The leading investment manager of the Russian government, who has Harvard and McKinsey credentials and fluent English, brought a simple printing to Tuesday’s talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia.
His message: pulling out of Russia with rage over the invasion of Ukraine, US companies had been removed from piles of cold, hard cash.
“The losses of US companies from industry”, read the document, which Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign fund, showed a New York Times reporter. “Total losses,” one of the columns said. The amount at the bottom: 324 billion dollars.
In appeal to President Trump, the Kremlin has reset his desire to win. President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday praised the US delegation in Riyadh not to criticize Russia as the previous administrations did – there was no “condemnation of what happened in the past, he said.” He added that in addition to the geopolitical, the two countries were now moving towards the deeper commitment to space, the economy and “our common work in world energy markets”.
Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, said after Tuesday’s meeting that “there was a great deal of interest” in the room “to abolish artificial barriers to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation” – an obvious reference to the elevation of US sanctions.
It is noteworthy that Trump’s administration seems to be dealing with Russia’s message without requiring a front payment. After Ukraine proposed the possibility of Mr Trump’s natural resources agreements, the finance minister prompted him to sign the country away from his half mineral wealth. And Mr Trump continues to depict American allies as freeloaders, threatening more invoices and demanding to pay more for their own defense.
With Russia, on the other hand, the administration seems to signal that the one thing Mr Putin has to do to pave the way for a complete return to Moscow’s relationship with Washington ending the war in Ukraine. Many Europeans and Ukrainians are afraid that Mr Trump will look for a peace agreement on Russia’s terms, especially after the US president’s proposal on Tuesday that Ukraine is to blame for the Russian invasion.
Foreign Minister Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the end of the war would be “the key that unlocks the door” for “possibly historical economic partnerships”. He echoed Mr Lavrov implying that the United States could reduce sanctions against Russia as part of such an agreement.
“There are sanctions imposed as a result of this conflict,” Mr Rubio said. “I would tell you that in order to end any conflict there must be concessions on all sides.”
For the Kremlin, a key envoy to Mr Trump’s financial mind was Mr Dmitriev, a young ally of Putin and a former banker specializing in the development of Russian business businesses around the world. He has close ties with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and pushed the growth and global distribution of Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.
In 2016, Mr Dmitriev tried to use business contacts to build a rear channel to Mr Trump in the name of “reconciliation” between the United States and Russia, according to a report on Russian intervention in Robert S elections. .
In Mr Trump’s first term, this reconciliation never came. This time, Mr. Dmitriev had already better luck.
Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, praised Mr Dmitriev and Prince Mohammed for their role to help ensure Russia’s release last week of Marc Vogel, an American teacher imprisoned in Moscow. In Tuesday’s talks, Mr Dmitriev was part of the Russian delegation, using interviews with Western media to promote business opportunities in the Russian oil sector and the Arctic.
“The economic route allows diplomacy, allows communication, allows for a common victory. It allows the success of the common,” Mr Dmitriev said. “And we saw that President Trump focuses on success.”
He said the US oil companies “have really benefited from the Russian oil sector,” adding, “we believe that they will be back at some point.” The document that brought Tuesday’s meeting with the United States showed that industries with the biggest supposed losses between US companies that left Russia were “Informatics and Media” at $ 123 billion and “consumer and health care” in $ 94 billion.
While US trade with Russia before Ukraine -related sanctions began in 2014, it was tiny compared to trade with China or the European Union, large energy companies made huge investments and US consumer goodies and technology companies They saw Russia as an important market.
Mr Dmitriev said the calculation took into account not only fire sales and recordings, but also “forgotten profits”. Western companies that have abandoned Russia have officially noted more than $ 100 billion in losses since the start of the war, with many of their award -winning assets sold under in burnt terms dictated by the Russian state.
Many leaders in the world have shifted to a message focusing on businesses to cover an American president whose foreign policy has little in common with the emphasis on his predecessors in democracy, human rights and the transatlantic alliance. But among the governments that attract to influence Mr Trump’s view of the War in Ukraine, Moscow stands alone in her success to get him bite.
Ukrainian officials have made the opportunity to luper US energy and mineral agreements after the end of the war a central part of an offensive charm with Mr Trump that began last fall. Instead of getting the invitation of cooperation, Mr Trump appeared to decide that Ukraine’s natural resources should serve as a repayment for previous US support.
In Kiev last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine rejected a proposal from Finance Minister Scott Bessent under which the United States would receive 50 % interest in all Ukraine fossil resources.
Europeans have also tried to use the agreements to get Mr Trump’s attention. During the World Economic Forum in Davos in late January, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Europe would be willing to promote the United States bill to continue providing weapons to Ukraine using its defense industrial base .
Such invitations did nothing to shift Mr Trump’s view of Europe as exploiting US security aid, nor did they prevent him from excluding Europeans from his administration talks with Russia.
Russia, on the other hand, has attracted the attention of Trump’s administration – both with the prospect of business agreements and with Mr Trump’s prospect of being considered a peacemaker, ending the war in Ukraine.
“Trump is not very interested in long -term strategic goals,” said Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who resigned from the war in Ukraine. “Putin tries to play in this feeling and interested him very quickly of materials that are immediately clear in Trump.”
Nataliya Vasilyeva He contributed a report from Constantinople and Paul from Berlin.
