(Bloomberg) — Vladimir Putin is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against US President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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They include Yuri Ushakov, his chief Kremlin foreign-policy adviser who has more than half a century of involvement in diplomacy, and his top spymaster, Sergei Naryshkin, who served with Putin in the Soviet KGB, according to people familiar with situation, who asked not to be identified discussing internal information.
Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard with ties to the Russian president’s own family, may play a key role as an unofficial back-channel with Trump’s negotiators, people familiar with the preparations said.
That Putin is opting to rely mostly on highly skilled and experienced negotiators to represent Russia in any talks is hardly a surprise. The personnel choices underscore just how determined the Russian leader is to secure a favorable outcome in any negotiations and potentially how little his demands in relation to Ukraine have changed in the three years since he ordered the full-scale invasion.
The addition of Dmitriev, with his experience in the US and with firms like McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., indicates Putin is willing to adapt in his dealings with the unconventional US president.
Trump’s team by contrast lacks the same depth of background on Ukraine and has little experience negotiating directly with Russia. With the path to a deal still highly uncertain and Putin showing no sign of offering significant concessions, those could be major liabilities at the negotiating table.
Ushakov, 77, has served as Putin’s aide for more than a dozen years and before that was an ambassador to the US from 1998-2008, lending him deep knowledge of dealing with Washington. Naryshkin, 70, is a longtime confidante of the Russian leader, having worked with him for more than four decades.
Ushakov “knows the American establishment well and has big influence in Moscow,” said Andrey Sushentsov, dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University in the Russian capital. “He’s the best person for ‘big negotiations’ in the classical sense.”
Naryshkin told reporters on Thursday that the Kremlin had already ordered continued contact with US special services after Wednesday’s call between Trump and Putin, the state-run Tass news agency reported.
Both Ushakov and Naryshkin were involved in early ceasefire talks with Ukraine shortly after Russia started its full-scale invasion in 2022.
A spokesman for the Kremlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Russian team may be on the back foot when dealing with a more unpredictable interlocutor in Trump, whose more out-of-the-box ideas and occasional belligerence are a stark departure from the previous administration’s line,” said Emily Ferris, a senior research fellow in the International Security Studies department at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“This puts Russia in the more uncomfortable position of having to think through scenarios that they might not have considered before,” she said.
Dmitriev, 49, was already involved in negotiations to free the American school teacher Marc Fogel from a Russian prison this month, one of the people familiar said. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff had hinted as much, telling journalists this week that “a gentleman from Russia” by the name of Kirill was important in the process.
His involvement “suggests that the Kremlin sees that exchange as a goodwill gesture as linked to the broader Ukraine negotiations,” said Ferris. “Russia is playing a more pragmatic game and trying to have someone in their team that can ‘talk business’ with the Trump team.”
Dmitriev was born in Kyiv, and after his stints with McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, he returned to Russia to work at a private equity fund. He’s run Russia’s sovereign wealth fund since 2011.
He has “extensive experience in concluding deals with foreign business partners,” Sushentsov said.
His press service declined to comment on Dmitriev’s involvement in possible peace talks.
Dmitriev is sanctioned by the US, who called him “a known Putin ally” when announcing the penalties. He is married to a close acquaintance of Putin’s younger daughter, and the two women worked together at an innovation center. Outside Russia, he might be best known as the lead promoter of Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.
He was mentioned in a report issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his efforts “to make inroads” with the then-incoming Trump administration after the US leader’s first election. Dmitriev also has a network of connections in the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia, which Trump said may host his meeting with Putin.
In 2019, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman awarded the Russian financier with the King Abdulaziz Second-Class Order of Merit, the highest award of the Kingdom. Dmitriev also accompanied Putin on his visit to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh in 2023.
Other members of the 2022 negotiating team may also rejoin efforts at a later date. They would mainly help in any talks with Ukrainian representatives, according to a person close to the Kremlin, and could include presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.
Medinsky, like Dmitriev, was born in Ukraine. He’s had a decades-long career in state service that included co-authoring a history book to be used in Russian schools after the invasion of Ukraine that accuses the West of seeking to destabilize Russia.
