Kremlin denies planned talks with US envoys amid reports CIA head in Russia

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that the Kremlin has denied any planned talks with US envoys this week, even as US media outlets said CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Moscow on Tuesday. The reported trip would be the highest-level visit by a Trump administration official to Russia since January, according to Axios, while CBS News also cited unnamed sources saying Ratcliffe was in the Russian capital. The outlets did not identify who he was meeting or the purpose of the visit, and the CIA did not comment.

The reports surfaced alongside flight-tracking data showing a US military C-17 flying from Riga to Moscow, then later departing Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters there were no such plans for talks with US envoys and said he had no information about the aircraft landing. Al Jazeera says the wider context is the continuing stall in US-brokered efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Axios also reported that Washington had informed Ukraine in advance that a senior delegation was traveling to Moscow and asked it to hold off on strikes until the delegation left. Al Jazeera noted that Ratcliffe has been linked in media reports to prisoner exchanges between the US and Russia since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. If confirmed, the visit would be the first known trip of this kind since former CIA chief William Burns traveled to Moscow in 2021.