Putin envoy Dmitriev holds talks with US Treasury and Energy officials
A US official says the Washington meeting touched on possible US-Russia energy initiatives for the period after a Ukraine settlement.
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UpdateTuesday, September 29, 2026 at 8:05 AM ET
Dmitriev's trip to New York last week was arranged with Putin's approval and followed Putin's own meeting with US representatives at the Kremlin, both sides saying the aim was to keep the dialogue going, according to Reuters via Ukrainska Pravda. Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia struck two foreign-flagged ships near Odesa, a day after Russia claimed it had hit two Odesa-bound vessels, a claim Kyiv has not confirmed.
Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, met representatives of the US Treasury and Energy Departments in Washington on Monday, according to sources.
A US official called the talks constructive, the word used to describe nearly every round of contact between Dmitriev and US officials this year. The same official said the discussion covered possible US-Russia energy initiatives, but framed them as a postwar topic rather than a near-term change to sanctions or oil supply, Reuters reported.
Dmitriev's past contacts with the Trump administration ran through Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, not Treasury or Energy officials. Those talks produced a sanctions waiver for seaborne Russian oil meant to stabilize global energy markets, along with several prisoner exchanges. In March, a Dmitriev meeting with Witkoff and Kushner in Florida came days after the administration lifted some sanctions on Russian oil to ease pressure on global energy prices, according to the Moscow Times.
Monday's meeting pulls the Dmitriev channel into territory it had not occupied before, with the Energy Department's involvement pointing toward sanctions relief or energy cooperation rather than battlefield diplomacy, a track distinct from the harder line Putin has taken recently on Ukraine negotiations. With no detail yet on substance or outcome, the shift looks incremental rather than a breakthrough. Still, for anyone pricing in eventual sanctions relief or energy de-escalation, it is a marginally bullish sign that economic channels are staying open even as the Ukraine track remains stalled.