CIA director John Ratcliffe made a surprise, unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday, the first time America’s spy chief has visited Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Kremlin said Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials but did not meet President Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did tell reporters that Putin had been briefed on the outcome of Ratcliffe's talks.
While the visit has yet to be officially confirmed by the CIA, White House or Pentagon, reports of the “semi-secret mission” were “ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Westminster”, said Politico. “Next to nothing is known” about the trip but “analysts fear escalations against Baltic countries, or other Nato members”.
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What happened?
CBS News first reported that Ratcliffe had travelled to Moscow on Tuesday “for meetings”.
A US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a US diplomatic motorcade. Flight tracking data confirmed a large US military aircraft travelled from Washington to Russia via Latvia on Tuesday, departing later that day.
The US reportedly told Ukraine that a senior delegation would be travelling to Moscow and asked it to suspend strikes until the delegation’s departure, according to CBS.
What was the point?
In-person talks between high-level American and Russian officials are incredibly rare. And amid such secrecy “it was not immediately clear what the trip’s purpose is and whether any other senior US officials were part of the US delegation”, said The Washington Post.
John Foreman, a former British military attaché to Moscow, told BBC Radio 4’s “PM” news programme that the visit could be focused on “escalation management” given speculation that Russia could have been involved in recent drone activity in Germany. “The Americans don’t normally send such a high ranking official to Moscow unannounced at short notice unless something is up.”
The visit could also have been concerned with the release of US detainees being held in Russia, Foreman said. The CIA was involved in the 2024 prisoner exchange deal that saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released, while Ratcliffe played a role in the release of Russian-American ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina last year after she was jailed in Russia for allegedly supporting Ukraine.
Was it to stop an escalation by Russia?
With US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine remaining “mostly stalled, with the sides still far apart on core issues”, Ratcliffe’s visit comes as recent US intelligence assessments suggest that Vladimir Putin’s “risk calculus may be shifting”, said CBS News. The Russian leader appears “increasingly willing to authorise 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”.
