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U.S. CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke with Russian intelligence officials during a visit to Moscow but did not meet President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Wednesday of a trip that U.S. President Donald Trump described as “semi-routine.”
Trump says John Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia was ‘semi-routine,’ but could prove useful
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U.S. President Donald Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are seen speaking after a cabinet meeting at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland, at the end of last month. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)
U.S. CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke with Russian intelligence officials during a visit to Moscow but did not meet President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump described the trip as “semi-routine.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Putin had been briefed on the outcome of Tuesday’s visit, which came as the war in Ukraine drags on and efforts to reach a lasting peace between the United States and Iran have stalled.
Peskov declined to say what had been discussed or provide any further details.
“All I can tell you is that there have been contacts via the security services. I can tell you that there have been no meetings with the Russian president. Naturally, President Putin is kept informed of everything without delay,” said Peskov.
Reason for visit unstated
Trump, in a radio interview on Wednesday, did not say specifically why Ratcliffe had travelled to Moscow but said the visit could prove useful.
“Now something may come … out of it. We’re working very hard to get that war ended,” Trump told the Glenn Beck Program, referring to the war in Ukraine.
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Asked whether the CIA chief went to Moscow to discuss potential Russian action to test the NATO military alliance or Iran sanctions, Trump added: “None of the above. He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine.”
The last known visit by a U.S. CIA director to the Russian capital took place when Ratcliffe’s predecessor William Burns held talks with Putin in November 2021, three months before the full-scale war in Ukraine began.
Asked whether visits by such senior U.S. officials could help improve the dire state of U.S.-Russia relations, Peskov said that contacts between the two countries’ intelligence agencies were a positive thing.
“These contacts often continue even during the most difficult periods in bilateral relations. Our president, incidentally, has spoken about this. However, it is still too early to say to what extent this will, overall, help to steer our bilateral relations out of the profound crisis in which they currently find themselves,” he said.