(Bloomberg) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed a world champion kick-boxer and former senator to head Kalmykia, a remote Buddhist region on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Batu Khasikov, who continued to fight during his term representing Kalmykia in Russia's Federation Council from 2012 to 2014, was named acting head of the region after the previous leader resigned, according to a decree posted on the Kremlin website Wednesday.
The Russian president, who maintains a tough-guy image backed by a black belt in judo, has a soft spot for martial arts. At least three foreign martial-arts celebrities, Steven Seagal, Roy Jones Jr. and Jeff Monson, have been given Russian citizenship.
Khasikov, 38, is a founder of Fight Nights Global, a promoter that organizes MMA bouts around the former Soviet Union. Nikolay Choles, the son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, served as the group's creative director for a brief time, RBC newspaper reported in 2017.
Kalmykia was led for 17 years by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a businessman and politician who claimed that he was abducted by aliens in the 1990s and told to spread the gospel of chess. Ilyumzhinov also served as the head of the World Chess Federation, or Fide, for more than two decades until last year, when he was suspended for ethical breaches.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. White
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