CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Moscow, Russia, for meetings on Tuesday, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News.
News of his trip came after a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted flying into a Moscow airport Tuesday morning, and then a U.S. diplomatic motorcade was seen driving through the city.
The CIA did not comment on his trip, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his visit, but that he did not meet President Vladimir Putin.
Peskov told reporters 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 crisis” more than four and a half years into Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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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. CBS News was first to report Ratcliffe’s previously secret visit to the Russian capital.
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.
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.
U.S.-mediated peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have largely stalled, with the two sides far apart on core issues.
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. 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 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.
Former CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow in November 2021, when he met with senior Russian officials and spoke directly with President Vladimir Putin to warn him against invading Ukraine.
