It is not at all common for a CIA director to travel to Moscow. However, when it became known that John Ratcliffe had secretly visited the Russian capital this week, President Donald Trump downplayed it and said it was just a “semi-routine” trip. That did not stop speculation about the real reason that led Washington to send its top intelligence chief to a country at war with its ally, Ukraine, and at odds with NATO. The last known time the CIA director traveled to Moscow was in November 2021, when William Burns conveyed to Vladimir Putin’s government a warning about its buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, prior to the start of its invasion in February 2022.
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While an official version from the White House is still awaited, U.S. media, citing official sources, have differed in their explanation of what happened. Some reported that Ratcliffe had warned Russia against any attack on NATO members, especially those located near its border, such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Others, like The New York Times published this Friday, claim that the intelligence chief shared with Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Russian intelligence service FSB, his concern about the war in Ukraine and urged him to reach an agreement before Russia’s military and economic situation worsens.
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In any case, a trip of this nature suggests that the intelligence information that motivated the CIA mission was urgent and sensitive enough, since otherwise both parties could have spoken through the usual communication channels. When he returned to power, Trump did his best to ease relations with Russia, isolated by the West since its invasion of Ukraine, and resumed diplomatic contact, even adopting some Kremlin arguments about the war, with the aim of ending the conflict as soon as possible and restoring trade relations with the country. Since then, he has maintained recurring calls and last year even met in person with Putin in Anchorage (Alaska)
“The CIA director’s visit to Moscow suggests that Russia could be preparing to carry out an act of aggression against a NATO member in the relatively near future with the aim of invalidating Article 5,” assessed the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based in Washington. However, the same organization stated that there are no signs of a large-scale Russian military buildup around the Baltic countries comparable to that which preceded the invasion of Ukraine.
But Russia can test the strength of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack on a member country must be considered an attack on the entire alliance, with more limited actions than an invasion. At a time when Trump has fractured the unity that Joe Biden promoted around the Atlantic Alliance, even saying that the U.S. does not have to defend allies who do not spend enough on defense, there have been increasing sightings of drones attributed to Russia over European infrastructure. Moscow could take these operations to a higher level with limited air strikes or small ground incursions, aiming to assess the scope of NATO’s joint response.
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The Kremlin denies reports pointing to action against NATO and calls them “a distortion of reality”
An exclusive published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, following another by The Washington Post, indicates that the reason for Ratcliffe’s trip was to inform his counterparts that the U.S. is prepared to respond to that eventuality. For now, however, the Baltic countries have tried to dispel speculation about a possible Russian attack. Estonia’s Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahkna, said that possibility must be taken seriously but insisted that his assessment of the threat has not changed. Officials from neighboring Latvia and Lithuania expressed themselves in similar terms.
Meanwhile, five European Union commissioners have urged the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to take urgent measures against the growing Russian threats to the eastern flank of the Old Continent. Specifically, they have asked her to create a special coordinator position, among other measures to respond to a possible attack, whether hybrid or purely military.
Five European commissioners ask Von der Leyen for concrete measures to strengthen security on the continent’s eastern flank
Amid the flood of speculation, the Kremlin denied on Thursday that Russia has plans to attack a NATO country. Its spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, called the reports a “distortion of reality” and said there are many “horror stories” in the West about that possibility. “The aggressiveness comes precisely from European countries,” Peskov said. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, announced that he had personally received the CIA director, describing it as a “working meeting,” without giving further details.
Other reports suggest that the real reason for Ratcliffe’s trip was Russia’s support to Iran during the conflict with the U.S. and Israel. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday a new round of secondary sanctions against all countries and entities that do business with Tehran. He said no country was exempt from U.S. retaliation, which would respond with “the full extent” of its power against any country, including China and Russia, that refuses to cut ties with the Persian country. He also said President Trump had already called several heads of state around the world.
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