The American plan to end the war in Ukraine was subjected to widespread criticism, especially from Europeans and even from some American representatives. Its critics considered that it was nothing but a Russian plan adopted by the American administration, as it achieves almost all of Russia’s goals.
But many may not know anything about the Russian figure who negotiated with the administration of US President Donald Trump, and perhaps convinced it to “adopt” the Russian vision.
Dmitriev, architect of the plan
With the unveiling last weekend of the American plan to end the war in Ukraine, the name of Kirill Dmitriev suddenly came into the spotlight, and he was widely described as the architect of the plan.
Media reports said that Dmitriev himself was the one who leaked the plan document to the media, considering that the Russian proposals formed the main foundations of the plan.
According to a report by writer Briony Gooch in the British newspaper The Independent under the title “A blacklisted Russian official is behind Trump’s peace plan in Ukraine,” American officials and lawmakers expressed their concern about the possibility of Russia’s involvement in preparing the plan after it was revealed that the Trump administration held meetings with a Kremlin official listed on the American blacklist.
Dmitriev is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and is the CEO of the Russian Sovereign Investment Fund. Since February 23 of this year, he has also held the position of Special Presidential Envoy for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation.
He has several qualifications that enabled him to play the role of the Russian mediator with the American administration. He lived for a long time in the United States, received his education at Stanford and Harvard universities, and worked at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.
His marriage to a childhood friend of one of Putin’s daughters made him belong to a select circle of individuals capable of conveying the Kremlin’s true positions abroad without going through official diplomatic channels.
In addition to the above, Dmitriev has been able since 2017 to build bridges with the emerging Trump team at the time, especially with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special envoy Steve Witkoff.
According to a report by the French newspaper Le Parisien entitled “Dmitriev, the Russian mediator who whispered Moscow’s demands in Washington,” the current plan was matured during meetings between the three men that lasted for 3 days in the city of Miami, Florida, at the end of last October.
During those negotiations, the Russian mediator was able to present a very accurate vision of what Moscow considered acceptable, as a basis for the final plan that was presented to end the war in Ukraine.
The plan – according to what was revealed by a Wall Street Journal report – included a ban on Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), its surrender of the Donbas region, and a radical reduction of the Ukrainian armed forces, a list of demands that are in line with Putin’s official positions.
According to an article by French writer Alice Barbier published by Les Echos newspaper, although Dmitriev was for a long time considered a financial technocrat who lacked any formal training or diplomatic experience, it turned out that he was the true inspiration for the peace plan in Ukraine announced by the American administration.
The writer pointed out that Dmitriev, who is considered an expert in behind-the-scenes negotiations, has recently appeared on social media, where his posts carry excerpts from American media that support the Kremlin’s positions, or words of praise for the positions of the White House or its advisors.
Dmitriev is also actively promoting his own initiatives to revive relations between Moscow and Washington and partnership projects between the two parties.
The Russian who whispers in Trump’s ear
Although Dmitriev is on the blacklist in the United States, and he and his fund have been subject to US sanctions that prevent citizens and companies from dealing with them since 2022, the doors of Washington have been opened for him in recent months to lead negotiations regarding Ukraine.
The American press began calling him “the whisperer in Trump’s ear” after he issued a special exception allowing him to enter the United States, according to what Reuters quoted an American official as saying.
According to the same Reuters source, the Trump administration’s discussions with Dmitriev have raised concerns among those working in the intelligence services, as Dmitriev had previously exploited his position in the Russian Direct Investment Fund to achieve breakthroughs with various Western governments and companies.
A report by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller published in 2019 on the Trump team’s relations with Russia stated that Dmitriev discussed US-Russian relations in a 2017 meeting with Erik Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater and a Trump ally.
In recent years, Dmitriev has appeared on various American television channels and at events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, to promote strengthening trade relations between the United States and Russia.
According to a report by journalist Paul Kirby from the BBC, entitled “Dmitriev: Propaganda for Putin or a key to peace with Ukraine?” Dmitriev, in his capacity as head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, was able to tempt the current deal-obsessed US administration with major investment promises.
He proposed establishing a partnership between the Russian sovereign wealth fund and American companies in the field of developing rare metal deposits, and he also proposed joint energy projects in the Arctic.
Dmitriev also offered billionaire Elon Musk a partnership to create a small-scale nuclear power plant for a mission to Mars.
This is in addition to a proposal to work on a huge project related to building a railway tunnel linking the two countries under the Bering Strait, to be called the “Putin-Trump” tunnel, and its costs are estimated at 8 billion dollars.
According to the article by French journalist Barbier, although the idea of the Bering Strait was considered old-fashioned, technically complex, and even impossible for engineers to implement, it received wide international media coverage and attracted the attention of the Trump administration.
The idea also contributed – according to the author – to overcoming a critical stage in bilateral relations after the “cancellation” of the Budapest summit and the subsequent negative shift in Trump’s position and his announcement of imposing sanctions on Russian oil companies.
In the same context, the BBC report states that Dmitriev played a role in securing the release of an American teacher from a Russian prison last February, a role that Witkov praised, as he told reporters on the occasion, “There is a gentleman from Russia, named Kirill, who played a major role in this matter. He was an important interlocutor who bridges the rapprochement between the two sides.”
From Kyiv
One of the strange contradictions is that Kirill Dmitriev, who today seeks to divide and weaken Ukraine and seize a large part of it for Russia, is one of the people of Kiev who was born there, raised there, studied in its schools, and worked in its companies.
According to a report by Paul Kirby from the BBC, one of Dmitriev’s friends claims that he participated in pro-democracy protests in Kiev before the fall of the Soviet Union when he was fifteen years old.
A local newspaper at the time also quoted Dmitriev as saying, in emphasis on national identity, “Ukraine has a long history as an independent state before it became part of the Russian Empire.”
Dmitriev was born in 1975 in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and according to people who knew him in his childhood, he was a diligent student obsessed with the United States.
A report by the Russian affairs editor in the British newspaper The Guardian, Pyotr Sauer, quotes Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Ariev, who was in the same school year as Dmitriev, saying, “He was very arrogant…but he was very methodical, and if he wanted to achieve something, he went for it.”
Dmitriev was one of the first Soviet exchange students from Ukraine to visit the United States, where he was hosted by a family in New Hampshire in 1989. He attended Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, then transferred to Harvard, where he obtained an MBA.
Dmitriev made his name early as an entrepreneur, gaining experience at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. He moved to Moscow in 2000 when he was 25 and became executive vice president of an IT company.
According to the Guardian report, Dmitriev’s real start in business was not in Moscow or New York, but rather in Kiev.
From 2007 to 2011, he ran Aikon, a Ukrainian investment fund that manages nearly $1 billion, most of it owned by billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
Dmitriev then returned to Russia, where he convinced the Kremlin to launch the Russian Foreign Investment Fund, which would attract American, European, and Gulf capital to Russia.
Despite the education and subsequent job opportunities that Ukraine gave him, Dmitriev is now classified as one of Ukraine’s staunchest enemies, and Kiev has issued severe sanctions against him.
Finally, this overwhelming appearance of Dmitriev in the current American peace plan, in parallel with the almost disappearance of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, confirms what analysts have recently said about Lavrov’s influence diminishing in favor of Dmitriev.
Previous media reports spoke of a conflict between the two men and the shake-up of Lavrov’s standing with Putin, due to the failure of the preparations that Lavrov was leading with his American counterpart, Marco Rubio, to hold a second summit between the Russian and American presidents in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.