CNN: Russia’s top economic envoy visits US amid new sanctions

Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s chief economic envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), has arrived in the United States for “official” talks, sources familiar with the visit told CNN, just days after President Donald Trump announced a fresh round of sanctions on Moscow.

Dmitriev is expected to meet Trump administration officials “to continue discussions about the US-Russia relationship,” according to sources.

The visit comes as US frustration grows over Russia’s refusal to end its war in Ukraine. Trump recently said he had “cancelled” a planned summit with his Kremlin counterpart, Vladimir Putin. On October 22, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, calling on Moscow to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

In response, Putin dismissed the sanctions as largely symbolic, claiming they are an attempt to pressure Moscow. “No self-respecting country ever does anything under pressure,” he said on October 23. He added that he had warned Trump that the sanctions would affect global oil prices, including in the US.

Dmitriev, a long-time advocate for closer economic cooperation between the US and Russia, previously proposed the construction of a “Trump-Putin” tunnel linking Alaska and the Russian Far East.

Born in Soviet-era Ukraine and educated at Harvard and Stanford, Dmitriev worked in the US as a consultant for McKinsey and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he was sanctioned by the US Treasury as a “close associate of Putin” and his family.

In April, Dmitriev became the first Russian official to visit Washington since the invasion, meeting with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in what was seen as a potential step towards warming Kremlin–White House relations. The US government temporarily lifted its sanctions to allow a visa for that visit, a source told CNN.

By Aghakazim Guliyev