The U.S. ambassador to Moscow, pushing to build business ties with Russia, is scheduled to join a panel discussion this month at the Kremlin’s premier economic forum with Viktor Vekselberg, an oligarch slapped with American sanctions and linked to payments to Donald Trump’s lawyer.
Jon Huntsman, appointed by Trump last year, has been encouraging American business leaders to attend the St. Petersburg forum for the first time since the Ukraine crisis, even as political tensions between the Cold War rivals continue to rise. The U.S. government had in past years actively lobbied executives to steer clear of President Vladimir Putin’s main annual pitch for foreign investors after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
