"Gentleman Kirill played an important liaison role between the US and the Russian Federation"

Source: www.rucriminal.info

After the intensification of contacts between Russia and the US and the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, the name of the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev surfaced in the media. Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Steve Whitconff noted in an interview with CNN that "In Russia, there is this gentleman named Kirill, and he was closely involved (in the release of US citizen Mark Vogel). And he played an important role, a liaison role between the two sides." Obviously, Whitconff was referring to Kirill Dmitriev.

Rukriminal.info reminds that the RDIF and the name of Kirill Dmitriev were mentioned daily by the media during the acute coronavirus pandemic in connection with the promotion of the Sputnik vaccine.

Just a few years ago, everyone was puzzled as to how Kirill Dmitriev, who had recently worked in Kyiv at the investment fund of Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the second president of Ukraine, managed to become a person close to Putin. The answer is quite simple: to do this, you just need to marry Natalia Popova, the closest friend of Vladimir Putin's youngest daughter Katerina Tikhonova, and then you can enter not only big business, but also big politics. Katerina Tikhonova actively promoted her classmate and friend Natalia Popova and her husband Kirill Dmitriev. According to a source on the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, Kirill Dmitriev was introduced by Katerina Tikhonova to Vladimir Putin, whom he charmed with his eloquence, Ukrainian assertiveness, ability to paint large-scale pictures and talk only about projects worth billions and tens of billions of dollars. And most importantly, talk only about prospects and not mention problems, that is, only what Putin likes. Thus, a simple financial consultant Kirill Dmitriev gained access to Putin and, unlike other officials, already received an audience several times a year. Kirill Dmitriev worked as the director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) - then a structural division of VEB bank, but having gained strength, he took RDIF out from under VEB and made it an independent structure. RDIF was injected with 10 billion dollars from the National Welfare Fund, which was enough for Kirill to turn around. But the real ownership structure of RDIF is unknown. Katerina Tikhonova did not forget about her friend Natalya Popova. Natalya, who previously worked as a freelance correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, was appointed deputy of Katerina Tikhonova at Innopraktika, a member of the boards of directors and supervisory boards of more than 10 organizations, and is the host of several TV shows. In 2019, the position of ombudsman for the protection of high-tech companies was created specifically for Natalya Popova. Having gained access to Putin's body, Kirill Dmitriev launched into a frenzied activity and began to replace the work of both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. If initially Kirill focused on the Presidential Aide Sergei Ivanov and the head of the Presidential Administration Anton Vaino, then later he began to give orders on behalf of Putin and reported "upstairs" with greatly exaggerated information about his personal successes and the achievements of the RDIF. Thus, referring to the instructions of the president, Kirill Dmitriev contacted the leaders of a number of Persian Gulf states, signed exclusive agreements with the world's largest investment funds, giving the exclusive right to interact only with a single Russian organization - the RDIF, prohibiting contact with any other Russian companies without the personal permission of Kirill Dmitriev. In this way, Kirill Dmitriev placed himself above all other Russian structures. As businessmen say, any issues can be resolved through Kirill Dmitriev, but since it is almost impossible to get to a meeting with him, they resolve issues through his wife or Katerina Tikhonova. Kirill loves to play to the crowd, shocks with his contacts, loves to mention serious names and demonstrate his superiority over the interlocutor, on whom he pours out a huge array of information and astronomical figures without stopping. Kirill has developed a particularly close relationship with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, with whom he is in constant contact and through whom he resolves many of his issues. According to a source at Rucriminal.info, in 2017, Kirill Dmitriev repeatedly tried to establish contacts with Trump's entourage, which led to a scandal. In January 2017, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, who also heads the sovereign investment fund of Abu Dhabi Mubadala, a partner of the RDIF, organized a meeting between Kirill Dmitriev in the Seychelles with the founder of the infamous private military company Blackwaters, Eric Prince, one of the sponsors of Trump's election campaign. At the same time, in January 2017, Dmitriev met in Davos with Trump's adviser Anthony Scaramucci, but in the summer of 2017, this meeting became the subject of a US Senate investigation into interference in the US presidential election. According to available information, at the same time, in 2017, Kirill managed to meet with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. When organizing a number of Putin's visits in recent years (before the pandemic and the start of the Cold War), the RDIF began sending official letters to companies participating in the business program of the visit, where it demanded in an ultimatum form that a third party, the RDIF, be included in the list of signatories, only then would these agreements be guaranteed success and they would be officially signed in the presence of top officials. Thus, during Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan in December 2016, in the presence of top officials, only those agreements were signed that Kirill Dmitriev personally approved and included the RDIF in the list of participants in the agreements. Thus, Kirill Dmitriev demonstrated to the leaders of the two countries that all bilateral cooperation projects are implemented exclusively by the RDIF. They say that Kirill Dmitriev personally deleted Gazprom and the chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, former chairman of the Russian government Viktor Zubkov from the list of agreements signed in the presence of the leaders. After all, Gazprom did not include a third party in its agreement – ​​the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and refused to pay for fictitious mediation. This story shocked Staraya Ploshad (the Presidential Administration), but they are also powerless, because they are not friends with Putin's family. A clear fee is set for mediation in signing documents, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) takes an average of 20% for mediation and becomes a participant in projects to which it often has nothing to do. But Kirill Dmitriev personally reports to Putin about all this, about hundreds of large-scale projects, that all hundreds of projects from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean have been implemented personally by him and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

Kirill Dmitriev's star has risen. His task, as he says, using direct access to Vladimir Putin, is to earn billions of dollars and get on the Russian FORBES list. As a joke, but God forbid anyone should hear, Kirill Dmitriev, due to his influence on the president, is called "a modern Rasputin".

Confirmation has arrived about Trump's intention to hold a meeting with Putin in Saudi Arabia. Kirill Dmitriev has already appeared somewhere.

Timofey Grishin

Source: www.rucriminal.info