Three years ago, Kirill Dmitriev, a sharp-elbowed, well-connected Kremlin insider, was persona non grata in Washington, sanctioned for his role as the head of what was described as a "slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and emblematic of Russia's broader kleptocracy."
His sanctioning, by the US Treasury Department, occurred days after Russia launched its February 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine, sending bilateral relations with Washington into an all-out tailspin.
On April 3, however, Dmitriev stood a stone's throw from the White House, extolling his meetings with lead US envoy Steve Witkoff and other unnamed administration officials.
"We see absolutely clearly that the administration of President Trump, unlike President Biden, is committed to resolving issues," he said. "They are extremely respectful, they understand Russia's position, they ask a lot of questions, they find compromises. This is the creative spirit that has been set."
The visit by Dmitriev -- the most senior Russian official to travel to the US capital since the start of the invasion of Ukraine -- comes amid a flurry of backchannel and closed-door negotiations as the Trump administration tries to fulfill a major foreign policy goal: halting the fighting in Ukraine.
Will his visit accomplish that?
The White House had no immediate comment about the talks as of April 4.
"I think it's probably a good thing that he went there, and that the dialogue continues," said Sergey Radchenko, a Cold War historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
"What he is obviously trying to do is to focus on Russian-US relations, paint a rosy vista of profitable cooperation, and hope that Trump will forget Ukraine," he told RFE/RL.
The meetings come about six weeks after top officials from Moscow and Washington met in Saudi Arabia in the highest-level direct talks since 2022. After the invasion, Joe Biden, Trump's predecessor, ruled out any direct talks with Moscow, which had sought talks not just about Ukraine but also about the broken US-Russian relationship and the entire post-Cold War global structure.
After initial February talks, the two sides agreed to move toward restoring diplomatic staffing in one another's countries and explore new business and political partnerships once the Ukraine conflict ends.
Days prior to those talks, however, Witkoff, a real estate developer and longtime friend of Trump's, traveled to Moscow on his private jet to retrieve an American schoolteacher whom the Kremlin had released after serving months in prison for a drug conviction.
"There's a gentleman from Russia, his name is Kirill, and he had a lot to do with this," Witkoff said after returning to Washington. "He was an important interlocutor bridging the two sides."
On March 18, the Kremlin and the White House announced a limited cease-fire deal that was hailed as a major step toward a wider peace deal. But both Moscow and Kyiv continued to pound one another with drones and missiles, and full-scale fighting has continued on the battlefield.
Observers also pointed to potentially problematic conditions that the Kremlin had included in its negotiating positions.
A Portfolio of Business. And More.
For his part, Dmitriev, who was named a Kremlin special envoy for international economic cooperation on February 25, has been largely focused on a sales pitch, trying to convince US businesses to return to Russia after pulling out due to the war and Western sanctions.
With degrees from Stanford and Harvard and professional backgrounds at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, Dmitriev has served since 2011 as head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. He and the fund took a prominent role in developing a Russian-made vaccine for COVID-19 called Sputnik V.
Dmitriev's personal ties to the Kremlin have raised eyebrows. His wife, Natalia Popova, is a close friend of Putin's younger daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, and served as her deputy at the Moscow research institute Tikhonova heads. Dmitriev also served on the board of the petrochemical giant Sibur alongside Tikhonova's now ex-husband, Kirill Shamalov.
Dmitriev made a previous outreach to the Trump administration during its first term in the White House.
In January 2017, he traveled to the Seychelles Islands to meet with Erik Prince, a controversial businessman whose sister was Trump's first education secretary.
That meeting, and the communications that led up to it, drew the scrutiny of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who had been tasked with investigating the Trump administration's ties to Russia. It also drew scrutiny of investigators from the US Senate Intelligence Committee.
"Kirill Dmitriev…used multiple business contacts to try to make inroads with Transition Team officials," the committee's final report, released in 2020, said.
'Security Guarantees In Some Form May Be Acceptable'
It's unclear exactly what transpired in Dmitriev's talks in Washington or with whom exactly he met, aside from Witkoff.
The Treasury Department issued a temporary exemption for sanctions so he could travel to Washington.
In remarks to Russian reporters, Dmitriev made no mention of the issue that until recently has been the biggest thorn in US-Russian relations: the Ukraine war.
"Of course, there are disagreements on various points," he said. "But there is a process and a dialogue that, in our understanding, will help overcome these differences."
In a later appearance on Fox News, Dmitriev, who is fluent in English, said the Ukraine conflict had been discussed and that the Kremlin might consider providing security guarantees for Kyiv.
He did not provide specifics and, given the brutality of the war and Russia's violation of past security agreements like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Kyiv would likely react strongly against such proposals.
"Some security guarantees in some form may be acceptable," he said.
Dmitriev also told CNN that he did not bring up the issue of sanctions relief in his talks; Russia is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, most of which were imposed in punishment for the Ukraine invasion.
"At this point, we are not asking for any sanction relief," he said. "We are just discussing that if America wants to have more business with Russia…then of course US can do so."
