Rubio revealed the purpose of the CIA chief's recent visit to Moscow
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe's recent trip to Moscow was mostly routine and was related to maintaining communication channels between American and Russian intelligence services. He denied reports that the CIA chief had proposed organizing a trilateral meeting of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Rubio said this on September 2 in an interview with Fox News Radio, Bloomberg reports.
According to the Secretary of State, even with serious disagreements between Washington and Moscow, the United States must maintain the ability to talk to the Russian side. Intelligence contacts are one of these channels.
Rubio characterized Ratcliffe's trip as largely routine and linked it to the ongoing work of building communication between the intelligence services of the two countries.
Rubio denies reports of trilateral meeting
Separately, the Secretary of State commented on reports that Ratcliffe allegedly used the trip to convey to Moscow a proposal to resume negotiations on Ukraine and hold a meeting involving US and Russian Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, as well as Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Rubio said he did not know where that information came from and denied that such a proposal was the purpose of the CIA director's visit.
Thus, the State Department publicly portrays the trip primarily as a contact between intelligence agencies, not as a separate diplomatic mission to organize a new round of talks on Ukraine.
Ratcliffe spent several hours in Moscow
The CIA director arrived in Moscow on August 25 on an unannounced visit. The trip used a US military transport plane C-17A Globemaster III, which had earlier flown from the US to Latvia and then headed to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport.
The Kremlin later confirmed that Ratcliffe had met with representatives of Russian intelligence services, but there were no talks with Putin.
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin also confirmed a personal meeting with the CIA chief. He claimed that the sides discussed issues within the competence of intelligence services.
On September 2, Putin, answering a question about Ratcliffe's trip, said that contacts between US and Russian intelligence services are maintained constantly, including directly between their leaders.
Media named other possible goals of the trip
The rare visit by the CIA chief sparked numerous reports about the possible content of the talks. The Wall Street Journal wrote that Ratcliffe might have been warning Moscow against an attack or other serious provocation against NATO countries, primarily the Baltic states. According to the newspaper, Russian support for Iran was also discussed.
The New York Times reported a different version: the CIA director allegedly conveyed to Russian intelligence services an extremely negative assessment of Russia's prospects in the war against Ukraine and tried to convey to Moscow the US intelligence community's position on the further course of the war.
US President Donald Trump, even after the visit, also sought to downplay the trip, calling it "somewhat semi-routine." He emphasized that Washington continues to work on ending Russia's war against Ukraine.
Ratcliffe's trip was the first known visit by an acting CIA director to Moscow since November 2021. Then, William Burns, who held the post, visited Russia several months before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Based on materials from: Bloomberg, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal
