Vladimir Putin’s special envoy also emphasizes that Trump and Putin should indeed meet
Russian envoy to the US, Kirill Dmitriev, told CNN this Friday on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that he believes the US, Russia and Ukraine may be close to a “diplomatic solution” to the war.
“I believe that Russia, the US and Ukraine are actually very close to a diplomatic solution. It is great progress for President Zelensky to already recognize that these are battle lines,” Dmitriev said.
“You know, his previous position was that Russia should leave completely, so I actually think we’re reasonably close to a diplomatic solution that can be achieved,” he added.
Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation also said that the next meeting between the Russian president and Donald Trump, which should have taken place these days in Budapest, should “probably take place at a later date”.
Kirill Dmitriev arrived in the US for “official” talks with the American government just days after Trump announced tough new sanctions against Russia.
The head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF) also met with officials from the Trump administration “to continue discussions on the US-Russia relationship”, CNN reported this Friday.
The visit comes amid growing US frustration with the Kremlin’s refusal to end the war in Ukraine and after Trump said he had “cancelled” a planned summit with his Kremlin counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Dmitriev — who has been a prominent Kremlin advocate for closer economic cooperation between Russia and the United States — recently proposed building a “Trump-Putin” tunnel between Alaska and the Russian Far East.
Kirill Dmitriev
Born in Soviet-era Ukraine and educated at Harvard and Stanford in the USA, Dmitriev worked as a consultant at the American consulting firm McKinsey and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
After Russia’s total invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Dmitriev was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, which considered him a “close collaborator of Putin” and his family.
The Treasury Department wrote in 2022 that “Putin and his inner circle of cronies have long relied on RDIF and Dmitriev to raise funds abroad, including in the United States.”
In April, Dmitriev became the first Russian official to visit Washington DC since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. At the time, his visit – during which he met with Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff – was seen as an important step in relations between the Kremlin and the White House, which were then warming up.
The US government temporarily lifted sanctions against Dmitriev to allow the State Department to grant him a visa to enter the US, a source revealed to CNN in April.
