Russia expects “progress” on economic talks with the US in the coming months, a Russian negotiator said Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, where top officials from both countries are meeting in what the Kremlin hopes will lead to a “restoration” of ties.
Since Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin last week and US officials made speeches indicating a change of course towards Russia, hopes have risen in Moscow that Washington could lift sanctions imposed over its Ukraine offensive.
“We have a very important track on the economy,” Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Moscow’s economic negotiator for the talks, told state TV.
“We have a series of proposals, which our colleagues are thinking about. And I think that there will, possibly, be progress in the not so distant future, in the next two-three months,” he added.
He did not say specifically what those proposals were or when any future talks on the economy would take place.
Dmitriev, who studied in the United States and previously worked for Goldman Sachs, is seen as an important negotiator for the Kremlin.
The West, led by the US, imposed a barrage of sanctions on Russia in 2022 for sending troops to Ukraine.
Moscow has massively ramped up spending on its military over the last three years, helping protect it from a downturn but triggering high inflation and imbalances at home.
Experts have said such high outlays on the army and weapons are not sustainable over the long term.
But Dmitriev repeated the Kremlin’s narrative that the West is the main victim of its own sanctions policy.
“It is important to start dialogue and say that the sanctions hit American companies more than Russia,” he said.
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