Jared Kushner participated in negotiations with Putin. 5 Facts about Trump's Son-in-Law

On December 2, special envoy of the President of the United States Stephen Witkoff and the son-in-law of the American leader Jared Kushner held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia. The meeting participants discussed the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. At the same time, the inclusion of Kushner, who does not hold any post in the American administration, in the delegation raised many questions. What Jared Kushner is known for is in the Izvestia article.

Fact 1. Descendant of a Jewish partisan from Poland

Jared's grandparents, Raisa Kushner and Joseph Berkovich, came from the city of Novogrudok, located in Belarus, which was then part of Poland. In 1943, Raisa, along with other Jews, escaped from the Nazi ghetto through a tunnel dug under a fence and hid in the woods. Then she joined a partisan detachment, where she met her future husband. In 1949, Raisa and Joseph Kushner moved to the United States with their daughter.

They had three more children in America, including Charles Kushner, Jared's future father. Charles Kushner is known as the founder of the Kushner Companies real estate development company. In 2005, he was sentenced to two years in prison — he pleaded guilty to 18 charges, including tax evasion, illegal contributions to election campaign funds and witness pressure. One of the episodes is related to the fact that Kushner, trying to blackmail his sister's husband, hired a prostitute for him, videotaped their date and sent it to his sister. In 2020, US President Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, and in 2025 made him ambassador to France and Monaco.

Fact 2. He took over his father's business at the age of 24

Jared Kushner was born in New Jersey and graduated from a local Jewish religious school and Harvard University. It was rumored that the young man, who was not particularly successful in high school, was enrolled in the university after his father made a generous donation of $ 2.5 million. Officially, these allegations have been denied. Already in his student years, Kushner began to deal with real estate transactions and was able to earn his first millions.

Fundamental request: The Russian Federation and the United States are discussing controversial aspects of the peace plan

Steve Witkoff meets with Vladimir Putin in Moscow

• While his father was in prison, Jared Kushner took over the management of the company. He was 24 years old at the time. Around the same time, he met his future wife Ivanka Trump, the daughter of another real estate mogul, Donald Trump. In 2006, Kushner went into publishing, buying The New York Observer. This newspaper became his mouthpiece in the real estate world of New York. One of the biggest moments in Kushner's career as a developer was the purchase of an office building (666 Fifth Avenue) for $1.8 billion, a record amount at that time for facilities of this type.

Fact 3. He moved from the camp of the Democrats to the Republicans

• Until 2009, Kushner actively supported the Democrats, then became a supporter of independent candidates, and then registered as a Republican. Kushner was a political adviser to Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. The young man became one of the key employees of his campaign headquarters, who brought Trump to the White House for the first time. The president's son-in-law, in particular, was called the architect of his victory in the so-called swing states, where the preponderance in electoral votes played a crucial role in summing up the voting results.

• In the first Trump administration, Jared Kushner took over as Senior Foreign policy adviser. The appointment was not hindered by the Harvard graduate's lack of diplomatic work experience, nor by the "skipping" of the standard procedure for approving him as an official of such high rank in the Senate. Kushner also had no skills in settling international conflicts.

Nevertheless, he played a significant role in the conclusion of the so—called Abraham Agreements, agreements on the normalization of relations between Israel and some Arab countries. Diplomacy was not his only field of activity: he worked on the reform of criminal law, invested in the development of a vaccine against Covid-19, and engaged in technological modernization in federal agencies.

Fact 4. An active investor in the Middle East

• When Trump returned to the White House for a second term, Kushner declined an official role in the administration. However, this fall, he played an important role in the negotiations on Trump's peace plan for Gaza. Kushner is described as an unsurpassed deal-making specialist: he succeeded where professional diplomats had failed for a long time.

On the brink of war: The US is trying to keep Israel and Hamas from a new escalation

American politicians made a series of visits to Jerusalem

Nevertheless, as during Trump's first presidential term, Kushner's diplomatic activities gave rise to talk about financial interests that might affect her. The fact is that the Gas agreements provide for the restoration of destroyed infrastructure, which may be of interest to Middle Eastern companies. At the same time, a number of countries in the region are investors in Affinity Partners, which Kushner founded in 2021. It is known that Saudi Arabia alone has invested at least $2 billion in it.

• There is an opinion that these investments, like many others, for example, from Qatar and the UAE, are an attempt to buy influence in Washington. Thanks to the funds raised, by the end of last year, the firm's total assets reached $4.8 billion, almost 99% of which were obtained from foreign sources. According to Forbes, Affinity Partners helped Kushner grow his personal fortune, turning him into a billionaire.

Fact 5. A negotiator without a position

• Even before the 2024 election, the possibility was discussed that Trump might make his son-in-law Secretary of state. Judging by media reports, this idea was voiced by a number of influential Republican Party functionaries. However, this assumption was not confirmed, perhaps because of the Kushner investment company's too close ties with the Persian Gulf states.

• At the same time, it was Kushner, not US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who flew to Moscow on December 2 along with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. In the capital, they held hours-long talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. Analysts say that Kushner's presence at the meeting is of great importance — it is possible that Trump trusts him even more than Witkoff himself.