The Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday that John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States' foreign intelligence agency, visited Moscow on Tuesday. Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ratcliffe met with officials from Russia's security services, but denied any meeting took place with President Vladimir Putin, according to Brazilian outlets G1 and CNN Brasil.
The visit had been reported a day earlier by American network CBS and the news site Axios, but was only officially confirmed by the Russian and American governments on Wednesday. Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24, cited by G1, showed a US military aircraft, a Boeing Globemaster with tail number 07-7181, taking off from Latvia bound for Moscow's Vnukovo airport early Tuesday morning and returning hours later. According to the British newspaper Financial Times, the United States asked Ukraine to halt strikes on Moscow, St. Petersburg and other areas of northern Russia between Monday and Wednesday to allow the trip to take place, a request Kyiv reportedly honored.
What each side wants
The trip comes amid sharp tension between Washington and Moscow over the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, and stalled talks between the United States and Iran over its nuclear program, an issue in which Russia also has strategic stakes. Peskov said intelligence contacts between the two countries often continue even during the most difficult periods of bilateral relations, but stopped short of saying whether such channels could help pull the US-Russia relationship out of what he called a deep crisis. He also declined to disclose what was discussed, saying only that Putin was briefed without delay on the outcome of the talks.
This is not the first time Washington has sent senior officials to Moscow outside traditional diplomatic channels. President Donald Trump has previously relied on envoys such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special negotiator Steve Witkoff to speak directly with Putin. Using the CIA as a communication channel, rather than the State Department, suggests Washington is seeking a discreet route less exposed to public scrutiny for sensitive matters ranging from the war in Ukraine to possible prisoner exchanges, G1 reported.
For Brazil, episodes like this underline a broader pattern of major powers recalibrating alliances and negotiating channels outside traditional multilateral forums such as the United Nations. Brazil maintains diplomatic ties with Moscow and sits alongside Russia in the BRICS bloc, giving it a direct stake in how the Ukraine war negotiations evolve, both because of the impact on fertilizer and grain markets and because Brasilia has positioned itself as a would-be mediator between the West and the Global South. Any eventual easing between Washington and Moscow, however incipient, would likely ripple through commodity prices and the dynamics of blocs such as BRICS and the G20.
So far, neither the White House nor the CIA has publicly confirmed details of Ratcliffe's trip, leaving the Kremlin's statement and the flight records cited by international media as the only concrete evidence available.