The special envoy of the Russian president Vladimir Putin for investments and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitrievsaid today that he has continued talks with representatives of the administration of President Donald Trump in the United States.

Dmitriev told Reuters on October 24 that he was in the US for a meeting that had been planned long ago.

“We have been negotiating with representatives of the US government for the third day while we are in the United States,” Dmitriev said in a post on the Telegram app.

“Any attempt to put pressure on Russia is simply futile,” Dmitriev said, adding that some forces were trying to disrupt the dialogue between Moscow and Washington.

Dmitriev, who studied at Stanford and worked at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, is among the members of the Russian elite who know the US very well, having close relations with important members of the Trump team.

THE Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies on Wednesday in a sharp policy shift in Moscow’s war in Ukraine, sending global oil prices up nearly 5 percent on Thursday and some major Indian refiners to begin considering cuts in imports from Russia.

But oil prices fell yesterday, Friday, as the market has reservations about Trump’s commitment to sanctions on Russian oil companies. Russia is the second largest oil exporter in the world.

Putin said on Thursday that Moscow would never bow to pressure from the US or any other foreign power, and warned that it would respond “overwhelmingly” to any military strikes deep inside Russia.

Dmitriev said Russia’s economy is in “good shape” with low debt — and that this information should be passed on to the US.

In 2022, the year Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, the economy shrank 1.4%, but has since performed better than the Group of Seven (G7) average, recording growth of 4.1% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024. The economy ministry predicts growth this year will fall to 1.0%.

“We confirm that a solution to the Ukrainian conflict is possible only if the root causes of this conflict are eliminated,” Dmitriev said.