Ukraine has banned Steven Seagal from its borders, labeling the martial-arts star a national security threat. Seagal is barred from the country for five years, a consequence enacted when a person has “committed socially dangerous actions … that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine’s security,” according to a letter from the Ukrainian security service that was published by Apostrophe and translated by the Guardian. The sanction comes in the wake of Ukraine’s and Russia’s rising tensions over a separatist movement in Eastern Ukraine and Seagal’s increasingly close ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Seagal was granted Russian citizenship and a Russian passport late last year. At the time, Putin expressed his hope for their bond to be “a sign of a gradual normalization of the relations between” Russia and the United States.
