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U.S. CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke with Russian intelligence officials during a visit to Moscow but did not meet President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Wednesday ‌of a trip that U.S. President Donald Trump described as "semi-routine."

Trump says John Ratcliffe's visit to Russia was 'semi-routine,' but could prove useful

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe flew to Russia on a C-17 aircraft on an undisclosed mission, Radio Liberty reported on August 25, citing Saratoga Foundation President and Russia strategist Glenn Howard.

According to public flight-tracking data, Ratcliffe flew to Moscow via Latvia aboard a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft.

The flight-tracking data has raised questions about why the head of American intelligence is making a rare personal trip to Russia at such a sensitive time, the publication noted.

Howard told the publication that the nature of the trip highlights the high stakes involved.

“CIA directors do not go to Moscow unless they have something to ask for,” Howard said. “That is why a CIA director does not board a C-17 and fly halfway around the world to Russia unless the matter is urgent.”

Howard noted that then-CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow in November 2021. During that visit, Burns warned Russian officials against launching an attack on Ukraine.

“Burns went there in November 2021 before the invasion to warn them not to invade Ukraine,” Howard noted.

Bradley Bowman, a former national security adviser to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and current senior director of the Center for Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, hopes Ratcliffe is sending a direct message to the Kremlin.

“I hope that at the top of his list is a direct demand for Vladimir Putin to stop his overt aggression against Ukraine,” Bowman told RFE/RL.

Bowman added that Washington must make it clear that if the war does not stop, Russia will face increasingly painful measures, and the United States and its allies will continue to help Ukraine defend itself.

Bowman also noted that Russia's support for Iran is likely on the agenda.

“I also hope he makes it clear that Vladimir Putin needs to stop helping Iran launch satellites,” Bowman said.

Bowman believes Ratcliffe may be trying to persuade Moscow to stop supplying weapons and other aid to Iran, turning the visit into a direct warning to the Kremlin.

“If we are to speculate, Ratcliffe's visit could be an ultimatum,” Howard said.

Bowman cited reports that Russia has provided Iran with targeting data, along with drone tactics and techniques developed during the war in Ukraine.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe secretly arrived in Moscow on August 25.

Reuters, citing Flightradar24, reported that a U.S. military transport aircraft, a Boeing C-17A Globemaster III with tail number 07-7181, landed at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport that same day, arriving from Riga at around 10:00 a.m. Kyiv time. The aircraft had reached Riga on August 23 after departing Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C., before leaving Moscow a few hours later.

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Spokespeople for the CIA, the Pentagon and the U.S. Air Force declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Those familiar with Ratcliffe’s trip to Russia spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the visit.

It was not immediately clear what the trip’s purpose was or whether any other senior U.S. officials were part of the U.S. delegation.

Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow coincided with a fraught period in U.S.-Russia relations. Russia and Ukraine have stepped-up long-range strikes on each other’s territory with no end to the war in sight. Some analysts have warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin might escalate with military probes against Europe’s Baltic countries or other NATO members, which could precipitate a new crisis.

The two superpowers are on opposite sides of the Iran conflict. Iran is Moscow’s most important ally in the Middle East, and Russia has provided Tehran targeting intelligence on the location of U.S. military assets in the region. The U.S. Treasury on Monday unveiled a sweeping campaign of sanctions and diplomatic pressure meant to asphyxiate Iran’s economy.

The Kremlin was tightlipped about the visit. When asked what was the purpose of Ratcliffe’s visit, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Post that it was for “contacts between security services” and declined to provide any further details. Earlier on Tuesday, he said the Kremlin had no information about the U.S. military aircraft that arrived at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport. The Russian side has no plans to meet with representatives of the U.S. administration this week, he said.

Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia was reported earlier by CBS News.

The last known visit by a CIA director to Moscow was in November 2021, when William J. Burns, who led the agency under President Joe Biden, warned Putin and his top aides not to attack Ukraine and spelled out what the consequences would be. Moscow launched its full-scale invasion within weeks.

Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow came as Ukrainian long-range strikes into Russia, including the capital, have targeted energy infrastructure and online retail facilities, unnerving the population. Russia also has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and elsewhere, exploiting shortfalls of air-defense resources.

President Donald Trump, at a NATO summit in Turkey in July, appeared to grant Ukraine’s long-standing request that it be able to produce U.S.-designed Patriot air-defense missiles on its soil. He later backed away from that promise.

The U.S. aircraft that arrived in Moscow, a C-17A Globemaster III, is the Defense Department’s workhorse heavy transport plane. The airframe is especially valuable for sensitive diplomatic visits, allowing leaders to bring a tailored suite of specialized vehicles, electronic equipment and support personnel.

The C-17A departed from Joint Base Andrews on Sunday evening, bound for Riga, Latvia, according to tracking data from Flightradar24. The plane appeared to stay in Latvia for a 24-hour layover before departing for Moscow on Tuesday morning, landing shortly after 9 a.m.

A second U.S. Air Force plane, a C-40B, also took off from Joint Base Andrews and landed in Riga several hours after the C-17A’s arrival in the country.

Publicly available flight tracking data does not show the C-40B on the next flight to Moscow. The aircraft is a modified business jet used to transport senior government officials.

A video shared on social media Tuesday and geolocated by The Washington Post showed a motorcade of cars, some with red diplomatic plates, driving east on New Arbat Avenue in central Moscow near a Russian armed forces building.

The C-17A took off from Moscow shortly after 5:30 p.m. local time and landed in Riga a little more than an hour later, data from Flightradar24 shows.

Natalia Abbakumova and Catherine Belton contributed to this report.