Putin's secret dealmaker emerges from the shadows in Ukraine peace talks

Sergei Beseda, known to the CIA as 'the Baron,' also figured in one of the world's biggest prisoner swaps

- Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw & Thomas Grove

The Riyadh Ritz-Carlton was under lockdown last month and Russia-U.S. talks over the fate of Ukraine were entering their 13th hour when two wooden doors flung open to reveal the reclusive spy general helping lead the Kremlin's negotiations.

Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda marched forward until he saw cameras flashing, then shuffled awkwardly and offered a tight smile. One of Russia's most powerful spies, rarely photographed and yet for decades chosen to lead Vladimir Putin's most sensitive operations, had become a public figure.

At this time last year, the career spy known to the CIA as "the Baron" was engaged in the kind of hyper-secretive business that had consumed most of his career—meeting the agency's officials every few weeks in hotels booked under false names to negotiate the largest prisoner swap in U.S.-Russian history. That exchange, conducted Aug. 1, freed 24 prisoners including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

At the time, the Biden administration warned the Journal that the mere public mention of Beseda's name could blow up one of Washington's only remaining backchannels with the Kremlin at a time of war—and harm talks to free Americans.

This year, the 70-year-old veteran intelligence chief is very publicly back in those same hotels to handle peace negotiations with the Trump administration over Ukraine, which could potentially herald a tectonic realignment of the U.S. toward Russia. Special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Friday to attempt to advance the talks directly with Putin.

Beseda's appointment shows how Putin's spy services are supplanting the foreign ministry at high-level international negotiations—something security analysts say has never happened, even during the height of the Cold War.