If you are a mid-level Hollywood star of a certain age, then this week there is only one must-have item for you to be seen sporting in public: a Vladimir Putin T-shirt. All your favourite stars in Tinseltown are wearing one, providing you are very specifically a fan of Mickey Rourke and Steven Seagal and nobody else. In the past two days, Rourke was captured queuing for one of the in-demand garments depicting the Russian hardman president in Moscow’s Red Square, just 24 hours after Seagal, performing at a pro-Russian separatism concert in Sevastopol, was also presented with a V-Put T-shirt.

They’re not alone in the film world, though, when it comes to hearting Vladimir. Gérard Depardieu, who became a Russian citizen early last year, is a long-term fan, having gone so far as to compare the Russian leader to the pope, and the pair’s bromance stretches back years. An odd fanbase, then: one faintly risible action B-movie hack, one critically reborn 90s burnout and one boozy French tres-bon-viveur currently horrifying cinemas with his nude corpulence. What is it that unifies these disparate characters?