‘He had a lot to do with this’ Who is Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian ‘interlocutor’ Trump’s envoy mentioned when he returned from Moscow this week?
For better or for worse, the last few days have appeared to mark a possible turning point in U.S.-Russia relations. On February 11, American schoolteacher Marc Fogel was released from a Russian prison — and returned to the U.S. on the private jet of Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who flew to Moscow to retrieve him. A day later, several other releases were reported to be part of the exchange, including that of Russian cybercrime kingpin Alexander Vinnik. The same day, the Russian and American presidents held their first publicly reported phone call since Trump returned to office.
Upon his return to the United States, Witkoff told reporters that a “gentleman named Kirill” had “a lot to do with” brokering the exchange agreement. In all likelihood, he was referring to Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a close associate of Vladimir Putin. Meduza explains who this “gentleman” is, what he specializes in, and how he’s currently playing a role in Russian diplomacy.
In the weeks since Donald Trump returned to the U.S. presidency, his longtime friend Steve Witkoff, another former real estate investor, has unexpectedly become one of the world’s most influential diplomats.
As Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Witkoff played a key role in brokering a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in January 2025. Soon after, Trump tasked him with establishing contacts with Russia in an effort to bring an end to Moscow’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
On February 11, Witkoff flew to Moscow on his private jet to retrieve Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher who had been imprisoned in Russia on drug smuggling charges. In exchange, the U.S. released Alexander Vinnik, a co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering.
During his brief visit, Witkoff apparently managed to speak with a representative of Russia’s ruling authorities. Upon his return, he told journalists: ‘There’s a gentleman from Russia, his name is Kirill, and he had a lot to do with this. He was important, he was an important interlocutor bridging the two sides.”
From McKinsey to the RDIF
Witkoff was presumably referring to Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a state-owned sovereign wealth fund. A Stanford and Harvard graduate, Dmitriev spent his early career working at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. From 2007 to 2011, he ran the Ukrainian investment fund Icon Private Equity, where he managed about a billion dollars — most of which belonged to Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. It was Pinchuk who recommended Kirill Dmitriev to Vladimir Dmitriev (no relation), then head of the Russian state development corporation VEB. In 2011, the two Dmitrievs convinced then-President Dmitry Medvedev and then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to establish a sovereign investment fund with Kirill Dmitriev at its helm.
Dmitriev has close ties to Putin’s family. His wife, Natalia Popova, was a college classmate and close friend of the president’s younger daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, and from 2012 served as her deputy at the Innopraktika Foundation research institute. Dmitriev himself was on the board of the petrochemical giant Sibur for several years alongside Tikhonova’s then-husband, Kirill Shamalov.
Dmitriev also has extensive connections in the Middle East. RDIF’s partners include the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These funds’ governing bodies and boards of directors include heads of state, government officials, and their relatives — many of whom are in regular contact with Dmitriev.
Back in 2017, shortly before Trump’s first inauguration, Dmitriev met with UAE officials and a group of American businessmen in the Seychelles. Among them was Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater and brother of Betsy DeVos, whom Trump later appointed secretary of education. U.S. Special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the U.S. elections, later suggested that the Seychelles meeting was one of several aimed at establishing backchannel communications between Russian officials and the incoming Trump administration.
Soon after Trump’s first inauguration, Dmitriev met with White House advisor Anthony Scaramucci at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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Middle Eastern states have been actively proposing both public and private peace initiatives since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. Saudi Arabia mediated the release of foreign fighters who had fought for Ukraine and been captured by Russia. In 2023, it hosted an international conference on a peace settlement for the war in Ukraine, though Russia did not participate. In December 2023, Putin visited both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
In 2024, Qatar attempted to mediate a deal between Russia and Ukraine regarding the mutual protection of energy infrastructure, proposing security for Russian oil facilities in exchange for safeguarding Ukraine’s energy grid. The deal ultimately fell through.
In August 2024, Kirill Dmitriev took part in negotiations over the Fogel-Vinnik prisoner exchange, along with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.
Steve Witkoff also has deep ties in the Middle East, particularly with the region’s sovereign investment funds. From 2013 to 2023, he co-owned Manhattan’s Park Lane hotel with the Emirati fund Mubadala before selling it to a Qatari fund. During Trump’s first term, in 2018, lobbyists hired by Qatar reportedly arranged meetings between Qatari officials and 250 “Trump influencers” — including Witkoff, who at the time was still a businessman, not a diplomat. In 2024, Witkoff attended the Qatar Economic Forum.
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On February 12, 2025, following phone conversations with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump told reporters he planned to meet with the Russian president, likely in Saudi Arabia.
A source familiar with Kirill Dmitriev told Meduza that it would be inaccurate to call him a negotiator — his role was simply to facilitate contact. Dmitriev has maintained a connection with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser, since Trump’s first term. According to the source, it was through Kushner that Witkoff first connected with Dmitriev, and through Dmitriev that he was introduced to “other individuals” who ultimately arranged both the Fogel-Vinnik exchange and Trump’s phone call with Putin.