CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow on Tuesday, prompting speculation over the reasons for the unannounced trip that lasted only a few hours. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday Ratcliffe had met intelligence officials during his first visit to Moscow as CIA chief, and not the Russian president, although Vladimir Putin was briefed on the talks. Neither government has disclosed what was discussed.
Analysts suggest possible reasons for the visit range from Ratcliffe presenting a peace plan for the Ukraine war which has been raging for four-and-a-half years, to warning Putin against mobilizing the Russian population, to cautioning against action on NATO’s eastern flank. "POTUS doesn't send the director of the CIA to Moscow unless for something serious," John Foreman, former U.K. defense attaché to Russia, told Newsweek. Newsweek has contacted the CIA and the White House for further details.
The last publicly known visit by a CIA director to Moscow was in November 2021, when Bill Burns warned Putin not to launch a full-scale attack on Ukraine, which he ultimately did only months later, on February 24, 2022. "We know the backdrop in both Ukraine and Europe and the last time a CIA Director went there was triggered by specific intel, not just for a chat or to hand over a letter," said Foreman. Flight data indicated that a U.S.
Air Force Boeing C-17A plane Globemaster III flew from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport via Riga, Latvia. It landed Tuesday morning and departed Moscow four hours later. U.S. officials subsequently confirmed Ratcliffe’s visit.
The Wall Street Journal suggested one possible theory was that Ratcliffe wanted to warn Putin against a military mobilization of the population, following U.S. intelligence reports that a draft was being readied following next month’s parliamentary elections. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has also said that Russia was looking to draft up to 300,000 additional troops after parliamentary elections scheduled for September 20, in order to replenish major losses from the war. Putin announced a partial mobilization in September 2022, a disorderly process that prompted hundreds of thousands of Russians to leave the country.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied claims that another mobilization is planned, with Peskov telling state media on Tuesday: "The Ukrainian authorities are spreading all of this." A separate possible subject was recent U.S. intelligence about the risk of Russian action against NATO members. In reporting Putin’s draft plans, the Journal said that the Russian military has carried out mobilization readiness exercises in the Kaliningrad region, an exclave in the Baltic which would be at the center of any conflict between Moscow and the alliance. The intelligence assessments, also reported by other outlets, have outlined scenarios for Russian escalation, ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale incursion to challenge NATO’s unity and commitment to Article 5 mutual defense clause.
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