A Kremlin envoy on Thursday praised the Trump administration for listening to “Russia’s place on many points” after two days of conferences in Washington that marked the primary time in years {that a} senior Russian official had traveled to the US for talks with American counterparts.
The envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, met within the White Home on Wednesday with President Trump’s senior aide on Russia negotiations, Steve Witkoff, in line with a U.S. official in Washington with data of the talks.
Mr. Dmitriev, the pinnacle of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and President Vladimir V. Putin’s particular consultant for funding and financial cooperation, mentioned he held additional conferences on Thursday “with key members of the Trump administration,” with out figuring out them.
He mentioned he had mentioned financial issues and claimed there was “a fantastic want by American corporations to return to Russia.” He additionally mentioned he had mentioned “the potential for cooperation on uncommon earth metals, within the Arctic and in numerous different sectors.” And he mentioned Russia was working to revive direct flights to the US, which banned Russian planes from its airspace after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“After all, there are disagreements on numerous factors,” Mr. Dmitriev, talking in Russian, informed reporters in Washington, in line with a video of his remarks distributed by a Russian information company. “However there’s a course of and a dialogue that, in our understanding, will assist overcome these variations.”
U.S. officers didn’t instantly touch upon the substance of the talks.
Mr. Dmitriev arrived in Washington with two aides on Tuesday, and he and Mr. Witkoff met within the White Home on Wednesday afternoon, mentioned the U.S. official. The 2 officers continued speaking within the night.
The talks seemed to be the most recent step in Russia’s effort to enhance ties with the US. The rapprochement seemed to be hanging within the steadiness after Mr. Trump mentioned final weekend that he was “very offended” at Mr. Putin for remarks that the Russian president had made on Ukraine.
Mr. Dmitriev’s go to got here regardless of sanctions imposed on him by the Biden administration that described him as “a known Putin ally.” The assembly additionally happened as Mr. Trump excluded Russia from the roster of countries hit by the steep tariffs unveiled on Wednesday.
The Treasury Division suspended sanctions on Mr. Dmitriev for seven days to permit him to go to, and the State Division then granted him a journey waiver and a visa, mentioned the particular person in Washington.
The White Home Nationwide Safety Council referred questions in regards to the go to to the State Division on Thursday morning, and the State Division then referred inquiries to the White Home.
Mr. Dmitriev, a 49-year-old former banker who studied at Stanford and Harvard, and labored at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, has emerged as a key emissary for Mr. Putin within the Kremlin’s efforts to construct an in depth relationship with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Dmitriev’s message, tailor-made to Mr. Trump’s pecuniary mind-set, has been that the US stands to revenue from nearer ties with Russia.
In February, Mr. Dmitriev labored with Mr. Witkoff to help broker a prisoner exchange that led to the release of Marc Fogel, an American instructor imprisoned in Moscow.
In talks with Mr. Witkoff and different American officers in Saudi Arabia days later, Mr. Dmitriev claimed that U.S. companies had incurred $324 billion in losses by pulling out of Russia after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Dmitriev said in a social media post earlier Thursday that his conferences have been about restoring the U.S.-Russian dialogue. The connection had been “utterly destroyed beneath the Biden administration,” he wrote, and the US may benefit from cooperation “in worldwide affairs and within the economic system.”
Mr. Dmitriev didn’t say whether or not he had mentioned the negotiations over the struggle in Ukraine between Moscow and Washington. These talks seem to have run aground in latest days, after Mr. Putin rebuffed the proposal by Mr. Trump and Ukraine for a 30-day cease-fire.
However Mr. Dmitriev’s go to indicated that the Trump administration was persevering with to reverse the Biden administration’s diplomatic isolation of Russia.
In one other signal of constant engagement between Washington and Moscow, Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s international minister, mentioned this week that preparations have been underway for a second spherical of talks geared toward easing the work of American and Russian diplomats working in one another’s nations.
U.S. and Russian officers first met in Istanbul on Feb. 27 for talks on unwinding years of tit-for-tat restrictions that lowered the American mission in Russia and the Russian mission in the US to skeleton staffs.
“We will see indicators of progress and our U.S. companions’ willingness to raise these obstacles to the traditional work of diplomats in our respective capitals,” Mr. Lavrov mentioned.
