US President Donald Trump said CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday, Aug. 25, could produce results as Washington seeks to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Speaking on the Glenn Beck program on Wednesday, Aug. 26, Trump downplayed Ratcliffe’s trip as “very semi-routine,” while saying that the US was pursuing an end to the war, Sky News reported.
“We would like to see the Ukraine war end,” Trump said, adding that his administration was “working very hard to get that war ended.”
“Something may come out of it,” he continued.
CIA chief’s Moscow visit
Ratcliffe arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, according to CBS News, Axios, and other US media outlets.
It was his first visit to Russia as CIA director and the highest-level trip by a Trump administration official to Moscow since the beginning of the year.
His presence in Moscow emerged after flight-tracking data showed a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft traveling from the US to Latvia before continuing to Moscow.
CBS News reported that the aircraft was seen at a Moscow airport alongside a US diplomatic motorcade, while Suspilne later reported that it had departed Vnukovo Airport for Riga.
The Kremlin confirmed that Ratcliffe held contacts between US and Russian intelligence services but said he did not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The purpose of the discussions and the Russian officials involved have not been publicly disclosed, though the unexpected visit triggered speculation that the talks could have addressed the war in Ukraine, particularly as peace negotiations have stalled.
“The goal could have been to say: ‘We know what you are planning, and you better not do it,’” former US Deputy Director of National Intelligence Beth Sanner told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The visit could also have been related to a potential ceasefire in Iran.
Ukraine asked to pause strikes
Washington reportedly asked Kyiv to temporarily halt strikes on Moscow and St. Petersburg while Ratcliffe was in Russia, a request confirmed by Ukrainian officials to several news media.
Ratcliffe’s trip was the first visit to Moscow by a CIA director since William Burns traveled there in November 2021, three months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Burns met senior Russian officials and spoke with Putin by phone to warn against an invasion, according to CBS News. He later served as CIA director throughout the first years of the full-scale war.
On Tuesday, Putin signed three undisclosed decrees, the contents of which remain unknown.
Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ordered a surprise combat-readiness inspection of the country’s armed forces, which coincided with Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow.