CIA Director John Ratcliffe Arrives in Moscow

John Ratcliffe, Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, arrived in Moscow on a U.S. military transport aircraft, a C-17A Globemaster III, whose landing was reported by Militarnyi earlier this morning.

This was reported by CBS News, citing sources familiar with the trip.

The aircraft, with tail number RCH4555, made a stop in Riga before arriving in Russia. It departed from there at 8:50 a.m. and landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport at 10:04 a.m.

While flying over Russian territory, the plane turned off its transponder, which meant its route could not be fully tracked.

However, after reports emerged that the plane had landed at Vnukovo, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that he had no information about this flight.

Before arriving in Latvia, the C-17 departed from Camp Springs Air Force Base in the U.S., where a special air wing based there is responsible for transporting top U.S. officials.

Retcliffe’s visit to Moscow was not announced in advance.

According to CBS News and Axios, the CIA director is scheduled to hold a series of meetings with Russian officials in Moscow. However, the participants and topics of the talks have not yet been disclosed.

Earlier, Financial Times journalist Christopher Miller reported that representatives of the Donald Trump administration last week asked Kyiv not to launch strikes against Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions of Russia on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday — precisely during the period when the U.S. side was scheduled to send a high-ranking official to Moscow. According to him, Ukraine agreed to this.

This is Ratcliffe’s first visit to Russia since his appointment as CIA director and one of the highest-level contacts between the Trump administration and Moscow in recent times.

The CIA, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Air Force declined to comment on the visit.

The C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft which, according to the U.S. Air Force website, can be used for strategic and tactical airlift and airdrop missions, as well as for aeromedical evacuation.