Latest news with #Kyiv-born
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Putin's negotiator Dmitriev pushing for release of $280 billion in frozen Russian assets, Ukrainian intel chief says
The head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, is spearheading efforts to secure the release of some $280 billion in frozen Russian assets, Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) Chief Oleh Ivashchenko told Ukrinform in an interview published on May 26. Kyiv-born Dmitriev was previously appointed by President Vladimir Putin as a special envoy for economic affairs, tasked with facilitating dialogue with the Trump administration. "Dmitriev's main task is to get Russia's frozen assets out. This is a colossal amount for them," Ivashchenko said. Western governments froze around $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Kyiv has repeatedly urged the G7 and EU to move from freezing to confiscating those funds and using them to finance Ukraine's defense and post-war recovery. Western governments have primarily relied on reallocating interest income generated by the frozen funds to support Kyiv. Ivashchenko accused Dmitriev of trying to reframe the international conversation away from Russia's war against Ukraine. "Dmitriev is trying to show the U.S. that let's not focus on war and peace, let's look at the bigger picture. We have the Arctic, we have oil, gas, we have Siberia with resources," he said. President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking on April 9, also said that Dmitriev has been tasked with conveying Moscow's economic proposals to Washington. Dmitriev previously played a key role in Russia's backchannel diplomacy with the Trump team after the 2016 U.S. election. After his May 19 call with Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump said Russia was ready to engage in major trade deals with the U.S. once the war ends. "There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth," Trump said in a Truth Social post. "Its potential is unlimited. Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on trade, in the process of rebuilding its country." Ivashchenko warned that these overtures from Dmitriev are part of a deliberate effort to deflect attention from Ukraine and gain leverage in broader geopolitical negotiations. "The issue of Ukraine is being blurred," he added. Read also: West no longer imposing range restrictions on arms for Ukraine, Germany's Merz says We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Russia seeks to shield billions of frozen funds by diverting focus from war in Ukraine
Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's envoy for economic cooperation with foreign states, is attempting to shield Russia's frozen assets from punitive measures. Source: Oleh Ivashchenko, Head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service, as reported by Ukrinform Quote: "If we take, for example, Russia's special representative for economic cooperation with foreign states, Kirill Dmitriev, he is lobbying global commerce matters. His main task is to shield Russia's frozen assets from punitive measures. This is a huge sum for them – US$280 billion. Dmitriev is trying to tell the United States: 'let's not focus solely on war and peace – let's take a broader view. We have the Arctic, we have oil and gas, we have Siberia with its resources. Do you need rare earth metals? Let's talk.' And this results in the Ukrainian issue being blurred, pushed into the background." Details: Ivashchenko stressed that in this context, "our task is to ensure that the Ukrainian issue remains at the top of the agenda". Read more: Officer Dmitriev: how a Kyiv-born financier became the main negotiator between Putin and Trump Background: Russia expected that a number of US companies would resume operations in the Russian market by the second quarter of 2025. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sister of Putin's top negotiator made secret visit to Ukraine in February
Natalia Dmitrieva, the sister of Russian ruler Vladimir Putin's main negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, travelled to Ukraine using a US passport in February 2025. Source: American journalist Katie Livingstone, citing her sources, on X (Twitter) Quote: "Natalia Dmitrieva, the sister of top Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, travelled to Ukraine as recently as February 2025 – on an American passport, multiple sources have confirmed to me. Border records show that Dmitrieva entered Ukraine on 8 February and departed on 12 February, just days before negotiations between Russia and the US were set to take place in Saudi Arabia on a potential Ukraine settlement." Details: One of Livingstone's sources reported that Dmitrieva had previously left Ukraine for the US at the beginning of 2022, following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, together with her mother. "Natalia's activities while in Ukraine or purpose for travelling there are unknown," Livingstone noted. The journalist also reported that although earlier records indicate both Natalia and her mother Tamara Shevchenko previously held Ukrainian passports, they have entered Ukraine in recent years using US passports. "It is unclear how Natalia and Tamara have American passports or whether they are currently living in the US," Livingstone said. "It also looks like the Dmitriev family may own more assets in Europe and Ukraine than were previously known," she added. Read more: Officer Dmitriev: how a Kyiv-born financier became the main negotiator between Putin and Trump Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Witkoff, Putin's envoy Dmitriev meet in St. Petersburg
A Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, in St. Petersburg on April 11, Russian state media TASS reported. Axios, citing its source, said Witkoff is also expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin later in the day. Putin is currently in St. Petersburg for a scheduled meeting on the development of the Russian Navy, according to the Kremlin. Dmitriev, the Kyiv-born head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was appointed by Putin as special envoy for economic affairs to lead Moscow's outreach to the Trump administration. The talks come as Trump's push for a ceasefire remains deadlocked. Russia has rejected a full 30-day truce agreed upon by Washington and Kyiv in March and continues to violate the partial energy ceasefire that followed. Trump, who initially avoided criticizing Putin, has since adopted more aggressive language, saying he was "pissed off" and "very angry" over Moscow's continued attacks on Ukraine and Putin's personal hostility toward President Volodymyr Zelensky. Despite repeated threats of additional sanctions and tariffs, the U.S. has yet to implement new punitive measures against Moscow. The April 11 meeting follows a second round of diplomatic talks in Istanbul between U.S. and Russian officials focused on embassy operations. The war in Ukraine was not reportedly discussed. Putin and Witkoff have already met before. Their growing engagement underscores Moscow's interest in using Trump's mediation efforts to reshape its relationship with Washington — potentially trading peace concessions for economic incentives. Read also: Russia asks US to lift sanctions on its largest airline We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It is about all of humankind': Ukrainian violinist Valentina Goncharova on her cosmic call to compose
