Putin’s propagandist or key to peace in Ukraine?

Kirill Dmitriev is a rare Russian diplomat.

At 50 years old, he is still relatively young. He has studied and worked in the United States for several years and has a deep understanding of the United States.

He is also a businessman who serves as head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and is well-suited to work with his rival in the Trump administration, special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Dmitriev now finds himself in the spotlight as he worked out a draft peace plan after spending three days with Vitkov in Miami.

His team declined to comment on its proposal, which reads like Putin’s wish list, requiring Ukraine to cede territory under its control and reduce the size of its military.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been careful not to reject its terms but said any deal must bring “a dignified peace with terms that respect our independence and sovereignty”.

Putin’s envoys understand modern Ukraine better than most in Moscow. He grew up in Ukraine, and a friend claims that at age 15, Dmitriev took part in pro-democracy protests in Kiev before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Steve Witkoff has been a frequent guest on U.S.-Russian diplomatic initiatives almost since the start of Trump’s second term as president.

“We are convinced that we are on the path to peace and as peacemakers we need to achieve this,” Dmitriev told a conference in Saudi Arabia in late October.

The two appear to have first met in February 2025, when Putin’s envoy played a role in securing the release of an American teacher from a Russian prison.

“There is a gentleman from Russia, his name is Kirill, who has a lot to do with this. He is important. He is an important interlocutor connecting both sides,” Witkov told reporters.

When U.S. and Russian diplomats met days later in Saudi Arabia, effectively ending Russia’s diplomatic isolation in the West, Dmitriev participated in talks on economic relations and Vitkov was also present.

Dmitriev’s direct engagement with Trump officials hasn’t always paid off.

When Trump announced sanctions on two major Russian oil companies last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant called him a “Russian propagandist” because he suggested it would mean higher U.S. fuel prices.

Unlike most of Putin’s entourage, the Russian leader’s envoy feels at home in American television studios. He was careful to praise Trump’s diplomatic skills while telling Western audiences the Russian government’s story in their own terms.

“I’m not a military person… but the position of the Russian military is that they only strike military targets,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper recently, days after a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine, was bombed. “I’m just trying to have a dialogue and make sure the conflict ends as quickly as possible.”

Dmitriev is certainly not a soldier, he is a private investment expert with an eye on closing deals.

Witkopf may judge him, but in 2022, during the Joe Biden presidency, U.S. Treasury calls him a ‘well-known Putin ally’ and imposed sanctions on the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which he has managed since 2011.

“While officially described as a sovereign wealth fund, RDIF is widely believed to be President Vladimir Putin’s slush fund and a symbol of Russia’s broader kleptocracy,” the report said.

Dmitriev’s attitude toward the Biden era is clear: He believes that under Biden, no one tried to understand Russia’s position, while Trump’s team prevented World War III.

Dmitriev and TV presenter wife Natalia Popova are said to have amassed a real estate fortune.

Popova is a friend and colleague of Vladimir Putin’s daughter Katarina Tikhonova and vice president of Tikhonova’s technology company Innopraktika. Dmitriev was also widely regarded as part of Tikhonova’s circle.

His rise through the ranks in Moscow was a far cry from his childhood in Kiev, the son of two scientists. Dmitriev’s father is a famous Ukrainian cell biologist, and his mother is a geneticist.

This scientific background may have influenced his move to use Russia’s sovereign wealth fund to fund Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.

Dmitriev is believed to have first met Russia’s long-time leader at the beginning of his term as president in 2000, but he did not always agree with his views.

While Putin viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” a friend claimed that Dmitriev took part in anti-Soviet student protests in Kiev when he was just 15 years old.

His relationship with the United States began that same year, 1990, when he participated in a student exchange program in New Hampshire, where he was quoted in a local newspaper as saying, emphasizing Ukraine’s national identity: “Ukraine has a long history as an independent country before becoming part of the Russian Empire.”

He later returned to the United States as an undergraduate and wrote a thesis on privatization in Ukraine while at Stanford University. In his thesis proposal, he suggested that this research “allows me to better contribute to the reform process in Ukraine.”

After earning an MBA from Harvard University, he worked at McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, Prague and Moscow before joining the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund established by the United States to promote Russia’s transition to a market economy.

Dmitriev criticized Putin’s 2003 crackdown on Russian oligarchs in a column in the Vedomosti business newspaper. “The world is savvy enough to know the difference between adhering to the letter of the law and using the law as a tool of influence,” he wrote.

In 2007, he returned to Ukraine and headed the investment fund Icon Private Equity, which had offices in Kiev and Moscow.

He has increasingly bemoaned political “instability” in Ukraine and suggested Russia is better equipped to handle the global financial crisis.

A frequent guest on TV talk shows, he warned in 2010 that Ukraine would face an “economic famine” if it pursued a policy of isolating itself from Russia: a reference to the famine in Ukraine caused by the policies of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.

In 2011, he returned to Russia to take charge of the newly established Russian Direct Investment Fund, where he remains today.

His advice to the Trump administration didn’t come out of the blue.

Mueller’s report on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential election mentioned Dmitriev meeting with campaign supporters after voting. But starting in February 2025, contact with the United States intensified.

Much of his work was related to diplomacy, but he always had an eye on business opportunities.

He has proposed joint energy projects in the Arctic and suggested that Russia’s sovereign wealth fund partner with U.S. companies to develop rare earth deposits.

He also talked about Russia offering Elon Musk “a small nuclear power plant for a mission to Mars” and even an $8bn (£6bn) “Putin-Trump” rail tunnel to connect the two countries under the Bering Strait.

Dmitriev’s popularity in Russia may have risen, but his reputation in Ukraine has plummeted. Sanctions have been imposed on him Alleged crimes against Ukraine and Ukrainians.