national importance such as government reshuffles and international treaties of Russia.
“Naturalize in Russia Seagal Steven Frederic, born April 10, 1952 in the United States of America,” the decree reads.
Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the actor had been applying for the citizenship for a while and was famous for his warm feelings toward the country.
“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 renown 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,” Peskov said.
It is undeniable that the friendship between Seagal and Putin is well established. The US actor has said the Russian president could well be “the greatest world leader alive today”.
Other than his admiration for the Russian president, and a valiant though dubious attempt to enunciate Russian swearwords when he played a Russian gangster in the 2009 direct-to-DVD film Driven to Kill, Seagal would appear to have fairly limited grounds on which to qualify for Russian citizenship.
Back in September, Seagal expressed that he was considering the possibility of applying for Russian citizenship, because of his plans by the desire to spend several months a year with his friends in the country.
Following this development, Seagal joined the ranks of famous US citizens who were granted Russian citizenship recently along with boxer Roy Jones and mixed-martial artist Jeff Monson.