Top Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev was upbeat as he briefed reporters in Washington after his initial White House meeting. What he was upbeat about was US-Russian relations, he said, not about resolving Russia’s all-out onslaught on Ukraine.

Dmitriev, 49, the chief of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund since 2011, was appointed in February as Putin's special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation. WHY IS HE IMPORTANT?

The meeting between Kirill Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff was apparently the first time in years that a senior Russian official had traveled to the United States for talks with an American counterpart.