The CIA director spends four hours in Moscow. The message, the background, what Kyiv knew

The last time a CIA director had travelled to Moscow was in 2021. Vladimir Putin was amassing troops and military equipment on the border with Ukraine, and William Burns set off thinking he would meet him, but was taken to a bare room, whilst the Kremlin leader had remained on the Black Sea, at his villa where, during the pandemic, he had decided to spend most of his time, keeping meetings to a minimum, plotting the invasion, shielded by very strict health regulations. He did not go to meet Burns; the CIA director was taken to an empty office not far from the Kremlin, a room containing nothing but a telephone. Burns waited; the telephone rang, and Putin spoke to him. Today, a US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft was spotted at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. The reason for this unexpected trip was the visit by John Ratcliffe, the CIA director under the Trump administration. Ukraine was aware of this; in fact, the Kyiv military had been asked not to strike the Russian capital whilst ‘a senior American official’ was in Russia. In 2021, the then head of the CIA had just one message to convey to Putin: stay out of Ukrainian territory. At the time, Burns laid out to the Kremlin leader a list of all the details known to the Americans regarding the Russian operation against Kyiv: Washington knew everything and wanted to expose Putin. Putin was not taken aback; he asked: “So? What do you intend to do?’ Burns replied that the United States would unite the West, would not stand idly by, and then it was he who asked Putin a question: ‘With an army of 190,000 men, how do you intend to control a country of 44 million people who do not want to be ruled by Russia?’ But Putin remained convinced that Ukraine was not "a real country" and that internal divisions would make the Russian army’s task easier. Burns knew the character of the Ukrainian people better than Putin did, but he was not believed, and even today the Kremlin leader remains steadfast in his conviction that sooner or later he will succeed in subjugating the Ukrainians. That conversation marked the last time the former CIA director set foot in Russia, and Ratcliffe’s visit represents an unexpected return – perhaps linked to Burns’s very warning and to what Putin is prepared to do even beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Amid the ongoing erosion of US support for Kyiv, the agency led by John Ratcliffe has remained a constant. The CIA has never stopped sharing information with Ukraine, even when the Pentagon and the White House were doing nothing but complicating the Ukrainians’ defence and facilitating Russian attacks. The United States has never stopped talking to Russia; Ratcliffe himself has maintained contact with the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, with whom he negotiated the release of Ksenia Karelina, a dual national. In tackling the negotiations on Ukraine, Trump has so far always preferred to use the channels of ‘dollar diplomacy’ with the Kremlin, first sending his right-hand man Steve Witkoff alone, then accompanied by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is the master of Trump’s style of dialogue centred on money. The pair, active from the Middle East to Europe, were also expected in Russia recently, but the Kremlin had replied that it would welcome the Americans when they offered ‘something substantial’ – and by ‘substantial’, the Russians mean Kyiv’s cession of the Donbas.

With Ratcliffe, the dialogue takes on a new level; he knows everything that neither Witkoff nor Kushner can know. So far, he has been on highly operational missions, from Venezuela to Cuba, and if he travelled as far as Moscow – where he stayed for around four hours – it was for urgent and specific messages: to gauge how far the Kremlin intends to go – just as Burns did before him – or to discuss Russian support for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Speculation preceded the official statements, but there are some clear facts regarding Ratcliffe’s trip: it took place in coordination with Kyiv – which did not know it was the CIA director, but had been informed that a senior US official was heading to Russia – whilst at least six US citizens are in Russian prisons and whilst Russia, determined to win, is showing itself ready to go to great lengths, preparing a major mobilisation and stepping up provocations against NATO countries. In recent days, NATO has demonstrated its ability to respond; today, the head of the CIA was in Moscow.