A Kremlin envoy on Thursday praised the Trump administration for hearing “Russia’s position on many issues” after two days of meetings in Washington that marked the first time in years that a senior Russian official had traveled to the United States for talks with American counterparts.

The envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, met in the White House on Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s senior aide on Russia negotiations, Steve Witkoff, according to a U.S. official in Washington with knowledge of the talks.

Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for investment and economic cooperation, said he held further meetings Thursday “with key members of the Trump administration,” without identifying them.

He said he had discussed economic matters and claimed there was “a great desire by American companies to return to Russia.” He also said he had discussed “the possibility of cooperation on rare earth metals, in the Arctic and in various other sectors.” And he said Russia was working to restore direct flights to the United States, which banned Russian planes from its airspace after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Of course, there are disagreements on various points,” Dmitriev, speaking in Russian, told reporters in Washington, according to a video of his remarks distributed by a Russian news agency. “But there is a process and a dialogue that, in our understanding, will help overcome these differences.”

U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the substance of the talks.

Dmitriev arrived in Washington with two aides on Tuesday, and he and Witkoff met in the White House on Wednesday afternoon, said the U.S. official. The two officials continued talking in the evening.

The talks appeared to be the latest step in Russia’s effort to improve ties with the United States. The rapprochement appeared to be hanging in the balance after Trump said last weekend that he was “very angry” at Putin for remarks that the Russian president had made on Ukraine.

Dmitriev’s visit came despite sanctions imposed on him by the Biden administration that described him as “a known Putin ally.” The meeting also took place as Trump excluded Russia from the roster of countries hit by the steep tariffs unveiled Wednesday.

The Treasury Department suspended sanctions on Dmitriev for seven days to allow him to visit, and the State Department then granted him a travel waiver and a visa, said the official in Washington.

The White House National Security Council referred questions about the visit to the State Department on Thursday morning, and the State Department then referred questions to the White House.

Dmitriev, 49, a former banker who studied at Stanford and Harvard universities, and worked at McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs, has emerged as a key emissary for Putin in the Kremlin’s efforts to build a close relationship with the Trump White House.

Dmitriev’s message, tailored to Trump’s pecuniary mind-set, has been that the United States stands to profit from closer ties with Russia.

In February, Dmitriev worked with Witkoff to help broker a prisoner exchange that led to the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher imprisoned in Moscow.

In talks with Witkoff and other U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia days later, Dmitriev claimed that U.S. companies had incurred $324 billion in losses by pulling out of Russia after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.