During the negotiations between the United States and Russia held last week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kirill Dmitriev, a member of the Russian delegation, remained in place even after the official talks concluded. He had a separate meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. What is the reason he, not being a diplomat, sat at the negotiation table representing Russia with the Middle East?
According to the Financial Times (FT), Dmitriev, who did not hold an official diplomatic position during the talks, emerged as a somewhat unexpected figure among traditional members of the Russian delegation, such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. However, the U.S. negotiating team evaluated that Dmitriev's unofficial role and his long-standing relationship with Crown Prince bin Salman played a crucial role in the success of the talks.
Dmitriev is an elite graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School. He once worked at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, gaining experience at the forefront of the U.S. financial system. His career has not been limited to Western finance. In the early 2000s, he worked at Delta Private Equity, which was supported by the U.S. government, in Moscow, pioneering the Russian market. In 2011, he took on the role of head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), significantly strengthening his ties with the Kremlin.
After Russia's annexation of Crimea, as Western economic sanctions intensified, the role of the RDIF also changed. As the influx of investments from the U.S. and Europe decreased, Dmitriev focused on attracting capital from the Middle East and Asia. In particular, he has concentrated on cooperation with Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), acting as a bridge between Putin and Crown Prince bin Salman. He has not only attracted capital but has also led substantial negotiations to alleviate Russia's economic isolation.
Dmitriev is also known as a figure who attempted to establish contact with the White House through unofficial channels during the Trump administration. According to the Robert Mueller report, he tried to connect with Trump's transition team by utilizing senior officials from the UAE.
Dmitriev is one of the few economic bureaucrats who have won the trust of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His wife, Natalia Popova, serves as the deputy director of a technology foundation operated by Putin's daughter, Yekaterina Tikhonova, indicating that Dmitriev is not just a financial figure but deeply connected within the Kremlin's internal network.
Recently, Dmitriev was officially appointed as Putin's special envoy for foreign investment and economic cooperation. Despite Western sanctions, he is active at the forefront of Putin's foreign economic strategy, reshaping Russia's economic diplomacy. It is uncertain how much his negotiating power will contribute to easing Russia's international isolation in the future, but he is already playing a significant role as a covert negotiator for the Kremlin.