Bloomberg: Putin is assembling a heavyweight team for negotiations with Ukraine.

Putin is assembling a "heavyweight" team with decades of high-level negotiation experience to confront representatives of Donald Trump's administration regarding a peace deal to end Russia's war against Ukraine.

Source. This is reported by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the preparations.

Among them is Yuri Ushakov, his chief foreign policy advisor, who has been involved in diplomacy for over fifty years, as well as the "chief spy" Sergey Naryshkin, who served alongside Putin in the KGB.

Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard with ties to Putin's family, may also play a crucial role as an unofficial back-channel with Trump's negotiators, sources say.

The selection of highly skilled and experienced personnel underscores Putin's determination to secure a favorable outcome for Russia in these negotiations.

The inclusion of Dmitriev, with his experience in the U.S. and at firms like McKinsey and Goldman Sachs Group, suggests that Putin is prepared to adopt unconventional tactics with the unpredictable U.S. president.

In contrast, Trump's team lacks the same depth of experience in direct negotiations with Russia.

Given that the path to an agreement remains highly uncertain and Putin shows no willingness to make concessions, this could become a major issue at the negotiating table, Bloomberg reports.

The 77-year-old Ushakov has served as Putin's assistant for over a decade and was previously the ambassador to the U.S. from 1998 to 2008, providing him with in-depth knowledge of relations with Washington.

The 70-year-old Naryshkin has been a longstanding trusted associate of the Russian leader, working with him for more than four decades.

Ushakov "knows the American establishment well and has significant influence in Moscow," said Andrey Sushentsov, Dean of the Faculty of International Relations at the MDIMV University in the Russian capital. "He is the best person for 'big negotiations' in the classical sense."

Both Ushakov and Naryshkin participated in the early ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion in 2022.

On the other hand, Trump's unpredictability and his unconventional ideas, unlike those of the previous Biden administration, could give the American side an advantage, says Emily Ferris, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.

"This puts Russia in a more uncomfortable position as they will have to consider scenarios they haven't previously contemplated," she stated.

The 49-year-old Dmitriev was already involved in negotiations for the release of American schoolteacher Mark Vogel from a Russian prison this month, according to one acquaintance. White House special envoy Steve Vitkoff hinted at this, telling reporters that a "gentleman from Russia" named Kirill played a significant role in the process.

Dmitriev was born in Kyiv and moved to Russia after working at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs to work in a private equity fund. He has been managing the Russian sovereign fund since 2011.

He has "considerable experience in deal-making with foreign business partners," said Sushentsov about him.

Outside of Russia, he is known as a leading promoter of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine "Sputnik V."

Background. Recall that Trump's special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg stated that there would be Ukrainians, Russians, and Americans at the negotiating table—but not Europeans. According to him, there were many Europeans at the previous "Minsk-2" negotiations, but they failed.