Jean-Claude Van Damme asks Putin for ambassadorial job and sends ‘big kiss’ to Russia

In a video post­ed online by a pro-Russ­ian jour­nal­ist, Jean-Claude Van Damme has told Vladimir Putin he wants to come to Rus­sia as an “ambas­sador of peace.”

Actor and for­mer body­builder Jean-Claude Van Damme has addressed Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in a strange new video mes­sage pub­lished on Telegram by pro-Russ­ian Ukraine-born jour­nal­ist Diana Panchenko.  

Panchenko has been accused of trea­son by the Ukrain­ian Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (SBU) in 2023.  

Van Damme said in the video that he was ready to come to Rus­sia and become “an ambas­sador of peace”.

“We want to come to Rus­sia. We will try to do this the way you want to do this, to be an ambas­sador of peace. I would love to be… I would be hon­ourred to have this title…” 

The action star then recount­ed a pro­tract­ed anec­dote about how he and Putin met in Sochi at a mar­tial arts event and how their shoes touched. He indeed vis­it­ed Rus­sia in 2010 and in 2007, when he attend­ed a recep­tion in St. Peters­burg (see pic­ture below).  

The Mus­cles from Brus­sels con­clud­ed the video by say­ing: “Let’s do this. Ambas­sador of peace. We won’t talk pol­i­tics – only about peace, sport and hap­pi­ness. We love you.” 

At the end of the appeal, Van Damme blew a kiss to Rus­sia and sent “a big kiss to Putin and his fam­i­ly.”

Taste­less dec­la­ra­tions of love aside, Van Damme hit head­lines ear­li­er this month when he was accused of alleged­ly meet­ing with sev­er­al peo­ple under inves­ti­ga­tion for sex traf­fick­ing crimes – peo­ple who offered to let him have sex with five Roman­ian mod­els as a “gift.” 

The Roman­ian Direc­torate for Inves­ti­gat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Ter­ror­ism (DIICOT) report­ed­ly filed a crim­i­nal com­plaint against the Bel­gian actor, with this alleged inci­dent hav­ing tak­en place in Cannes. No time­frame was not­ed

Adri­an Cuculis, the lawyer of one of the alleged vic­tims, stat­ed: “At an event organ­ised by Jean-Claude Van Damme in Cannes, sev­er­al Roma­ni­ans, who are cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for form­ing a crim­i­nal group and pimp­ing, alleged­ly offered Jean-Claude Van Damme five Roman­ian women — pho­to mod­els in Roma­nia — for sex.”  

He added: “The per­son who received these ser­vices was aware of their con­di­tion.”

Van Damme has denied the accu­sa­tions of know­ing­ly engag­ing in sex­u­al rela­tions with women he knew to be traf­ficked, with the actor’s agent call­ing the claims “unfound­ed”. 

“We have become aware of arti­cles alleg­ing an alleged affair in Cannes involv­ing Mr Jean-Claude Van Damme,” Patrick Goavec said in a state­ment. “The report­ed facts are both grotesque and non-exis­tent. Mr Van Damme does not wish to com­ment or fuel this rumour, which is as absurd as it is unfound­ed.”