Jean-Claude Van Damme asks Putin for ambassadorial job and sends 'big kiss' to Russia
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.'
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Jean Claude Van Damme and Vladimir Putin attend a reception in St. Petersburg, Russia - 14 April 2007
AP Photo
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.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
3 hours ago
- Euronews
Zelenskyy and Trump agree on joint defence efforts in key phone call
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke on Friday with US President Donald Trump, in what the Ukrainian leader said was a "very important and fruitful" phone call. "Today we discussed the current situation, including Russian airstrikes and the broader frontline developments," Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. "President Trump is very well informed, and I thank him for his attention to Ukraine. We spoke about opportunities in air defence and agreed that we will work together to strengthen protection of our skies. We have also agreed to a meeting between our teams." He added that they also discussed in detail the prospects for joint defence production. "We - in Ukraine - are grateful for all the support provided. It helps us protect lives, safeguard our freedom and independence." "We have achieved a lot together with America and we support all efforts to stop the killings and restore just, lasting, and dignified peace. A noble agreement for peace is needed," Zelenskyy pointed out. The Ukrainian leader added they discussed the possibility of joint defence production, mutual purchases, and investments. Neither the White House nor Trump himself have said anything about the call. Trump speaks to Putin That conversation comes a day after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Ukraine, Iran and other issues in a call the Kremlin described as "frank and constructive." It was their sixth publicly disclosed talk since Trump returned to the White House. On the war in Ukraine, Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Trump emphasised his push for a quick halt to the fighting, and Putin voiced Moscow's readiness to pursue talks with Kyiv, noting the previous rounds in Turkey yielded humanitarian results. At the same time, the Russian leader said Moscow will seek to achieve its goals in Ukraine and remove the "root causes" of the conflict, Ushakov said. "Russia will not back down from these goals," Ushakov told reporters after the call. Also on Thursday, Trump complained that the United States provided too many weapons to Ukraine under the previous administration, his first public comments on the pause in some shipments as Russia escalates its full-scale invasion. On Tuesday, the US said it was halting shipments of some air defence missiles and other weapons previously promised to Kyiv amid concerns that its own stockpiles had declined too much, according to officials. Certain munitions were previously promised to Ukraine under the Biden administration to support its defences. However, the administration appears to have revised some of those decisions due to concerns for US interests. "This decision was made to put America's interests first following a review of our nation's military support and assistance to other countries across the globe," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.
Euronews
3 hours ago
- Euronews
Russia uses chemical agents in Ukraine, Dutch and German agencies say
Russia is increasing its use of prohibited chemical weapons in Ukraine, including the World War I-era poison gas chloropicrin, Dutch and German intelligence agencies said on Friday. Dutch military intelligence and security service, together with the German intelligence service, found that the use of prohibited chemical weapons by the Russian military had become "standardised and commonplace" in Ukraine. According to the findings, the Russian military uses chloropicrin and riot control agent CS against sheltering Ukrainian soldiers, who are then forced out into the open and shot. Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans called for more sanctions against Moscow and continued military support for Kyiv. Brekelmans, who stayed on in a caretaker role after the Dutch coalition government collapsed last month, said that he doesn't want to see the use of chemical weapons become normalised. Lowering the threshold for use "is not only dangerous for Ukraine, but also for the rest of Europe and the world," he said in a statement. Russia is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of chloropicrin and CS as weapons. The convention's watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), has found several incidents in Ukraine involving CS, but the group hasn't conducted a full investigation, which must be requested by the member states. The executive committee for the OPCW is holding a meeting next week, where it's expected to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine. Russian authorities have not immediately commented on the findings, but they have in the past denied using chemical weapons. According to Ukraine, Russia has carried out 9,000 chemical weapons attacks in the country since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022. In 2024, the US State Department said that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops.
Euronews
3 hours ago
- Euronews
Russia's friends: Taliban and Pyongyang in, Azerbaijan and Armenia out
In a move sparking significant backlash, Russia became the first country in the world to recognise the Taliban as the ruling government of Afghanistan. "We believe that the act of official recognition of the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will give impetus to the development of productive bilateral cooperation between our countries in various fields," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Taliban, an Islamist militant group, seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, toppling the Western-backed government. Neither the US nor the EU have formally recognised the group, and Washington still designates the Taliban a terrorist organisation, or more specifically, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Taliban "allies in the fight against terrorism". Russia's president also previously referred to the Taliban as "allies," while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called them "sane people". Moscow's new friends Since the beginning of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Kremlin has increasingly sought more cooperation with totalitarian regimes, including North Korea and Iran, to advance economic and military partnerships. Iran was among the first to strengthen its ties with the Kremlin. Tehran delivered thousands of Shahed attack drones to Russia and then shared the relevant technological blueprints, enabling Moscow to establish domestic production lines of its own. These drones are now being made at Russian facilities in rapidly increasing quantities and are playing a key role in the Kremlin's bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities, infrastructure sites and civilians. In January, Russia and Iran signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which Vladimir Putin praised as a 'real breakthrough' in bilateral relations. But when Israel and later the US began a campaign of airstrikes against Iranian targets, Moscow did not come to support an ally and was unwilling or unable to offer anything more substantial than diplomatic gestures. Putin described the US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as acts of 'unprovoked aggression' with 'no basis or justification' amid his own unprovoked all-out war