Who is Kirill Dmitriev, the blacklisted Putin ally and a key player in Ukraine peace talks?

He's blacklisted in the U.S., considered a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and has been described as "ruthlessly ambitious," a "Russian propagandist" and "the Trump whisperer."

Yet Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev is also emerging as a key figure in U.S. negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Last month, Trump administration representatives met with Dmitriev to draft a plan to end the fighting, multiple sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The meeting took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who leads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), one of the country's largest sovereign wealth funds.

Just last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent labelled him a "Russian propagandist." He now appears to be taking on the role of diplomat. Who exactly is Dmitriev, why is he sanctioned and how is he involved with U.S.-Russia talks?

Let's break it all down.

Who is Kirill Dmitriev?

Dmitriev, 50, is a Moscow businessman who was born in Kyiv under the Soviet Union. He's younger than other major players in Russian foreign policy, like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who's 75.

He's also a product of a Western education, Foreign Policy magazine explains. As Dmitriev's official profile on the RDIF website notes, he has a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

According to his profile on the World Economic Forum, Dmitriev started his career with stints at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Company. He moved to Moscow in 2000 when he was 25, and became deputy CEO of the IT company IBS, according to a profile on Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda.

Dmitriev eventually moved back to Ukraine to head the oligarch Victor Pinchuk's Icon Private Equity investment fund. He moved back to Russia in 2011, which is when he became head of RDIF.

What are his ties to Putin?

BBC reports that Dmitriev first met Russian President Vladimir Putin around 2000, although their political views haven't always aligned.

A personal tie pushed him into Putin's inner circle. Dmitriev's wife, Natalia Popova, is reportedly a close friend and business associate of Putin's youngest daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.

That connection is part of why Putin appears to trust Dmitriev, Sergey Aleksashenko, a former deputy governor of the Bank of Russia,toldForeign Policy.

But then there's also his role with RDIF. In 2022, when Joe Biden was U.S. president, the Treasury Department called Dmitriev a "known Putin ally," and said RDIF is "widely considered" a slush fund for Putin.

Now, as the Economist points out, Putin wants the U.S. to loosen its sanctions on Russia. And Dmitriev is considered the most U.S.-savvy member of Russia's elite.

Putin appointed Dmitriev special envoy on international economic and investment co-operation in February.

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Why is he sanctioned?

Dmitriev and his fund were blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions effectively bar American citizens and companies from doing business with them.

"He has leveraged his ties to universities and organizations in the United States to serve as a representative for the Russian president to American institutions, thereby providing access to key economic opportunities in the United States," the U.S. Treasury noted.

Canada also sanctioned Dmitriev and the RDIF around then.

The Trump administration issued a special waiver to allow his entry for meetings last month, a senior U.S. official told Reuters.

What are the concerns now?

The U.S. administration’s discussions with Dmitriev in October have worried some in the intelligence community, a U.S. official told Reuters.

Dmitriev has previously used his role at the sovereign wealth fund to make inroads with various Western governments and businesses, even amid U.S. sanctions.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. have criticized the peace plan as essentially a Russian wish list. The initial proposal, made last week, called on Ukraine to cede more territory, accept limits on its military and abandon ambitions to join NATO — Russian demands that Ukrainians have long rejected.

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Why is he called 'the Trump whisperer'?

Dmitriev has been dubbed "the Trump whisperer" by several media outlets.

In April, he became the highest-ranking Russian official to travel to the U.S. on state business since the 2022 Ukraine invasion began. The New York Times, citing an unnamed official, reported that the Treasury Department suspended Dmitriev's sanctions for seven days so he could visit, and that the State Department granted him a travel waiver and a visa.

That visit was seen as "an important step in the then-warming relations between the Kremlin and the White House," CNN reported.

The Trump administration notably did not include Russia on an expansive list of countries that would face major new tariffs that week. Ukraine was slapped with a 10 per cent levy.

But there's also more history there. During Trump's first term, Dmitriev established contacts with the U.S. president’s team to reset relations between Washington and Moscow.

In a 2017 meeting with Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater and a Trump ally, Dmitriev discussed U.S.-Russia relations, according to a Department of Justice report published by then-special counsel Robert Mueller in 2019.

In a separate meeting with a friend of Kushner’s, Dmitriev drafted a reconciliation plan to strengthen U.S.-Russia ties, the report says. He also worked directly with Kushner during Trump's first term.

In recent years, Dmitriev has appeared on various American television stations and at events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos to promote those same ties.

Still, to some, the title of "Trump whisperer" is a bit of an exaggeration.

Dmitriev should be be considered more of a "messenger," Sergey Aleksashenko, the former Russian central bank deputy governor, told Foreign Policy, and his background makes him uniquely qualified.

“He knows the country; he knows the administration. He knows people in the administration, and he has a lot of personal friends who know people in administration.”