CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on Tuesday for unannounced talks, according to US media reports, marking what is believed to be his first visit to Russia as head of the agency. CBS News and Axios both reported the trip, citing sources familiar with the matter, but neither Washington nor Moscow has confirmed who Ratcliffe was scheduled to meet or the agenda for the discussions.
Flight-tracking data showed a US military C-17 transport plane flying from Riga, Latvia, to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, landing early Tuesday and departing hours later. Social media footage appeared to show the aircraft approaching the airport and a diplomatic motorcade moving through the Russian capital. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no information about the arrival of a US military plane.
The visit comes amid severely strained ties between Washington and Moscow, which have been marked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022. High-level in-person contact between American and Russian officials has become extremely rare. The last similar US military flight into Moscow occurred in January, when Trump administration negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled there for talks on a possible truce between Russia and Ukraine.
Ahead of the trip, the US reportedly asked Ukraine to suspend strikes until the delegation had left, according to a senior Ukrainian official cited by CBS News. Former British military attaché to Moscow John Foreman told the BBC that the unannounced visit of such a senior official suggested something significant, possibly related to “escalation management” in light of recent drone activity in Germany, or to the release of US detainees held in Russia.
Ratcliffe has previously been involved in prisoner exchange negotiations, including the release of Russian-American citizen Ksenia Karelina and the 2024 swap that brought Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva back to the US. US-led peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have shown little progress since a Trump-Putin summit in Alaska last year, and both sides have continued to trade strikes, including on civilian and non-military targets.