Kremlin says CIA chief visit to Moscow involved contacts between security services

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to the Russian capital Moscow a day earlier involved contacts between security services.

"I can only tell you that there were contacts through special services," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a press briefing in Moscow, commenting on an unannounced visit by Ratcliffe to the Russian capital a day earlier.

According to Flightradar24, a US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III flew from the Latvian capital Riga to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport on Tuesday after arriving two days earlier from Camp Springs in the US, near Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where White House aircraft are often based.

The aircraft departed Moscow and returned to Riga later that evening, according to Flightradar24 data.

When asked about reports that a US military plane landed Tuesday morning in Moscow, Peskov told a press briefing in the Russian capital that he had "no such information."

CBS News later reported, citing sources familiar with the situation, that the CIA director was in the Russian capital for meetings.

Separately, citing a source, Axios reported Washington told Kyiv that a senior delegation will be visiting Moscow and asked Ukraine to suspend strikes until the delegation leaves the country.

Neither US authorities nor the CIA have commented on the visit.

In further comments on Ratcliffe's visit, Peskov said the CIA chief and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not meet, and declined to give details on topics discussed between security services.

He further said that no contacts between Moscow and Washington at the presidential level are currently planned, adding it is premature to talk about any impact of the visit on resolving the "profound crisis" in Russia-US ties.

However, he noted that such contacts are a "positive phenomenon, a positive process."

The CIA director's visit marks the first such visit since then-CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow in 2021.