Kremlin Confirms CIA Director Ratcliffe's Moscow Meeting
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The Kremlin said Wednesday that CIA Director John Ratcliffe joined Russian intelligence officials for talks Tuesday during his visit to Moscow but did not meet with President Vladimir Putin.
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BreitbartCentral Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his surprise visit to Moscow on Tuesday, a Kremlin spokesman said.
Associated PressThe Kremlin said Wednesday that CIA Director John Ratcliffe held talks in Moscow with his intelligence counterparts, a rare and secretive visit at a time when relations with Washington remain strained over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
New York PostCIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced trip to Moscow on Wednesday. Ron Sachs/CNP/INSTARimages
BBC NewsJohn Ratcliffe reportedly arrived in the Russian capital earlier on Tuesday. Neither Washington or Moscow have confirmed the nature of the visit or who he was due to meet.
ABC NewsThe CIA, Department of Defense and Air Force declined to comment. CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow, Russia, for meetings, according to multiple officials familiar with the meetings.
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U.S. President Donald Trump played down the significance of Ratcliffe’s trip, saying it was “sort of semi-routine.”
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BBC NewsRatcliffe appears to be one of the highest-ranking US officials to visit the country during President Donald Trump's second term.
New York PostPresident Trump claimed the reason for the trip was "semi-routine." REUTERS Trump denied that Ratcliffe's four-hour visit had to do with intelligence on Russia planning to test NATO. via REUTERS
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Tuesday reports indicated that U.S. officials had asked Ukraine to temporarily suspend its long-range strikes against Russia until the delegation had left Moscow.
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Associated PressA senior Ukrainian official told The Associated Press that Washington informed Kyiv a delegation would be traveling to the Russian capital and asked it to suspend strikes until it left. The official said the request did not apply to all Russian territory, but specifically to Moscow, St. Petersburg and some northern regions. Strikes on other parts of Russia continued, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk publicly.
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Media reports revealed the highly unusual visit Tuesday after publicly available flight-tracking data showed a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III traveling from Joint Base Andrews to Moscow.
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ABC NewsA Boeing C-17A Globemaster III was seen at the Moscow airport. The CIA, Department of Defense and the Air Force declined to comment.
BBC NewsFootage posted on social media showed the C-17 transport plane approaching Moscow's Vnukovo international airport.
BreitbartAs reported, the trip has excited considerable comment given it was unannounced, yet the track of the C-17 Globemaster was fully visible to the public given it flew with its transponders turned on. The aircraft had transited from Andrews AFB near Washington over the weekend and was joined in Riga, Latvia — the location of a major NATO command — by a U.S. military executive transport Boeing.
5 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 New York Post Radio host Glenn Beck asked Trump about theories that Ratcliffe visited Tuesday to discuss Iran sanctions or caution Putin.
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02 Associated Press Russian state news agencies reported that a U.S. military plane landed in Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Tuesday and departed later that day.
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03 BBC News Published The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has travelled to Moscow for unannounced talks, the BBC's US news partner CBS has reported.
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04 Washington Times The meeting coincided with a phone conversation between Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin and Mr. Ratcliffe, supposedly the first time the two agency heads have spoken in more than two years.
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05 Breitbart Peskov added that President Putin had been briefed on the talks. As for how they would impact American-Russian relations, Peskov went on: “It’s too early to say how much this will impact the overall process of bringing our bilateral relations out of the deep crisis they are in”.
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