Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - He is an investment banker with a distinct American descent and continued to work at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey before studying at Harvard and Stanford. But, as we and Russian negotiators secured a ceasefire in Ukraine, Kirill Dmitriev will do his best to get the best deal for one person: President Vladimir Putin ).

Fluent English and married a close friend of Putin’s daughter, Dmitriev, 49, a long-term praise from the Russian leader, entrusted the country’s recent senior talks in Saudi Arabia on the end of the end The main player in the senior high-level negotiations and a key player in the war in Ukraine.

Dmitriev participated in a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, and Secretary of State A delegation of the United States led by Marco Rubio. He also attended a separate meeting in Riyadh and raised a debate that could attract President Donald Trump – sanctions cost American companies billions.

“His main role, his main task is Putin’s reason to assign him: to get Americans to raise the pressure on sanctions. That’s his job.

Fedorov said Putin considered Dmitryev an official and he said he was a "very good executor" in negotiations.

Dmitriev has proposed to the new White House administration by playing a crucial role in facilitating prisoner exchange, which has led to the release of Marc Fogel, which is in Russia The court violated medical marijuana for 14 years and a half years after the minor was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Fogel, a 63-year-old teacher from Pennsylvania, flew back to the United States last week with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who praised a man named “Kirill” Man, because he made a deal.

Witkoff told Fox News a few days after they were on U.S. land that he knew a little about the distance between the Russian government and the U.S. government. “The president and we are both sure it is credible, there is a chance to get Mark Fogel back and the president listens, carefully decides it is feasible and says Hope on the plane and hopes to get good results.”

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also participated heavily in the deal to ensure Fogel's release. Alexander Vinnik, the convicted money launderer, returns to Russia.

Dmitriev has long been in contact with Saudi leaders and was awarded the Merit Order of King Abdulaziz in October 2019, the highest award for the Kingdom , because he has gained strengthening cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia after helping to ensure oil. Pricing agreement under the OPEC+ Manufacturer Forum.

"He has a good connection with the Saudis; he is one of them," Fedov said. “They make money together,” he added, when the prisoner exchange was brought up, “the Saudis were the first to confirm that they were willing to help the matter.”

The Saudi Award is a long list of honors for Dmitriev, who won no less than three titles, the Medal of Alexander Nevsky, the Medal of Honor and the Order of Friendship, the Kremlin (Kremlin).

But his success is not surprising to those who track his career.

Born in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, but was part of the Soviet Union at the time. Dmitriev, a teenager, participated in high school exchanges with the United States, and later returned to Stanford University. ) and MBA degree at Harvard. In 2009, he was the "young global leader" of the World Economic Forum.

He continued to work in Ukraine and then returned to Russia because of his expertise in the local market, with American Business Channel CNBC and Bloomberg Society providing him with features.

Putin then tapped him to the leadership of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which was established in 2011 to promote foreign investment.

Dmitriev said he described him as "very smart" and a senior U.S. finance director who asked him not to be named to protect his business relationships, and he was able to "easily" in the West Move in the circle.

“Many Russians who speak quality English don’t want to know what we think,” he said. “He is actually someone with Westerners, especially Americans, and he actually has a good idea of ​​how we handle information. Feelings."

Although Dmitriev was "very pro-American and pro-Western", he added that he was "ultimately totally loyal and patriotic to Russia" and Putin.

In his role, he then advocated his own country and encouraged hostility toward Russia's annexation of Crimea.

When Trump was first elected president in 2016, he also played a role in his early engagement with the United States. The person he met was Erik Prince.

Their secret meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seychelles on January 11, 2017 was held in the Special Adviser Robert Mueller’s report on Russian intervention in the 2016 election, which said Demit Dmitriev sought an introduction to members of the Trump transition team so that in order to make it a brief introduction, so that in order to make a member of the Trump transition team introduces to start improving relations between the United States and Russia.

Two years later, with the Covid-19 pandemic inception, Dmitriev is committed to promoting the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Russia.

However, after Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Dmitryev seemed to have disappeared from the Western public eye, although he often attended major Russian events and met Putin many times. He also regularly shows up in his homeland.

Four days after Russian troops crossed Ukraine, the U.S. Treasury Department approved Dmitriev, calling him "a close partner of Putin." His wife, Natalya Popova, is believed to be close to one of Putin's daughters, Katerina Tikhonova," was also subject to sanctions.

But Dmitryev re-entered the spotlight after Trump was re-elected last year, praising the president's "decisive leadership" when he praised the president for issuing a series of execution orders.

According to the Kremlin website, he met with Putin to talk about Russian investment a week before Trump's inauguration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after a ceasefire in Riyadh that both countries agree Re-establish "the function of our respective missions in Washington and Moscow" and create a senior team in Washington to end the road to the Ukrainian war.

Putin's foreign policy adviser Ushakov said Dmitryev was there to discuss "economic issues."

Whether these discussions include lifting U.S. sanctions measures is not clear, but former Russian Deputy Foreign Secretary Fedorov is convinced that he will eventually achieve that.

"When he had a task, he did it," he said.

Keir Simmons reported on Riyadh and Natasha Lebedeva from Washington.