Putin's Special Envoy Dmitriev in US for Talks

Top U.S. and Russia envoys plan to meet in Miami on Saturday, despite talks having taken a downward turn this week.

Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special presidential representative for investment and economic cooperation, is flying to Florida to meet with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, a White House official confirmed to POLITICO.

“Arrived in the U.S. to continue the U.S.–Russia dialogue — visit planned a while ago based on an invitation from the U.S. side,” Dmitriev wrote on X. “Such dialogue is vital for the world and must continue with the full understanding of Russia’s position and respect for its national interests.”

Until recently, Witkoff has taken the lead in executing Trump’s agenda with Russia. He has met with Putin inside the Kremlin multiple times and Russia is known to favor engaging with him over others.

But after Trump announced last week that he and Putin agreed to a second summit in Budapest, he put Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge of preparing for the meetings. Those plans quickly stalled following a call between Rubio, who is far more of a Russia hawk than Witkoff, and his Russian counterpart on Monday.

With Trump soon departing for Asia, Witkoff is again on the front lines of negotiating. Dmitriev, as the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, has particular interests in establishing further U.S.-Russia business relations.

The meeting comes after a series of tense exchanges that culminated in Trump issuing a package of sanctions against Russia, marking a drastic change in his foreign policy approach that had so far focused on verbally coaxing Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

The sanctions hit two of Russia’s oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, and resulted in outrage from the Kremlin, with Putin calling it an “unfriendly act.”

“I just felt it was time. We waited a long time,” Trump said Wednesday on why he issued the sanctions.

Trump was first optimistic about meeting with Putin in Budapest in the near future after speaking to the Russian leader on the phone on Thursday last week.

The president was coming off successfully negotiating the release of 20 Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity, and the White House was optimistic about Trump’s chances of bringing the three-year war in Ukraine to a close, inviting Zelenskyy for another meeting at the White House last Friday.

But the Budapest plan quickly got scrapped after Rubio’s conversation Monday with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, who made clear that Russia’s position hadn’t changed since the August meeting in Anchorage.

Lavrov particularly took issue with Trump’s call for immediate ceasefire, as Russia has demanded dealing with the “root causes” of the war before ending attacks on Ukraine.