Once a meeting last week ended in Riyadh between us and the Russian negotiators, one of the members of the Moscow delegation remained behind for a unofficial one with the host of historical talks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Kirill Dimitriev, head of the sovereign wealth fund in Russia, was smiling and talking to the leader of the Kingdom.

Dmitriev has reduced the former Goldman Sachs banner received by the United States, with no official diplomatic role at the time, an unexpected figure in the talks next to more traditional members in the Russian delegation, such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The American team said that the unofficial role of Dmitryv is the virginity of Russia bridges with the Gulf and its long relationship with the Crown Prince, who appears to have played a role in paving the way for the talks.

Dmitriev remained connected to the world of international financing and regular Kremlin halls. It works closely with sovereign wealth boxes in the Middle East. In the past, it was reported in contact with the main players about Donald Trump.

“We have arrived from someone in RussiaWho you know. Kirill, a member of Trump’s son -in -law Jared Kushner, told a general event after negotiations in Riyadh. “This was in a large part of it engineered by His Highness Muhammad bin Salman.”

He did not specify that he was Dmitryv. It is attributed to the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund Vladimir Putin Trump is organizing talks and will not comment on any role that he might play in this effort. “The main role here is the presidents and I would like to say, unambiguous instructions,” said Dimitriev.

Wittakov said that the assurances from the Saudi Arabian side led to his trip to Russia in early February and the release of the American detainee Mark Vogel. “They assured us that this was real, and that there is real health for Kirill and what he was saying could happen,” Witkeov said.

On Sunday, Dmitriev has been officially appointed Putin’s Private Envoy for Investment and Economic Cooperation with foreign countries.

Dmitryv, 49, has led the Russian direct investment fund since its inception in 2011 as a tool for the temptation of international investment in Russia. With RDIF in his early years towards investments from the United States, he was in a good position to lead the new Kremlin fund of $ 10 billion.

He was born in Kiev, but he received his education at Stanford University and Harvard Business in the United States, with a difference in MCKINSEY and Goldman Sachs in his CV. For the American private investment channel in Russia.

However, Russia’s inclusion of the Crimea in 2014 and a set of sanctions – including the VEB State Development Company according to which the fund was established at the beginning – led to the calming of a lot of Western interest. Many billionaire owners resigned in Wall Street and famous asset managers from the RDIF Consultant Council.

The focus has turned into other markets, and Dmitryv has often appeared in Moscow’s trading with the Gulf, including joining Russian negotiations on the OPEC+oil supply budget.

“On the Saudi track, he was always number one,” said a former RDIF employee, and he took the deals alongside, and “On the Saudi track, was always the number one,” said a former RDI

“He performed an important job as a mediator with various players in the Gulf kings,” said Carnegie Alexandra Prokopinko. “He knows the elders, and knows who has money and what matters.”

By 2022, when Russia was widely launched Ukraine invasionThe Middle East sovereign wealth funds are more than two -thirds of all holdings by foreign governments in Russia, according to the global SWF analysis.

But the RDIF deals structure, which Dimitriv personally mentions to Putin, was not fully published. The Fund says it has brought more than $ 26 billion of investments in the Russian economy, but “we only know about RDIF’s achievements from RDIF’s special words.” “The investment strategy is not transparent, and RDIF has invested actively in its public relations.”

An employee of one of the Gulf funds that worked with RDIF said in the past that her investment bankers were professional and the deals were strong. Dimitrif was also among those in Moscow who are behind the scenes to secure the release of Michael Calvi, a senior American investor in Russia, from detention after his arrest in Russia.

Dmitriev’s business relations in the Gulf also led to contacts with people in the Trump district, according to the report of the United States’ lawyer, Robert Muller, in allegations of Russian intervention in the 2016 elections.

Dmitriev benefited from his contacts in the United Arab Emirates, a country that invests in RDIF, to establish a link with the first Trump administration, Muller said. The American private lawyer did not conclude that these contacts led to anything illegal.

When asked whether the previous contacts with the main players about Trump contributed to the meeting this month in Riyadh, Dmitryv said no and refused to comment more.

“All I can say is that if you look, you are always in a position in favor of developing the United States-Russia relationship,” said Dmitriev, speaking on the phone from his head.

Dmitriev told the Financial Times that the negotiators had established a separate path to run alongside political negotiations that would focus on commercial deals. He said, “Inside the Russian delegation, I am responsible for economic investment projects and building bridges,” he said. “Both sides are interested in creating joint economic justifications.”

Dmitriev has informed US negotiators in Riyadh that American companies had lost 324 billion dollars as a result of the withdrawal of the Russian market.

However, the KSE Institute, an analytical center at KyIV College of Economics, says that American companies had only $ 52 billion of assets in Russia before the start of the comprehensive invasion in 2022.

“The numbers depend on the removal of the declared Russian assets and the evaluation of the possible fair market value due to the lost cash flows resulting from the original,” said RDIF.

He is also the head of the wealth fund near the Putin family. His wife, Natalia Popova, Deputy Director of Inopraktika, Technology Foundation at Yekaterina Tikhonova, the youngest daughter of Putin. Dimitrif was also at the Board of Directors of the main petrochemical company, where the husband of Tijunova was then a senior executive official.

Former RDIF employees said that while building his net abroad, Dmitriev at home was a “very difficult” manager and “perfect”.

“We had people.” People were burned. . . Life was difficult.

Putin, the commander of the sovereign wealth fund with many other major projects, including the Covid-19, when Dmitriev, whose parents were biologists, took over the role of the developer and the main promoter of the Russian Corona virus vaccine.

Dimitrev was proud of the Sputnik vaccine he and his family did. He also asked the employees to consider the status of scientists behind the Russian vaccine on the Nobel Prize, as two people said.

On Monday, Dimitriev launched an X account to celebrate its new role as a special envoy in the negotiating team. He said, “Russia is open.”

Additional reports by Antoine Gara in Miami