{"id":751015,"date":"2026-08-27T03:58:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T03:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751015\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T03:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T03:58:21","slug":"trump-downplays-moscow-visit-by-cia-director-as-semi-routine-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751015\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump downplays Moscow visit by CIA director as \u2018semi-routine\u2019 | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as \u201csemi-routine\u201d after he turned up in the Russian capital unannounced, triggering a wave of speculation about the reasons for his trip.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow<\/a> on a government transport plane on Tuesday in a rare visit after taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.<\/p>\n

The White House, CIA<\/a>, Pentagon and the US air force all declined to comment on the visit, which was confirmed on Wednesday by a Kremlin spokesperson, Dimitry Peskov.<\/p>\n

Interviewed<\/a> by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Trump poured cold water on speculation that Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was planning to \u201ctest Nato resolve\u201d or to win Moscow\u2019s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the above,\u201d the US president said in response to Beck, who referred to the speculation as \u201ccrazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He\u2019s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said. Now something may come \u2026 out of it. We\u2019re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a>, citing people briefed on the visit, that the reason for the spy chief\u2019s surprise visit was to warn Russia not to attack Nato countries.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe\u2019s visit was the first from a CIA director since his predecessor Bill Burns travelled to Moscow in November 2021 to warn Putin of the consequences of attacking Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The Russian leader went ahead with the attack regardless in February of the following year. Trump\u2019s efforts to end the war \u2013 which he once vowed to bring to a conclusion on \u201cday one\u201d of his second presidency \u2013 have proven unsuccessful, despite his friendly personal relations with Putin.<\/p>\n

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Ratcliffe did not meet Putin during his visit.<\/p>\n

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Washington and Moscow have found themselves on opposite sides following Trump\u2019s decision last February to go to war with Iran<\/a>, with Russian satellite technology said to have been used to help Iranian forces with precise targeting of US and allied bases in the Gulf and beyond.<\/p>\n

With military hostilities at an impasse, the US treasury department this week unveiled a new program of economic warfare against the Tehran regime involving secondary sanctions against countries that trade with it. To be effective, it would need the cooperation of allies of Iran such as Russia and China, experts say.<\/p>\n

Peskov did not give a reason for Ratcliffe\u2019s visit, but described forecasts that it would lead to an upturn in US-Russian relations as \u201cpremature\u201d, the Washington Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cContacts through intelligence-service channels are in themselves a positive phenomenon, a positive process. These contacts often continue even in the most difficult moments of bilateral relations,\u201d Peskov told reporters. \u201cBut whether this will affect, on the whole, the process of bringing our bilateral relations out of the deep crisis they are in \u2013 it\u2019s premature to say at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent days, Ukraine has targeted Russia\u2019s energy infrastructure and online retail facilities in long-distance strikes, while Russia has intensified drone and missile attacks on Kyiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as \u201csemi-routine\u201d after he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-751015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}