The Trump administration and the Kremlin are discussing the possibility of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia’s multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund, Russian state media quoted a Kremlin aide as saying, marking another U.S. concession to Russia in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that talks with the United States to lift sanctions on the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund “have been going on for some time,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.
“We don’t know what the outcome will be,” he added.
Ushakov said the fund’s CEO and special presidential envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, had been actively lobbying U.S. officials for sanctions relief.
The Biden administration imposed sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, calling it a “known slush fund” of President Putin and his aides.
CNN has reached out to the White House and the US State Department for comment.
The New York Times first reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration was considering lifting sanctions.
President Donald Trump has defended recent concessions he made to Russia on sanctions, which have drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle in Washington and driven a wedge between the United States and its Western allies.
Earlier this month, President Trump announced a deal allowing Russian diesel exports to global energy markets and waiving new sanctions related to Russia’s fossil fuel sales.
If the bill stalls, it would, among other things, impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods brought into the United States from the five largest importers of Russian oil or gas, sales of which are crucial to financing the Kremlin’s war machine.
The U.S.-Russia diesel deal includes a six-month suspension of fuel export sanctions to allow diesel sales at market prices, but experts have questioned the impact this will have on the global diesel market.
Russia banned diesel exports in early July after Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries caused widespread fuel shortages across the country.
The White House is seeking to ease pressure on U.S. oil and diesel prices ahead of next week’s crucial midterm elections.
President Trump also said his decision to waive some sanctions against Russia was to bring Russia to the negotiating table.
“I’m in the middle of negotiating a peace settlement for the war between Russia and Ukraine, and I don’t want to foolishly push Russia away from the negotiating table,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Oct. 18.
President Trump blamed Ukraine for high global fuel prices and increased pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call off strikes on Russian refineries, even as Russia continues to attack Ukrainian towns, cities and energy infrastructure.
There are growing fears in Kiev and Europe that the Trump administration will make further concessions to Moscow to get Putin to agree to a peace deal.
President Zelenskiy recently told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that immunity strengthened Putin’s war against Ukraine while Moscow failed on the battlefield.
Kiev has long advocated tougher sanctions on Russian energy exports.
Putin said the Kremlin was ready to resume trilateral peace talks between Russia, the United States and Ukraine after mid-November, at the request of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Russian leaders in St. Petersburg last week. During the meeting, President Putin expressed interest in restoring economic cooperation with the United States.
