When Vladimir Putin lands in Alaska on Friday for his high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump, he will be flanked by some of the most powerful figures in the Kremlin’s inner circle – a team of seasoned political operators, financial strategists and diplomatic enforcers who have helped shape Russia’s foreign and economic policy for more than two decades.
The delegation, a mix of old guard loyalists and younger financial power-brokers, hints at Putin’s desire to woo Trump and dangle financial incentives for siding with Moscow on Ukraine.
Trump will also be accompanied by a cadre of his most trusted advisers, among them a property mogul, a former Fox News host and the country’s top diplomat.
The US leader has long prized loyalty over experience, and many in Kyiv and the west are uneasy about the lack of seasoned Russia experts with real influence in the White House.
Ultimately, though, the summit will come down to a face-to-face meeting between the two men – and putting Trump alone in a room with Putin has always been an unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, affair.
Russian delegation
- Sergei Lavrov Photograph: Shamil Zhumatov/AFP/Getty Images
The 75-year-old has been in post since 2004, making him one of the longest-tenured senior diplomats in the world. Known for his gravel-voiced delivery and combative press conferences, Lavrov has been central to crafting and defending Moscow’s foreign policy from the Iraq war to the annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A career diplomat who joined the Soviet foreign service in 1972, he spent a decade as Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations before assuming his current post.
Once regarded in western capitals as a pragmatic and highly capable diplomat, Lavrov has adopted an increasingly confrontational and at times belligerent tone in tandem with the radicalised politics of Putin’s Kremlin.
- Yuri Ushakov Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AP
Ushakov, 78, is a veteran presidential aide and one of Putin’s most trusted foreign policy advisers. A career diplomat with fluent English and a long focus on Washington, he served as Russia’s ambassador to the US from 1998 to 2008.
Known for his calm demeanour and deep institutional memory, Ushakov has served as a behind-the-scenes strategist, coordinating Putin’s international engagements and frequently supplying the president’s talking points to state media.
- Andrei Belousov Photograph: Alexey Danichev/Sputnik/Kremlin pool/EPA
The 66-year-old is one of the few technocrats to ascend to the Kremlin’s top security posts.
His surprise appointment in 2024 to replace the longtime incumbent Sergei Shoigu was seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to rein in corruption in the armed forces and to accelerate the transformation of Russia’s militarised economy into a full-scale war economy, now expanding at double-digit rates.
An economist by training, contemporaries describe him as a deeply religious and loyal technocrat who keeps Orthodox icons and theological books in his modest office.
- Kirill Dmitriev
Russian Direct Investment Fund chief
Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/Reuters
At 50, Dmitriev is a relatively new kid on the Kremlin block, yet has emerged as a key operator between Moscow and the business-oriented Trump administration. US-educated, with stints at Stanford University and Harvard Business School, Dmitriev heads the Kremlin’s $10bn sovereign wealth fund and has openly boasted of his links to American business elites.
He has personal ties to Putin’s family – his wife, Natalya Popova, is a close friend of one of the president’s daughters.
In Alaska, he is expected to pitch ambitious plans for economic and infrastructure cooperation in the Arctic, tempting Trump with the prospect of a lucrative entente between two great powers.
Dmitriev’s rapid rise and overt outreach to Washington have unsettled the Kremlin’s old guard, with reports of friction with senior foreign ministry figures, including Lavrov.
- Anton Siluanov Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
Siluanov, 62, has been in his post since 2011 and is a key architect of the Kremlin’s efforts to keep the economy afloat in the face of the invasion of Ukraine and western sanctions.
Siluanov has been tasked with making Russia’s economy as sanction-proof as possible, and he popularised the term “fortress economy” in Kremlin circles to describe this drive for sanction resilience.
But while sanctions have not brought Russia’s economy to its knees, growth has slowed sharply, and Siluanov’s surprise inclusion in the Alaska delegation signals Moscow’s priority of securing the lifting of western restrictions as part of any peace deal.
US delegation
- Marco Rubio Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Once a staunch critic of Trump, the 54-year-old former Florida senator is now one of his closest allies.
Over time, Rubio’s influence has grown, with his appointment in May as acting national security adviser making him the first person since Henry Kissinger to hold both posts simultaneously. His more traditional hawkish stance on China and Russia has made him a valued interlocutor in Europe and Kyiv, but it could set him on a collision course with pro-Russia voices in Trump’s inner circle.
- Steve Witkoff
Special envoy to Ukraine and the Middle East
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Trump’s 68-year-old special envoy is a name that sends shivers through Kyiv and European capitals.
Appointed in 2025, he has swiftly become Trump’s de facto interlocutor with Putin, despite having no diplomatic experience. In past interviews, Witkoff – who travels to the Kremlin alone and without his own interpreters – has echoed Moscow’s talking points on the war and appeared to legitimise Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine.
A former New York real-estate lawyer turned property tycoon, Witkoff met Trump in the 1980s while working on one of his Manhattan deals. The two have remained close ever since, with Witkoff fiercely loyal to the president.
- Pete Hegseth Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
From the outset, former Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth’s tenure as Trump’s secretary of defence has been dogged by controversy. The 45-year-old’s appointment drew scrutiny over past allegations of sexual misconduct, excessive workplace drinking and a call for women to be banned from military service.
Hegseth’s position was further undermined when he sent detailed information about a planned attack in Yemen to a private Signal chat group, to which an American journalist had been added in error.
Linked by critics to extremist strands of far-right Christianity, Hegseth has nonetheless retained his post, buoyed up by his steadfast loyalty to Trump.
In conversations with European allies, he has made clear that Washington is no longer “primarily focused” on European security, saying that the burden of defending Ukraine will fall increasingly on Europe itself.