Dimitri Simes

Political scientist

Dimitri Konstantinovich Simes (Дмитрий Константинович Саймс; born October 29, 1947) is a Russian American author, editor, and political pundit. He is the former president and CEO of The Center for the National Interest, where he served from 1994 to 2022. Simes was selected to lead the Center by former President Richard Nixon, to whom he served as an informal foreign policy advisor and with whom he traveled regularly to Russia and other former Soviet states as well as Western and Central Europe.

Simes was born in Moscow to prominent human rights lawyers in the Soviet Union. He is a naturalized citizen of the United States. Simes's mother, Dina Kaminskaya, was born in Yekaterinoslav and his father, Konstantin Simis, was born in Odesa, UkrSSR. In 1977, his mother was expelled from the Soviet Union for working as a lawyer for Soviet dissidents. In February 2015, Simes met with Russian president Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials in Moscow. As publisher of The National Interest, Simes was involved in arranging Donald Trump's April 27, 2016, speech at the Mayflower Hotel. In the speech, Trump outlined his vision for American foreign policy and called for greater cooperation with Russia. In September 2018, historian Yuri Felshtinsky published an article about Simes' past encounters with unregistered Russian agent Maria Butina. Simes serves as a moderator of the Moscow based political program Big Game on Channel One Russia, together with Vyacheslav Nikonov. In June 2023, Simes hosted the annual St Petersburg Economic Forum in Russia and was described by The Telegraph as “an ethnic Russian US citizen who has become a cheerleader for the Kremlin after previously advising Richard Nixon on foreign affairs.” The Kremlin had hoped to find a high profile host such as an anchor of a major TV network, however, due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine no high profile host agreed to come, so Simes was invited instead.