Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, has become a key figure in the Kremlin's outreach to the Trump administration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed the 49-year-old Kyiv native as special envoy for economic affairs in an attempt to interest Washington in joint economic ventures in return for a favorable peace deal.
Dmitriev, who earned degrees from prestigious U.S. universities and has experience in dealing with the American business world, seems an ideal choice for the task.
Kyiv-born, Harvard-educated financier
Dmitriev was born in Kyiv in 1975 in Soviet Ukraine. His father, Oleksandr, is a well-known Ukrainian biologist working at the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dmitriev's education and professional debut perfectly positioned him as an up-and-coming member of Russia's technocratic elite.
At the age of 14, Dmitriev was one of the first Soviet exchange students to travel to the U.S., where he studied at Fооthill College in California. He went on to graduate with honors from an economics program at Stanford University and received his MBA at Harvard.
Launching his business career abroad, Dmitriev worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, Moscow, and Prague, and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
He then moved to Moscow in 2000 to become the deputy CEO of the IT company IBS at the age of 25. Dmitriev's business associates saw the Harvard-educated financier as an example of Russia's new business class after the economic downturns of the 1990s.
Speaking to Kommersant at the time, IBS founder Anatoly Karachinsky singled him out as "one of the best" repatriates coming to Russia after working for the "largest American companies."
Dmitriev's professional career later included a position at Delta Private Equity Partners, created under the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund. Between 2007 and 2011, the businessman lived in Ukraine, where he headed Icon Private Equity of Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.
In Ukraine, Dmitriev advocated for closer ties between his former and current homeland, saying in the media that Ukraine's renunciation of ties with Russia would result in an "economic starvation."
Friend of Putin's daughter and head of Russia's 'slush fund'
Dmitriev entered the Kremlin's inner circles with the help of his wife, Natalia Popova, a university classmate and business associate of Putin's daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.
Popova works as Tikhonova's deputy at her Innopraktika fund, where Dmitriev sits on the board of trustees.
In 2011, the financier was appointed CEO of the new Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a state-controlled fund launched to foster partnerships with foreign investors and invest in Russian companies.
Under Dmitriev's leadership, the RDIF oversaw $40 billion in investment across 100 deals, building relationships with funds from France, Italy, Japan, China, and the Gulf states.
The fund was launched when Russia was seeking better ties with the West under then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev was touring American tech giants in Silicon Valley while U.S. President Barack Obama's "Reset" policy sought to mend ties with Moscow.
Medvedev and Putin (at the time prime minister) "set the task of creating such a fund that would result from an open dialogue with leading global investors and enjoy their support," Dmitriev told the Banki outlet in an interview in 2012.
This honeymoon period definitively ended in 2014 with the Russian occupation of Crimea and the subsequent Western sanctions, which also hit the RDIF's parent, state development and investment company VEB.
Two years later, Putin removed the RDIF from VEB's structure and remade it into Russia's sovereign wealth fund.
Publicly, Dmitriev sought to maintain an apolitical, business-only facade.
"There are forces in Russia that are good for the world economy. We are one of them," he told the Financial Times in an interview in 2014. "We're not a humongous player, and we have no political agenda."
But behind the scenes, Dmitriev has built himself into one of the most effective fixers and lobbyists among the Russian political elite, an investigation by the Insider said.
Dmitriev's role in Russian hierarchy was recognized by the West once Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022 — mere days after the invasion, the Biden administration sanctioned the RDIF and its CEO.
"Recently designated Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle of cronies have long relied on RDIF and Dmitriev to raise funds abroad, including in the United States," the Treasury Department said.
"While officially a sovereign wealth fund, RDIF is widely considered a slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and is emblematic of Russia's broader kleptocracy."
Putin's link to Trump
When Trump won his first election in 2016, Putin saw a chance. As revealed in Robert Mueller's report on Russian election interference, Dmitriev established contact with Rick Gerson, a friend of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Russian official reportedly told Gerson that he's been instructed to prepare a reconciliation plan between the U.S. and Russia, and the two drafted a two-pager on possible cooperation vectors.
In January 2017, Dmitriev met another figure with ties to Trump's campaign: Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater and brother of soon-to-be Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Dmitriev's plans with Gerson did not materialize, and the Russian official reportedly described his meeting with Prince as disappointing. But the events set the stage for the Russian official's renewed role as Putin's envoy during Trump's second attempt at the presidency.
Trump began his second term in office with the pledge to hammer out a swift peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, restoring direct contact with Russia after years of isolation under the Biden administration.
Officially named a presidential envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries, Dmitriev took part in the initial meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Riyadh on Feb. 18.
The sovereign fund chief emerged as an increasingly prominent figure in Russian-U.S. negotiations, promoting various joint business ventures, from a minerals agreement to nuclear power stations for Elon Musk's space projects.
Finally, on April 2, Dmitriev traveled to Washington to meet with Witkoff and other Trump officials after the U.S. State Department temporarily lifted sanctions imposed on him to allow the visit.
Dmitriev claimed the discussions included the possibility of restoring flights and the return of U.S. companies to Russia. He also said there has been "significant progress" toward a ceasefire, implying that economic cooperation was not the only issue on the table.
The visit came as Trump voiced frustration with Russia's delays in ceasefire talks, threatening tariffs on Russian oil. Yet, when the U.S. president unveiled fresh tariffs on nearly the entire world, Russia was notably absent.
Dmitriev seems to be at the forefront of the Kremlin's charm offensive as Putin hopes to drive a wedge between Trump on one side and Kyiv and Europe on the other. It remains to be seen whether the Stanford and Harvard alumnus will be able to smooth out Trump's exasperation.
"President Trump's administration has made tremendous progress," Dmitriev heaped praise on the U.S. president in an interview with Trump's favorite channel, Fox News.
"There is no question that President Trump's team not only stopped World War III from happening but also had already achieved sizable progress on Ukraine resolution."
Kate Tsurkan
