One of the channels of Russian diplomacy
His importance to the Kremlin has increased since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term as US President in January 2025, when Kirill Dmitriev emerged as one of Russia’s main negotiators on Ukraine peace talks and broader Russian-US relations.
In February 2025, Putin appointed him Special Presidential Envoy for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries. This came just days after the first meeting between Russian and US representatives in Riyadh, which Dmitriev attended.
According to former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, today Dmitriev serves as one of the Kremlin’s key channels for diplomacy. While Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov works with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Dmitriev has been put in charge of liaison with US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Dmitriev is Vitkoff’s channel,” says Bondarev. “He’s a weak – in fact, very weak – link in the Trump administration. They’re all relatively weak, but this is the weakest. That’s why Dmitriev has been appointed to work with him, trying to push Russia’s approach through this particularly weak point.”
How did Dmitriev’s career begin?
Kirill Dmitriev, son of the famous biologist Alexander Dmitriev, Was born in Kyiv. Yet he seems reluctant to acknowledge his roots: In a 2021 interview with The Bell, an independent Russian outlet, the would-be interlocutor insisted that he was born not in Ukraine, but in the Soviet Union.
After graduating from Stanford University, he lived for some time in the United States, where – according to his official biography on the RDIF website – He started his career at investment bank Goldman Sachs and consultancy McKinsey. Ultimately, he chose to pursue his career in Russia and Ukraine.
In Russia, one of his leading positions was at the Russian-American firm Delta Private Equity Partners, which managed approximately $500 million. In Ukraine, Dmitriev took charge of a fund belonging to the son-in-law of Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s second president.
Dmitriev stepped into his current role as head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund in 2011. The organization was designed to attract Western capital to the country. It was in this capacity that he appeared on American and European sanctions lists at the very beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Family ties to Vladimir Putin?
But it was not only his professional achievements that propelled Dmitriev to the forefront of international affairs. Their real asset has been their social capital: the network they have carefully cultivated over many years.
Ilya Shumanov, the former head of anti-corruption NGO Transparency International Russia, told DW that Dmitriev’s ties to the son-in-law of Ukraine’s second president may have opened the door to Russia’s political and business elite.
“The main part in this mosaic of relations was Ekaterina Tikhonova – the alleged daughter of Vladimir Putin, with whom Dmitriev’s wife is close,” says Shumanov.
According to him, the relationship between the Dmitrievs and Tikhonova goes beyond friendship, families are closely interconnected.
Dmitriev sat on the boards of several major Russian companies, including important state-owned companies.
When Putin looked at Dmitriev
Kirill Dmitriev’s work as a mediator began during Donald Trump’s first term. In 2020, The Daily Beast described him as ‘Putin’s money man’ with a secret relationship with Jared Kushner.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, took over the president’s foreign-policy duties. Despite not being a part of the Trump administration publicly for the second time, Kushner was recently involved in the creation of Trump’s Gaza peace plan and attended Ukraine peace talks in Geneva.
During Trump’s first term, Dmitriev and Kushner were discussing possible ways for US investment in Russia – talks that ultimately never produced any major projects.
But according to political analyst and former Putin speechwriter Abbas Galyamov, Dmitriev really made his mark nearly two years after the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine in December 2023 and became one of the most valuable figures in Russian foreign policy.
Galyamov reminds, “After the war started, Putin could hardly travel anywhere (because of the ICC arrest warrant). “This feeling of isolation deeply worried him and worried all of Russia. And that’s when Kirill Dmitriev stepped in as the main organizer of this trip (to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).”
In addition to arranging the trip, Dmitriev and his sovereign investment fund managed to attract investments from these countries – an impressive feat amid the flight of Western capital.
“In other words, he proved to be extremely effective on the international stage,” says Galyamov.
Dmitriev vs Lavrov
Galyamov sees Dmitriev as someone who is oriented toward resolving disagreements between the US and Russia through compromise – in contrast to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is a staunch proponent of a hardline approach.
“When Putin feels real talks are necessary, Dmitriev steps in,” Galyamov says. “But in many situations, Putin doesn’t want to negotiate. Lavrov reflects that internal mentality.”
Galyamov points out that during US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s recent visit to Moscow, Putin met with him along with Dmitriev and his aide Yuri Ushakov – while Lavrov was absent.
But it is not clear whether this situational choice indicates the future direction of Russian diplomacy.
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
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