Russia’s president, Vladmir Putin, stunned his US opposite number, Barack Obama, by proposing the appointment of actor Steven Seagal as Russia’s “honorary consul” in two US states, thereby becoming a key behind-the-scenes go-between at a point when relations between the two countries had been deteriorating rapidly.

According to BuzzFeed News, the proposal was made in 2013, when Putin and Obama met at the G8 summit at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland. The US response was one of bemusement. “Our reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” an unnamed official told BuzzFeed.

The longstanding friendship between Putin and Seagal – the latter a star of high-grossing action movies, but whose career has declined sharply from its mid-1990s high – is well known. The pair apparently bonded over their mutual love of martial arts, though Putin has not come out as an admirer of Seagal’s film oeuvre. The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, is reported as saying: “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s a huge fan, but he’s definitely seen some of his movies.”

On the other hand, Seagal is a vocal admirer of Putin, most recently endorsing Russia’s approach to the crisis in Ukraine as “very reasonable” and describing Putin as “one of the greatest world leaders”.