Steven Seagal is remembered by my generation as an actor who played tough guys fighting for justice and good causes. He was an idol for millions of fans around the world who were inspired to go in for martial arts. He was a reason why many young people in the former Soviet republics fell in love with the United States and the American way of life.

Many assumed that in real life Mr. Seagal behave the same way he acted in movies.

In reality, the actor turned out to be a bootlicker of Vladimir Putin and a supporter of the Russian war in Ukraine. He has acquired Russian citizenship in 2016 and relocated to Russia five years later.

But here’s a trick. He did so not because he suddenly fell in love with Russia, but because he is wanted for financial offenses and sexual assaults in the United States. Putin offered him protection from both.

Recently, Ukrainian authorities announced that Seagal — along with other individuals including a head of state, Russian officials, and propagandists — received weapons smuggled from Ukraine as a reward for his loyalty to the Kremlin. From the hands of the Kremlin-installed governor of the annexed Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin.

Denis Pushilin

The latter was a fraudster involved in a Ponzi scheme in Ukraine before the war.

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Let that sink in. The man who once karate-chopped his way through movie screens as the embodiment of American justice is now named in an international arms smuggling scandal. Not as an investigator. Not as a tough guy taking down the bad guys. As a recipient of illicit “trophy” weapons funneled from a war zone.

Ukrainian police have officially named Steven Seagal among the notorious figures who received smuggled weapons from occupied Ukrainian territories. The roster reads like a rogue’s gallery of tyranny: Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, Dmitry Medvedev, Sergei Lavrov, Ramzan Kadyrov. And there, sandwiched between war criminals and dictators, is the star of Under Siege.

According to Ukraine’s National Police, the smuggling network dubbed “Operation Black Sleeve” operated by moving weapons stolen from occupied Ukrainian territories and illegally importing firearms from Slovakia. Glock pistols designed for Flaubert munitions were smuggled in, then converted into fully functional combat weapons.

These were later sold to criminals, transferred to illegal armed groups, or — and this is where Seagal enters the frame — used as incentives for individuals who may have no legal right to possess combat weapons.

Let me repeat that: Steven Seagal, an American citizen turned Russian passport-holder, accepted illegal weapons from the leader of an unrecognized, Moscow-backed occupation regime. These were not movie props. These were real guns, flowing through a criminal network that Ukrainian and Polish authorities dismantled in cross-border raids involving over thirty simultaneous searches across multiple regions.

Authorities seized assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles including large-caliber models, grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons, TM-62M anti-tank mines, 30 mm artillery ammunition, a lightly armored Tiger vehicle, and more than 35,000 rounds of ammunition.

Some of that arsenal was stored in garages and residential buildings. Some in specially equipped caches.

Now, ask yourself: why would a man who once played a Navy SEAL, a DEA agent, a Chicago cop — every iteration of the righteous American enforcer — run to Russia and wrap himself in the flag of a regime committing atrocities against a sovereign nation?

The real driver was fear. By the time Seagal kissed Putin’s ring, his Hollywood career was ash. Legal troubles mounted at home: a financial penalty for failing to disclose cryptocurrency promotion payments, a federal judge authorizing collection of a $200,000 fine he had only partially paid.

And looming over it all, the Los Angeles District Attorney was reviewing a sexual abuse case against him — the latest chapter in decades of allegations from multiple women, including actresses.

So, he’s chosen to run.

Russia happily embraced him. In 2018, Seagal was appointed a special envoy for U.S.-Russia humanitarian relations — a propaganda post if ever there was one.

He starred in and directed a pro-Russian documentary called In The Name of Justice, which exists only as a title, because there is nothing just about justifying the invasion of Ukraine.

He visited occupied Ukrainian territories in August 2022, promoting Kremlin narratives while Russian missiles struck residential buildings.

In 2023, Putin awarded him the “Order of Friendship” medal. In 2025, he was seen attending a major Victory Day parade in Moscow.

This is the man my generation idolized. We cheered when he threw corrupt officials through windows in Above the Law, reinforcing our trust in justice and fairness.

But the truth is that Steven Seagal was always playing a role, nothing more. The righteous fighter was a fabrication. The real man is a hypocrite, a fugitive, and now, by Ukraine’s own investigation, a complicit link in a chain of illegal arms flowing to the enemies of democracy.

The journey from a patriot and a hero to Vladimir Putin’s loyal pet and propagandist was very short, this is why his defection is shocking.

Over time, the U.S. government might pardon him, his betrayal of the country could perhaps be forgotten. But his fans will never accept Seagal’s Russification.

I will never be able to watch his movies again.