Bloomberg: Putin assembles heavyweight team for US negotiations on Ukraine
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is assembling a team of heavyweight negotiators with decades of experience in high-level diplomacy to engage with representatives of the US president, who is seeking to broker a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
As reported by Bloomberg, unnamed sources have revealed that the negotiation team includes Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s chief foreign policy advisor, and Sergey Naryshkin, Putin’s top intelligence officer who served with him in the KGB.
Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard with ties to the Kremlin leader’s family, may play a key role as an informal communication channel with Trump's negotiators.
Dmitriev’s background in the US and his experience with companies like McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. suggest that Putin is willing to adjust his approach in his dealings with the unconventional US president.
The 77-year-old Ushakov has served as Putin’s aide for over a decade and was Russia’s ambassador to the US from 1998 to 2008, gaining in-depth knowledge of how to negotiate with Washington.
Naryshkin, 70, is a longtime confidant of the Russian leader, having worked with him for over four decades. On 13 February, he told reporters that the Kremlin had already instructed Russian intelligence services to continue to engage with their US counterparts following Trump's phone call with Putin the day before.
Both Ushakov and Naryshkin were involved in ceasefire talks with Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Dmitriev was recently involved in negotiations to secure the release of American teacher Marc Fogel from a Russian prison.
Dmitriev, who was born in Kyiv, worked for McKinsey and Goldman Sachs before returning to Russia. He is subject to US sanctions as a "well-known Putin ally" and is married to a close associate of Putin's younger daughter. Outside of Russia, he is best known as the primary advocate of the Russian Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.
Dmitriev was mentioned in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report for his efforts to "establish contact" with the Trump administration after the US president's first election.
Other members of Russia’s 2022 negotiation team may also join the current efforts. A Kremlin insider has suggested that Putin’s aide Vladimir Medinsky could be involved.
On 13 February, the Kremlin announced that it had begun putting together a negotiating team to arrange a meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.
President Trump has assigned Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead negotiations with Russia.