Putin's envoy Dmitriev believes there may be peace in Ukraine within a year

By Yousef Saba and Gleb Bryanski

RIYADH/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on Wednesday during a visit to Saudi Arabia that he expected the war in Ukraine to end within a year.

Dmitriev was speaking after meeting officials from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration in the United States last weekend. His visit there followed an announcement that a summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest had been postponed.

"We are sure that we are on the road to peace and as peacemakers we need to make it happen," Dmitriev, who is also the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told an investment conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Asked whether peace in Ukraine was possible within one year, Dmitriev said: "I believe so."

While in the U.S. Dmitriev said that Moscow and Washington were close to a "diplomatic solution" to the war, which began in February 2022 when Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

Dmitriev is part of Putin's negotiating team in talks with the U.S., alongside Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.

WARNS OF SANCTIONS DRIVING UP FUEL PRICES

While Dmitriev was visiting the U.S., Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called him a "Russian propagandist" for saying in interviews with U.S. media that new U.S. sanctions on Russian oil firms would lead to higher prices at American gas stations.

On Wednesday Dmitriev reiterated Russia's warning that U.S. sanctions will lead to higher global oil prices and increased fuel prices in the U.S., suggesting this could impact the Republican Party's performance in the midterm elections.

Dmitriev said that Bessent's remarks had played in his favour at home, where he has sometimes come under fire from Russian nationalists for seeking greater cooperation with the Trump administration and promoting peace with Ukraine.

"It was actually good for me because most people in Russia call me a 'peace propagandist' or sometimes even, God forbid, 'President Trump's team propagandist'," Dmitriev said.

As Trump has toughened both his rhetoric and his stance towards Moscow, Putin has publicly flexed his nuclear muscles with the test of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on October 21, nuclear launch drills on October 22, and a test of a nuclear-powered Poseidon super torpedo on October 28.

Dmitriev touted cooperation at the Riyadh conference between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world's top holders of natural resources, saying this would help make the world more secure.

"People are right now focused on the regional conflict that exists around Russia but we do not want it to escalate into a bigger conflict. And for that we have to do better than we have been doing, not worse," Dmitriev said.

(Reporting by Yousef Saba and Jana Choukeir; Writing by Gleb Bryanski; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones)