The U.S. Called It Putin’s ‘Slush Fund.’ Now Trump May Drop Sanctions on It.

The Trump administration is exploring a new concession to Russia: lifting sanctions on the country’s flagship government investment fund, long viewed by U.S. officials as one of the Kremlin’s most powerful tools of international influence.

Russian officials have pushed for the move as part of broader talks about the fund’s involvement in shipping Russian diesel fuel to the United States, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

A U.S. official confirmed that the administration was assessing the fund’s application for sanctions to be removed through established procedures as part of an effort to “improve U.S.-Russia relations and help end the war.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, praised the fund’s chief, Kirill Dmitriev, as “a helpful envoy” to U.S. negotiators in discussions to end the conflict.

The consideration of more sanctions relief for Russia, which has not been previously reported, shows how the Kremlin is using a recent flurry of diplomacy over the war in Ukraine to advance an agenda that appears to have little to do with securing peace.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump’s envoys and Mr. Putin have discussed the sale of part of a Russian oil giant to a well-connected investor group; an effort to produce natural gas in Alaska, from which several executives resigned amid concerns about hidden Russian financing; and a proposal to increase Russian gas exports to Europe that has stunned European governments.

Removing sanctions on the multibillion-dollar fund, called the Russian Direct Investment Fund, would be a significant unwinding of the yearslong U.S. effort to use economic pressure to get Russia to change its behavior. The fund has invested billions of dollars in Russian companies, often alongside investors from the Middle East and elsewhere, pushing to expand Russia’s global influence.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on the fund days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, calling it “a slush fund” for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that was “emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy.”