Secret visit to Moscow: CIA Director arrives for talks
CIA Director John Ratcliffe arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials. According to CNN, the US concurrently requested that Ukraine halt drone and missile strikes on Russian territory from Monday through Wednesday.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe arrived in Moscow on Tuesday night for meetings with Russian officials, a US official familiar with the details of the trip reported to CNN. Parallel to the visit, the US requested that Ukraine cease drone and missile attacks on Moscow and other cities in northern Russia for a three-day period, from Monday to Wednesday of this week.
The report indicates that, according to a source familiar with the matter, the Ukrainians were notified that a senior American official was visiting Russia. Ratcliffe's trip marks the first known visit to Russia by a CIA Director under US President Donald Trump and occurs against the backdrop of a stalemate in negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The visit takes place one day after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a sanctions plan to isolate Iran by penalizing countries and entities that continue to maintain trade relations with Tehran. Russia remains a strategic trade partner of Iran. According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, an American military transport aircraft, a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, landed this morning at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow.
It appears the flight originally departed from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A spokesperson for the Latvian Ministry of Defense stated that the flight, which passed through Riga, "was properly coordinated and approved for operation in the airspace."
