Kremlin says CIA head met Russian intelligence officials, but not Putin

Published On 26 Aug 202626 Aug 2026.

Key points

• Though he did not speak with President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin notes United States CIA Director John Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence office-holders in Moscow.
• When then-Director William Burns travelled to Moscow, this marks the first known visit to Russia from a CIA director since 2021.
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed the visit to reporters on Wednesday, a day after Ratcliffe arrived in the Russian capital.
• The visit first came to light after a US Air Force C-17A cargo plane and an American diplomatic convoy were seen at a Moscow airport on Tuesday.
• He remarked there were "no meetings of any kind with the Russian president", but Putin was briefed on the gathering.

Peskov called the discussions a "positive development", but cautioned it was "too early to say to what extent this will affect the overall process of bringing our bilateral relations out of the deepest crisis they are currently in".

Notably, the visit first came to light after a US Air Force C-17A cargo plane and an American diplomatic convoy were seen at a Moscow airport on Tuesday. US media outlet Axios then documented that the US had given Ukraine advance notice of the delegation and requested a pause in strikes on Russia while it was there.

In short, kremlin says CIA head met Russian intelligence officials, but not Putin is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.