CIA chief held Moscow talks with Russian spies, skipped Putin meeting
What's new: The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin was briefed after the visit, while Trump called the trip “semi-routine” and tied it to ending the war in Ukraine.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence officials in Moscow this week but did not see President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, confirming an unusual high-level contact between Washington and Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ratcliffe spoke with Russian security services and that Putin was briefed afterward, but he gave no details on the agenda. President Donald Trump described the trip as “semi-routine” and said the United States was working to end the war in Ukraine. The visit was Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia and the first publicly known Moscow visit by a CIA director since William Burns met Putin in November 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.