'There is no ceasefire. Attacks are ongoing': how Putin's envoy played the US over Ukraine

Kirill Dmitriev's meetings with US officials in the White House last week went largely below the radar. And deliberately so.

- Peter Beaumont

The dapper investment envoy to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who also serves as a key negotiator for Moscow on Ukraine, posted an image of his flight plan on social media to make the point that a senior sanctioned Russian official was being welcomed by the Trump administration. Otherwise, details of what was discussed remain opaque.

The most senior Russian official to visit the US since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dmitriev - a member of Putin's closest inner circle - is well cast to appeal to Trump and an administration whose world view is crudely transactional.

The head of Russia's $10bn sovereign wealth fund, Dmitriev was born in Kyiv during the Soviet era and US-educated, including spending time at Stanford and Harvard Business School.

Crucially, it is Dmitriev who has been tasked by Putin with keeping Donald Trump onside amid the US president's self-described anger with Russia over the status of a US mediated "ceasefire" that exists largely in name only amid continuing attacks.

All of which, said Dmitriev last week conforming to a familiar Kremlin playbook was the fault of everyone but Russia.

"Today," Dmitriev wrote on Telegram on Thursday, "numerous forces interested in maintaining tension stand in the way of restoring constructive cooperation.

"These forces are deliberately distorting Russia's position, trying to disrupt any steps towards dialogue, sparing neither money nor resources for this."

There was little mystery over who he meant by those "forces": Ukraine and its European allies, some of whose frustration with Russia spilled over into the open on Friday.

"Our judgment is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet," the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, told reporters at Nato headquarters, describing the "ceasefire" and continuing negotiations.