Vladimir Putin is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against U.S. President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
They include Yuri Ushakov, his chief Kremlin foreign-policy adviser who has more than half a century of involvement in diplomacy, and his top spymaster, Sergei Naryshkin, who served with Putin in the Soviet KGB, according to people familiar with situation, who asked not to be identified discussing internal information.
Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard with ties to the Russian president’s own family, may play a key role as an unofficial back-channel with Trump’s negotiators, people familiar with the preparations said.
