Russian Jared Kushner

The Man Behind U.S.-Russia Negotiations in Saudi Arabia

The negotiations between Russia and the United States, which took place in Riyadh, showcased a new rising star in the Russian establishment—Kirill Dmitriev, according to sources, Dmitriev was the key figure in arranging these negotiations.

Kirill Dmitriev’s presence at the negotiating table on the Russian side surprised many, as he had never before been involved in any high level diplomatic activity. Seated next to him were Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (74) and Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov (77). Both are diplomats of the Soviet school, devoid of initiative and intimidated by their superiors. In contrast, Dmitriev stands out—he is 49 years old, has close ties to the Putin family, maintains strong connections with Saudi Arabia, and is well acquainted with Jared Kushner. He heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a state-backed entity.

Kirill Dmitriev’s biography is remarkable. He was born in 1975 in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, which at the time was still the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. While still a schoolboy, he left the USSR for America, where he enrolled at Stanford, later working at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School. After that, he moved to Russia but, for a long time, operated as a "Ukrainian businessman," according to a source in Moscow, as he managed an investment fund linked to the family of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Kirill Dmitriev and Natalia Popova

It was in the 2000s that he made the most important investment of his life. Dmitriev himself is not part of any presidential family, but he did everything possible to get close. He married Natalia Popova, a university acquaintance of Vladimir Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina. From there, according to a Kremlin insider, Kirill ensured that his wife Natalia became Katerina Putin’s closest friend— even her second self.

At present, Katerina Tikhonova (the name under which Putin’s daughter is known in Russia) heads several scientific organizations affiliated with Moscow State University, including the Innopraktika foundation, where her first deputy is Natalia Popova.

Katerina Tikhonova, Putin’s younger daughter

Kirill Dmitriev himself was appointed head of the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) in 2011. According to Financial Times, he secured this position due to his close ties with Putin’s daughter.

Currently, Dmitriev also sits on the board of trustees of Innopraktika, chaired by Katerina. In 2015, Dmitriev, his wife, and Putin’s daughter attended the Davos Economic Forum together.

RDIF was primarily established to attract investment into Russia from the Global South. In recent years, Dmitriev has cultivated close ties with the Saudi authorities, even receiving the Order of King Abdulaziz, Second Class, in 2019. It was through his business activities in Riyadh that he became acquainted with Jared Kushner, who has since become his main American contact. According to sources close to the Kremlin, Dmitriev sees himself as the Russian counterpart to Kushner—not the president’s son-in-law, but the husband of his daughter’s closest friend, someone with privileged access to the inner circle.

Putin and Dmitriev

Sources indicate that the Kushner-Dmitriev channel was the primary link between Trump’s camp and the Kremlin in recent months. During the 2023 presidential campaign, the Russian president and the Republican candidate did not communicate directly but instead exchanged messages through a network of young investment bankers close to them. It was Kushner and Dmitriev who arranged last week’s phone call between Putin and Trump, and it was also they who (naturally) selected Saudi Arabia as the venue for the first Russia-U.S. negotiations. According to Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, it was Dmitriev who served as the intermediary in the latest prisoner exchange, helping to secure the release of American citizen Marc Fogel.

Unlike Jared Kushner, who has shown no apparent political ambitions, Dmitriev is clearly eager to step into the spotlight.

In 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was highly active in promoting Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine worldwide, giving numerous interviews and claiming that Russia could save the world from the pandemic. However, the ambitious plans for Sputnik’s global distribution ultimately fell short.

Now, Dmitriev is once again taking center stage. Given his willingness to take initiative, his lack of fear in dealing with superiors, and his access to Putin, he may well emerge as a key player in Russian-American relations in the near future.