Russian wealth fund sees U.S. companies returning in 2025

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's sovereign wealth fund expects a number of U.S. companies to return to Russia as early as the second quarter of 2025, its chief said on Wednesday, after the most senior U.S.-Russian meeting on the Ukraine war since it began in 2022.

At the talks, Russia set out its conditions, demanding NATO scrap its 2008 promise to one day give Ukraine membership of the U.S.-led military alliance and dismissing the idea that NATO member forces could be keepers of the peace.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly stated he will end the war in Ukraine, said he might meet Russian President Vladimir Putin this month and dismissed Ukraine's concern about being left out of the talks in Saudi Arabia.

With the U.S. and Russia speaking again after what officials said was the biggest crisis in relations since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, some in Russia hope that economic ties will also be resumed.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund "expects a number of American companies to return to the Russian market in the second quarter of 2025," chief Kirill Dmitriev was quoted as saying by TASS.

"But the return process for American companies will not be easy, as many niches are already taken."

After the West slapped the toughest ever sanctions imposed on a major economy, Russia moved swiftly to get around restrictions and domestic producers snapped up market share previously taken by some big international companies.

The talks in Riyadh yielded agreement from the U.S. and Russia to form negotiating teams for future meetings and work to restore the normal functioning of each other's diplomatic missions.

"This is the beginning, God forbid that it will continue to be so, of painstaking work not only to restore bilateral relations, but to solve global problems that were created by the previous U.S. administration," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik radio.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy postponed his visit to Saudi Arabia in order to not give "legitimacy" to Tuesday's meeting between U.S. and Russian officials, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO allies last week it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join the NATO alliance as part of a negotiated settlement with Russia and that Kyiv's hopes of restoring its internationally recognised borders were an "illusionary goal".

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Lincoln Feast.)