CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow for secretive talks with Russian intelligence officials, a visit confirmed by the Kremlin on Wednesday. The high-level trip follows a U.S. request for Kyiv to suspend strikes ahead of the delegation’s arrival, though Russian officials confirmed Ratcliffe did not meet with President Vladimir Putin.
Secret Arrival and Kremlin Confirmation
The clandestine nature of the trip began unraveling early Tuesday morning when flight tracking data from Flightradar24 and social media reports showed a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane traveling to Latvia and onward to Moscow. A U.S. diplomatic motorcade was subsequently spotted driving through the Russian capital as the agency’s director held discussions with local security services.
While the CIA did not comment on his trip, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the meetings to reporters, noting that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his visit. Russian commentators openly mocked initial Kremlin statements claiming ignorance of the arrival after images of the aircraft appeared on social media, questioning how a plane carrying the head of the CIA could arrive in the Russian capital without the Kremlin knowing. A day earlier, the Kremlin spokesman had said he knew nothing about Ratcliffe’s visit after the U.S. military aircraft landed.
Behind the Closed Doors in Moscow
Peskov told reporters that Vladimir Putin was briefed on the talks, but he said it was too soon to predict whether the intelligence officials’ meeting might help get bilateral U.S.-Russian relations out of what he called a “deep crisismore than four and a half years into Russia's war on Ukraine. Peskov also told reporters that Ratcliffe did not meet with the Russian president, though he called the U.S. spy chief's talks with Russian intelligence a
positive development.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Ratcliffe had left Moscow on Wednesday, after his first known trip to Russia as CIA director. He has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts during his tenure, CBS News’ sources said, and CBS News was first to report Ratcliffe’s previously secret visit to the Russian capital.
Kyiv Asked to Pause Strikes Ahead of Delegation
Ahead of his trip, the U.S. told Ukrainian officials that a senior delegation would be traveling to Moscow, and asked Kyiv to suspend strikes until the delegation’s departure from Russia, according to a senior Ukrainian official. A Reuters report stated the U.S. had asked Ukraine to avoid air strikes near Moscow, St. Petersburg, and northern Russia for three days because a senior U.S. official was traveling to Moscow to reduce risks during the official’s visit. Russian state media reported that the U.S. military aircraft left Moscow for Riga on Tuesday evening. No Ukrainian drone attacks were reported in Moscow that day, and U.S. media said Washington had asked Kyiv to temporarily suspend such attacks.
Precedents and Broader Alliance Concerns
Recent U.S. intelligence assessments indicate Putin’s risk calculus may be shifting, with the Russian leader potentially increasingly willing to authorize provocative actions against NATO members — including hybrid operations and other deniable measures short of conventional military action — in order to test the resolve of the alliance and the Trump administration.
The mission evokes memories of November 2021, when former CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow, when he met with senior Russian officials and spoke directly with President Vladimir Putin to warn him against invading Ukraine. About three months after that meeting, the Russian president launched Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Even after that, there continued to be contact between U.S. and Russian intelligence and military officials.
U.S.-mediated peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have largely stalled, with the two sides far apart on core issues. Details of the purpose of Ratcliffe’s latest visit have not been disclosed, and there was widespread speculation that he may have sought to warn Russia against further escalation in the Ukraine war. The CIA has played a role in recent U.S.-Russia detainee exchanges, including the April 2025 release of a U.S.-Russian dual national Ksenia Karelina, whose case Ratcliffe personally negotiated. The agency was also involved in the 2024 prisoner exchange that secured the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan. It was not immediately clear if the CIA had any role in another exchange that a Russian official said took place Wednesday, where Reuters quoted Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova as saying 10 prisoners of war from each side were exchanged during a handover in Belarus, which would be a relatively low number compared to previous swaps. Lantratova, speaking on Russia’s Zvezda TV network, did not say if there were any senior officers among the prisoners exchanged on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Russia and Iran’s close ties, among others, have strained ties between the Trump and Putin administrations, with Iran having supplied drones to Russia while Ukraine has accused Russia of helping Iran militarily, though Moscow denies any such assistance.
