The Kremlin has sent its chief negotiator to Washington to salvage relations with US President Donald Trump, The Moscow Times reported today. Kirill Dmitriev's trip to the US comes after Trump imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil and canceled a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Budapest.

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Dmitriev's arrival in Washington was first reported by CNN, citing its anonymous sources. The visit was also confirmed by sources at the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. According to Axios, Dmitriev is scheduled to meet with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Miami on Saturday.

Dmitriev, 49, who studied at Harvard and Stanford University in California, is close to Putin despite his family ties; he is married to a friend of Putin's younger daughter, Yekaterina Tikhonova, The Moscow Times noted. But Dmitriev faces a difficult task in salvaging relations with the Trump administration, which have been on the decline since Putin's refusal to end the war in Ukraine. After talks with the Russian leader, which have been ongoing since the winter, Trump has concluded that Putin is pulling his leg. Trump's disillusionment reached a peak when he realized that every meeting with Putin was followed by new Russian attacks on Ukraine.

Dmitriev was included in Trump's negotiating team in February, along with Putin's adviser Yuri Ushakov and intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin. He was the first Russian official to visit Washington in April. He presented proposals for joint Russian-American projects, from Arctic development to rare earth mining to the construction of an undersea tunnel between Chukotka and Alaska.