Kirill Dmitriev: from Wall Street banker to Putin’s emissary to Trumpworld

When the Kremlin’s men met Donald Trump’s diplomats in Saudi Arabia in February, one man stood out from “the grizzled diplomats who made up the rest of the Russian delegation”, says The Economist. But it doesn’t pay to underestimate the bespectacled, “softly-spoken” Kirill Dmitriev.

In the rapprochement with the US, he has emerged as Vladimir Putin’s “point man”, and you couldn’t dream up a more “ideal emissary to Trumpworld”.

Many in Putin’s circle rose through the security services, but Dmitriev, 49, is a product of America’s finest institutions. A degree from Stanford led to jobs at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, topped off with an MBA from that “finishing school for Western capitalists”, Harvard Business School.

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Dmitriev returned to Russia at the start of Putin’s first term and now runs one of its biggest state investment funds. His “ease in the company of US businessmen” is noticeable.

So too, his recognition that “money is one of the few things that truly motivates Trump”, says the Financial Times. Dmitriev arrived at the talks with “a long list of tempting business deals” and the sort of numbers that appeal to Maga types.

US companies, he said, had lost $324 billion by leaving Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine – so why not come back? It’s clear what he wants in return. “Expect US sanctions on Russia to be lifted soon.”

The ostensible reason for the summit was to discuss the future of Ukraine.

Dmitriev has skin in the game. A Ukrainian by birth, he grew up in Kyiv but is no friend of the current government, says Ukrainska Pravda – once observing that “so-called democratic changes” following the 2004 Orange Revolution led to a “three-to-fourfold increase in corruption” and “a wild battle between these democratic clans”.

Dmitriev’s life changed when, at the age of 14 – just as the Berlin Wall was falling – he won a place at Foothill College in California via a “People’s Diplomacy” programme. He has rarely spoken on the record about his subsequent decade in the US.

Dmitriev lost no time putting his credentials to work in Putin’s Russia, says The Economist. One of his first jobs was with the US-Russia Investment Fund – established by the US government to open Russia to foreign investment.

Another was a stint in Ukraine, with Icon Private Equity, which managed the fortune of oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

But what really put Dmitriev on the map was marriage to Natalia Popova, a TV presenter who was a close friend and business partner of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. A big job swiftly followed.

In 2011, Dmitriev set up the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and has run it ever since. In the early years, he concentrated on “schmoozing Wall Street bigwigs”, including Blackstone boss, Stephen Schwarzman and Leon Black of Apollo.

The imposition of sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 put paid to that but cemented Dmitriev’s standing. It was his skill in finding “non-Western sources of finance” – notably from Asia and the Gulf – “that proved his worth to Putin”.

Kirill Dmitriev: a fixer-in-chief

Dmitriev’s role as the Kremlin’s fixer-in-chief became publicly obvious during the pandemic when RDIF funded Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

Shuttling around by private plane during lockdown, he was at the forefront of the Kremlin’s “vaccine diplomacy”, aimed at boosting Russia’s standing by selling its vaccine to poorer countries.

These days, noted Sergey Kanev in a 2023 profile in The Insider, Dmitriev is one of the few Kremlin insiders to have, in the jargon, “access to the body” (Putin). But he’s become just as remote himself.

“It’s very difficult to secure an appointment with him; you have to reach out to his wife or acquaintances,” says one Moscow businessman. One thing’s clear. Dmitriev is rapidly mastering “the art of the deal”.

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