CIA director Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence in Moscow, Kremlin says

US asked Ukraine to suspend strikes ahead of Moscow delegation’s visit

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on Tuesday for an unannounced meeting with Russian intelligence services, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday. The trip is among the highest-level US visits to Russia since President Donald Trump returned to office, coming as US-brokered peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine appear to have stalled.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters at his daily press briefing that Ratcliffe held “contacts with the intelligence services” during the visit, but he did not elaborate on what the talks addressed. “There were contacts with the intelligence services,” Peskov said. “There were no meetings with the president of Russia. That’s all I can say on the subject. Naturally, President Putin is briefed immediately about everything.”

Peskov’s comments came in response to a question from a reporter at the Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, who asked whether Putin was informed about the CIA chief’s meetings and “at what level” they were held. When BBC Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg asked Peskov directly what topic was discussed, Peskov declined to elaborate. “I have nothing to add to what I’ve already said on the subject,” Peskov replied.

It was too early to assess what impact the meeting would have on repairing US-Russia bilateral relations, Peskov said. “How much this will impact the overall process of recovering our bilateral relations from the profound crisis they’re currently in, it is premature to say.” Contacts between intelligence agencies, he added, are “a positive phenomenon, a positive process” that often continues “even during the most difficult moments” in relations between two countries.

In-person talks between high-level American and Russian officials remain rare. The last CIA director to visit Moscow was William Burns, who traveled in November 2021 and warned Russian officials against sending troops into Ukraine. Weeks after that meeting, the Kremlin launched its full-scale war on Ukraine.

Since then, the US has maintained strained relations with Russia, which has faced international isolation and economic sanctions over the war. Trump met Putin at a summit in Alaska last year, but the meeting did not produce a breakthrough, and subsequent US-led peace talks between Russia and Ukraine appear to have stalled.

Ahead of the trip, the US told Ukraine that a senior delegation would be traveling to Moscow and asked Kyiv to suspend strikes until the delegation had left, a senior Ukrainian official told CBS.

John Foreman, who served as British military attaché to Moscow between 2019 and 2022, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme that the US does not normally send such a high-ranking official to Moscow unannounced at short notice “unless something is up.”

BBC News has contacted the CIA, the White House, and the Pentagon for comment. None had responded at the time of publication.