Officer Dmitriev: How a financier from Kyiv became the chief negotiator between Putin and Trump.
One of the representatives of the Russian Federation at the meeting, where the parties "agreed to agree" and prepare for a meeting of the leaders, was 49-year-old Kirill Dmitriev - a native of Kyiv, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard universities, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a close associate of the Russian dictator.
Bloomberg refers to him, Putin's assistant Yuri Ushakov, and the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, as "heavyweights." However, it is Dmitriev who plays a key role in unofficial contacts with Trump's team.
How did Dmitriev rise from a physics and mathematics school to degrees from the world's most prestigious universities, the "roof" of the FSB, the status of a "fixer" for the Kremlin, and Putin's envoy? How did his friendship with the Russian ruler's daughter help him, and why was he unable to bring the "Sputnik V" vaccine to the global level?
Kyiv, education in the USA, Pinchuk's investment fund, and GRU identification
Kirill Dmitriev was born in 1975 into a Ukrainian family of a biologist. He studied at a physics and mathematics school and wanted to pursue education in the USA. In the early 1990s, Dmitriev met an American family that came to Kyiv through a "people's diplomacy" program. They suggested what a foreigner needed to do to become a student in the United States.
Initially, Dmitriev enrolled at Foothill College in California, and two years later became a student at Stanford University, where he graduated in 1996 with honors, earning a bachelor's degree in economics.
"I had no relatives in the States; I was one of the few foreign students who received a full scholarship for the entire duration of my studies," Dmitriev later recounted while heading the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
After obtaining a prestigious education, the future envoy of Putin began working in New York at Goldman Sachs, and then at the consulting firm McKinsey, which financed his studies at Harvard Business School. There he received an MBA - also with honors.
In one interview, he recalled that after graduating, he was offered to continue working at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. However, the native of Kyiv decided to build his career in Russia.
In 2000, at the age of 25, Dmitriev moved to Moscow and became the deputy general director of the IT company IBS. It was at that time that he was first mentioned in the Russian media.
In an interview with the newspaper "Kommersant," IBS founder Anatoly Karachinsky asserted that Russian emigrants should return home, that the government "is finally trying to communicate with business," that "it is time to become a wealthy country," and that for this "the help of the best emigrants" is needed, specifically mentioning Dmitriev.
After moving to Moscow, Dmitriev settled into a two-room apartment and bought a used Land Rover. He held a Ukrainian passport but registered the vehicle under Russian officer ID No. АМ1198939, issued in 2000.
Two years later, "officer" Dmitriev became the director of investments at Delta Private Equity - a subdivision of the fund "Russia - USA," created during Bill Clinton's presidency. The latter was subsequently transformed into the American-Russian Fund for Economic and Legal Development, which was recognized as an "undesirable organization" in Russia in 2015.
At Delta Private Equity, he worked until 2007, handling major deals, including the sale of the TV channel TV-3 to the holding "Profmedia" for 530 million dollars.
In 2007, Dmitriev returned to Ukraine and headed the investment fund Icon Private Equity of Viktor Pinchuk, which had a capital of about one billion dollars. The fund invested in Russia as well. There, he conducted several large deals: the sale of Delta Bank to General Electric, Delta Credit to Société Générale, and shares of "STS Media" to Fidelity Investments.
7In 2010, Dmitriev was included in the list of young global leaders by the World Economic Forum in Davos. A year later, he returned to Russia and headed the newly established Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Subsequently, having entered Putin's inner circle, Dmitriev spoke about Ukraine as follows: "There were so-called democratic changes as a result of the Orange Revolution, which led to a three- to fourfold increase in corruption, to a wild battle among these democratic clans, which were only united at the beginning of the struggle, but after they came to power, they began to devour each other and in the end lost. The democratic idea in Ukraine is largely discredited precisely because of the Orange Revolution."
Friend of Putin's daughter and Kremlin investor
Both Russian and British media agree: Dmitriev's star moment in Russia came after his acquaintance and subsequent marriage to Natalia Popova - a close friend and business partner of Putin's daughter Ekaterina Tikhonova.
"Once, Popova lived modestly with her parents in Dedovsk (a town 40 km from Moscow), worked as a freelance journalist for "Komsomolskaya Pravda," a clerk at Impexbank, and was happy with her Mitsubishi Carisma bought on credit. But after meeting Putin's daughter, her life took a sharp upward turn," wrote The Insider.
They studied together at Moscow State University (MSU). Now Popova is the deputy of Putin's daughter at the "Innopractika" fund. According to her words, it was Tikhonova who "invited her to serve." Dmitriev is a member of the fund's board of trustees.
8The friendship of his wife with Tikhonova made Dmitriev a "powerful figure in the Kremlin." Even before the wedding, Popova introduced her fiancé to Putin's daughter and her then-husband Kirill Shamalov, who in turn connected him with the then head of the Presidential Administration under Medvedev, Sergey Ivanov, who took Dmitriev under his "roof."
The Russian government then proclaimed a course towards modernization of the economy, improving the investment climate, and creating the institute of investment ombudsmen. Elvira Nabiullina, who was then the head of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, was looking for someone to head the state investment fund with foreign participation.
"I saw that he was communicative, had excellent English, had extensive connections, and was professionally knowledgeable about the investment business," recalled former head of VEB.RF Vladimir Dmitriev (not a relative), who was one of the initiators of the fund's creation.
A good recommendation for Dmitriev was given by Pinchuk. The interview in the Kremlin went well, and in 2011 he became the head of the RDIF with a charter capital of 10 billion dollars.
"President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin supported the project and set the task of creating a model that would be the result of an open dialogue with leading global investors and would enjoy their support," Dmitriev boasted.</