On 7 October 2023, Kyiv-born, Tallinn-based violinist and electronic musician Valentina Goncharova 'woke up in a bad state', she says. 'I felt something terrible was happening on our planet … I called my sister and brother in Ukraine. Nothing had happened to them. But I continued to feel some kind of uncontrollable violence. 'An inner impulse told me: 'You must urgently return to work.' I turned on the electric violin, put on Tibetan percussion instruments, and began recording,' she says. Then, later that day, she opened the news 'and found out what had happened in Israel'. These recordings became Campanelli, Goncharova's first original album in more than 30 years. Her violin unspools its laments; her melodies unspool like vocal balladry. But Goncharova – framed by bookshelves, wearing a headband and robes – seems frank and unsentimental, even when talking about spiritual matters. 'The idea was to convey the life story of a human being; how a person starts their life and how this life ends,' she says, speaking in Russian through a translator. 'But when I finished, I understood that it was a story not just of one person, but it was about all of humankind.' She may not have previously completed a new album in three decades, but Campanelli is Goncharova's fourth release in five years, following two collections of archive recordings on Ukrainian label Shukai, and Ocean, her epic symphony for electric violin on Hidden Harmony which she began in 1988 and completed in 2022. Since then her music has been reviewed and internationally recognised in the press, and she has played live in cities including London and Berlin. These releases were a long time coming for someone born in Kyiv in the 1950s, who trained in Soviet Russia and has played music all her life. She was singled out for her musical aptitude at a young age. 'They would say that I had a very good memory, and I had perfect pitch,' she says. She was assigned the violin because of her small hands. She trained in Kyiv, then at the conservatory in what was then named Leningrad (now St Petersburg), and first played with an orchestra aged 12. After their studies, the young musicians were assigned to postings across Russia. Goncharova and her friend, the composer and pianist Svetlana Golybina, 'asked to go to Mongolia, Ulan-Ude city', she says. It was then an autonomous Soviet republic, but more importantly, 'it had the only Buddhist temple in the Soviet Union. It was the reason I wanted to go. We attended a congress of lamas and the Dalai Lama came. We felt their intentions, their interests. Since then Buddhism has always been very close to me. Traditionally speaking, I'm Catholic, but not strictly – I'm open to other religions and other mystical teachings.' After a year in Mongolia, Goncharova returned to Leningrad, which gifted another life-changing experience: seeing Vyacheslav Ganelin's free jazz trio at a festival. It opened her ears to wider sonic possibilities. 'It seemed similar to what we studied,' she says, 'but it was different. It was more holistic, more organic, more expressive.' She fell in with the Soviet underground rock scene, including the collective Pop-Mechanika, and got to know composers including Sergey Letov. But in 1984 she moved to Tallinn with her husband, Igor Zubkov, and lost her connection to those scenes. 'Free jazz wasn't developed in Tallinn,' she says. 'There was no audience and no musicians. I thought, 'I have to start playing free jazz alone.' I needed four or five 'voices'. So my husband bought me a tape recorder.' Goncharova and Zubkov are close collaborators. He is an engineer who helps to realise her musical visions by setting up ways to overdub with basic equipment, electrifying and building her string instruments, and constructing contact mics for them to record the sounds of household objects. She is clear that even with the electronics, she always wanted her violin to sound like a violin, but these bespoke modifications mean the tone of her playing is utterly distinctive, with a tactility like raw silk: fine and luxurious; soft but with grain. Sign up to Sleeve Notes Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week after newsletter promotion The epic symphony Ocean is unquestionably her magnum opus, but after completing it in 2022 she stopped composing, finding that her ideas just wouldn't coalesce – until Campanelli emerged fully formed. Ocean had a cosmic scope, articulating 'the source of all forms that receive life within space and time. Ocean was all-encompassing – it was like the universe. So any other idea seemed too small next to it. It was difficult for me to get into a mood where another idea could become worthy – could look as global and as important as those ones.' Relatively speaking, Campanelli's quest to articulate life as a whole is almost provincial. The title means bells or bell-ringer in Italian (a language Goncharova speaks). It opens and closes with the gentle herald of struck Tibetan bowls, which give way to wavy glissandos and resonant strata of featherlight strings. 'When we come to this world, something happens, some kind of contact is established between the highest realm and the physical realm,' she says. 'Then when something happens in our life – something important – the sound of bell ringing is what we hear. When we leave this life, maybe that bell will ring a little bit longer, because it has to embody everything: what was at the beginning, what was in the middle and what is at the final stage. It's not something that stops, it's some sort of transition, maybe to an eternal life.' Goncharova considers herself a pacifist. 'Any war is disgusting to me,' she says when I ask about the ongoing conflict in her native Ukraine. 'Over the last three years, I have realised life in the world has changed. It has changed for every person.' I ask if she considers her music to be spiritual. 'Yes,' she says decisively. 'But if I highlighted this, people might reject [my music]. They wouldn't accept it. Those people who want it, they can find the spiritual in it. You can't really live outside of the spiritual if you're a musician.' Campanelli is out now on Hidden Harmony
