Vladimir Putin gave Steven Seagal a friendship award and praised his 'humanitarian' work

• Vladimir Putin this week gave Steven Seagal a Russian "Order of Friendship" award.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry lauded Seagal for his work in "humanitarian cooperation."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given actor Steven Seagal a Russian "Order of Friendship" award.

Putin's decree on February 27 lauded Seagal — who holds dual US and Russian citizenship — for his "great contribution to the development of international cultural and humanitarian cooperation."

This is not the first time Seagal has been praised by the Russian government. He was appointed as a "special representative" of the Russian government in 2018 to help build a "mutual understanding and trust between the Russian and American peoples," per a Facebook post from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"We appreciate Mr. Seagal's willingness to use his experience and authority for promotion of the Russia-US public, cultural, and humanitarian links as well as for building a more positive atmosphere in bilateral affairs," the Russian Foreign ministry wrote in August 2018.

The "Under Siege" actor and martial arts practitioner's support for Russia and Putin dates back at least a decade.

In 2012, Seagal visited Russia and watched a mixed martial arts fight with Putin. He has since been vocal about his love for the Russian leader.

"I'm Russian, I love Russia, I love Russian people, and I love your president. I really like that he does so much to support martial arts in Russia," Seagal told the Russian Dozhd TV station in 2013, The Guardian reported.

Seagal's proclamations turned political in 2014 when he expressed support for Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Parroting Kremlin propaganda, he said it was "very reasonable" for Putin to want to "protect the Russian-speaking people of Crimea, his assets, and the Russian Black Sea military base in Sevastopol," Forbes reported, citing Seagal's interview with the Russian state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

In 2016, Putin gave Seagal a Russian passport during a meeting in Moscow, per the Guardian. And in August — as the Ukraine war raged — Seagal also took on the role of an informal Kremlin spokesperson. He was seen visiting a prison in the Donbas region, a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, where he pushed unsubstantiated, Kremlin-fueled claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was bombing his own troops in the region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine in 2017 banned Seagal from entering the country for five years, citing national security concerns, per Reuters.

Representatives for Seagal did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.