Sanctions Relief That Is No Longer Taboo

Four days after the offensive against Ukraine began, the United States and its allies placed the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) on their sanctions list. On October 28, a Kremlin adviser, Yuri Ushakov, acknowledged that its easing was under discussion, without prejudging the outcome.

A Modest Fund on the Macroeconomic Scale

Created in 2011, the RDIF claims 2,300 billion rubles, or $29 billion in investments since its inception, of which about 80% comes from partner funds. Among them is the Saudi public investment fund. For economist Iikka Korhonen, of the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies, the fund's size is "minuscule" on a macro scale. On strictly financial grounds, the stakes of an unblocking therefore appear limited.

A Negotiation Channel Before Being a Portfolio

The RDIF's value lies elsewhere. Its chief executive, Kirill Dmitriev, has been the Kremlin's economic envoy since Donald Trump's return to the White House. He has met repeatedly, over sixteen months, with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He also played a decisive role in the agreement authorizing the import of Russian diesel into the United States.

The mechanism is legible. Sanctions serve as bargaining chips in a broader rapprochement. Lifting those targeting the main interlocutor's fund would amount to legitimizing that channel and reopening to American capital a vehicle historically oriented toward sectors deemed strategic by Vladimir Putin. Dmitriev owns it: "the ice has begun to break," he declared on October 16, announcing further initiatives.

Resistance in Washington

This trajectory runs into bipartisan opposition. The diesel agreement is sharply criticized by Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans, who see it as a breach of the spirit of a recently passed sanctions law. Several even raise the prospect of criminal liability for American importing companies. A former senior National Security Council official sums up the stakes: unblocking the RDIF would amount to prioritizing American investment in projects close to the Kremlin rather than support for Ukraine. The United States had already restricted American loans and equity stakes in the fund in 2015, after the annexation of Crimea.

What Remains Unknown

No decision has been made. Peace proposals vary, and many lean in Moscow's favor, without knowing the concessions Russia would be prepared to offer. For Korhonen, lifting sanctions without obtaining anything in return would amount to a "confused" policy.

One can therefore retain a cautious conclusion. The debate over the RDIF is less about amounts than about the legitimacy of an interlocutor and the sequence of normalization. Its outcome will depend on Congress's ability to constrain the executive branch and on the guarantees Moscow will or will not agree to give.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence and verified by our editorial team.