against Ukraine in its fourth year. By the end of last year, when Iranian drones and technology did not bring Russia any closer to occupying all of Ukraine or even all of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which Moscow has been attempting to seize since 2014, the Kremlin got another ally involved. This time the support came not in the tech or equipment, but in the boots on the ground. North Korea sent tens of thousands of soldiers to support Russian troops as they couldn't push Ukrainian forces out of Russia's Kursk region after Kyiv's surprise incursion in August 2024. After it initially sent 11,000 troops to Russia in autumn last year, around 4,000 of those North Korean soldiers were killed or injured in the deployment, according to Western officials. Yet, Pyongyang's cooperation with Moscow has since strengthened even more. North Korea is now set to triple that number and send as many as 30,000 further soldiers to reinforce Moscow troops. According to a Ukrainian intelligence official, these new troops may arrive in Russia in the coming months. Moscow's former allies While bogged down in Ukraine, Russia has been gradually losing its influence in the ex-Soviet space. The most striking evolution in this sense is the loss of Russia's decades-long stronghold in the South Caucasus region. In September 2023, Azerbaijan reclaimed full control of the Karabakh region after a lightning military campaign, following a decades-long conflict with Armenia in which Russia was a central actor. Almost two years later, Yerevan and Baku are making history away from Russia by agreeing on the text of a peace accord and normalising their relations after a bloody conflict that until recently had no end in sight. And although the road ahead is still a challenge for both countries, the path seems to be clear and now includes Turkey, but not Russia, which has been pulling the strings in the conflict since the 1990s. Moscow's relations with both Baku and Yerevan have never been as bad as they are now. Azerbaijan and Russia In December 2024, an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed while on a flight from Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya. Azerbaijani authorities said the jet was accidentally hit by fire from Russian air defences, then tried to land in western Kazakhstan when it crashed, killing 38 of 67 people aboard. Putin apologised to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev for what he called a 'tragic incident' but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. Aliyev criticised Moscow for trying to 'hush up' the incident and asked for those responsible to be punished. But the relations between the former allies have only gotten worse since. In May, Aliyev declined to attend Russia's Victory Day parade in Moscow alongside other leaders of ex-Soviet nations. Later that month, a Ukrainian foreign minister visited Baku, a sign of closer ties with Kyiv. The tensions escalated rapidly over the past week, when Russian police raided the homes of several ethnic Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city, in what authorities said was part of an investigation into murders dating back decades. Brothers Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov died in the raids, and several other ethnic Azerbaijanis were seriously injured. Baku responded swiftly and robustly by first calling off previously scheduled Russian official visits, summoning the Russian ambassador to Baku to protest, then cancelling Russian cultural events. However the backlash culminated so far with Azerbaijani authorities raiding the offices of Russia's state-run news agency Sputnik Azerbaijan, owned by Rossiya Segodnya, which is in turn owned and operated by the Russian government. The executive director and editor-in-chief have been issued four-month detentions. On the same day, the Azerbaijani president had a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, which further angered the Kremlin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expressed support for Baku 'in a situation where Russia is bullying Azerbaijani citizens and threatening the Republic of Azerbaijan.' Shortly after, an Azerbaijani news outlet released what it said was a recording suggesting the Russian military ordered the December 2024 missile strike on AZAL Flight 8243. Azerbaijani news outlet Minval claims it received an 'anonymous letter ... containing testimonies, audio clips, and technical details' pointing to 'technical deficiencies in the communications equipment used at the time. The outlet didn't provide details on when the alleged letter had been sent. Three days after the crash, in an address to the nation, Aliyev said, "we can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia (...) We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done.' Armenia and Russia Azerbaijan's lightning campaign in Karabakh in 2023 demonstrated to Armenia what Syria's and Iran's regimes found out later – Russia is not stepping in to support its allies when they need it. Military experts add that Russia also is not fully capable of doing it since February 2022 with all of its resources and troops blocked in Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A few weeks after Azerbaijan's operation, Armenia ratified the International Criminal Court's statute, which had issued an arrest warrant for Putin on suspicion of illegally deporting hundreds or more children from Ukraine in March 2023, half a year before Yerevan subjected itself to the jurisdiction of the court in The Hague. In 2024, in an unprecedented development, Armenia put a freeze on its participation in the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) — Moscow's answer to NATO. And one year later, in early 2025, the Armenian parliament adopted a bill aimed at starting the process of joining the European Union – an ultimately hostile step as far as Moscow is concerned. Moscow has been trying to repair the cooperation with its former ally. Lavrov visited Yerevan on 20 May, signalling the Kremlin's intent to stabilise and reinforce ties with Armenia. A few days after, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas visited Armenia, signing a partnership agreement with the authorities in Yerevan. According to Armenia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the sides not only completed the negotiations on the new partnership agenda, but – what might be even more important - launched consultations in the field of defence and security 'aimed to align cooperation with current challenges'. But the most important visit took place not in Yerevan, but in Turkey. As Russia's foreign minister was in Yerevan, Armenia's prime minister was in Istanbul meeting with Turkey's president. In what was previously considered an unimaginable scenario, Recep Erdoğan and Nikol Pashinyan discussed possible steps for normalising relations between Turkey and Armenia. The sides do not have any formal diplomatic ties, and it was Pashinyan's first 'working visit' to Turkey. Armenia is seeking the reopening of its joint border with Turkey, which would help alleviate the country's isolation. Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, shut down its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Baku over the Karabakh conflict. With the unprecedented escalations between Azerbaijan and Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will support Armenia's peace efforts with Azerbaijan. It is hard to overestimate the importance of this statement and this display of how the diplomatic tables turn not only in the South Caucasus region, but beyond, with the possible repercussions all the way to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
