Russian President Vladimir Putin has assembled a team of heavyweights for discussions with representatives of US President Donald Trump. According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the situation, the team, tasked with negotiating an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, will consist of at least three people.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy advisor, with over half a century of diplomatic experience and Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who has been working with Putin since the KGB days, are among the team members, reported several sources who wished to remain anonymous due to internal information.
The third member of the negotiating team is expected to be Kirill Dmitriev, a 49-year-old financier with connections to the Putin family, educated in Stanford and Harvard. As the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) since 2011, Dmitriev could play a key role as an unofficial intermediary with Trump’s negotiators, according to sources.
The fact that Putin has chosen high-qualified and experienced negotiators to represent Russia is not surprising. The personnel selection underscores the Russian president’s determination to achieve a positive outcome in the negotiations. The US agency also notes that Putin’s demands regarding Ukraine have not changed significantly in the three years since the “comprehensive invasion” he ordered.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s advisor since over a decade, was the Russian ambassador to the US from 1998 to 2008. “He knows the American establishment well and has great influence in Moscow” said Andrei Suschentsov, dean of the School of International Relations at the MGIMO University in Moscow, adding that Ushakov is the best person for “big negotiations” in the classical sense.
Sergei Naryshkin is considered one of Putin’s closest confidants, with whom he has worked for over four decades. Since 2016, he has been the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SWR). His frequent press statements are often cited by the media. Previously, he was the Duma speaker, head of the Presidential Administration and vice-premier. Naryshkin is also the long-time leader of the Russian Military Historical Society.
In his capacity as the society’s leader, he opened the Ukraine conference on the day after the phone call between Trump and Putin, describing Ukraine as a “failed state” and predicting the collapse of its statehood. Naryshkin explained, “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new power-holders in Kiev, instead of seizing the chance to build their own state from scratch, enriched themselves at the expense of the people, flirted with neo-Nazism and then recognized the Anglos as their masters and took the ungrateful role of the ‘Rambo’ against Russia. As a result, the country was led to catastrophe and the collapse of statehood is inevitable.”
In contrast to the Russian negotiators, Trump’s team lacks the same level of knowledge about Ukraine and has limited experience in direct negotiations with Russia, which could be a challenge for the US side, according to Bloomberg.
Kirill Dmitriev was already involved in the negotiations for the release of American teacher Marc Fogel from a Russian prison in this month, in a swap for a Russian IT specialist, Alexander Winnik, held in the US prison.
Dmitriev was born in Kiev, returned to Russia after his stints at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs and worked at a private equity fund. Since 2011, he has led the Russian state fund. According to experts consulted by Bloomberg, Kirill is internationally well-connected and has “extensive experience in concluding deals with foreign business partners.”
The US delegation will be represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. The US president announced the delegation on Truth Social after the conversation with Vladimir Putin. Witkoff, an entrepreneur and billionaire, is Trump’s long-time business partner. He has Russian roots and is internationally well-connected. Witkoff manages many large projects in the Near East and is known there as Trump’s “Dealmaker.