The United States has passed on to Ukraine information about a visit by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, to Russia. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to RBC-Ukraine, who emphasized that Kyiv "today" received from Washington information on the meetings held in Moscow over the past days. The statement came against the backdrop of ongoing efforts by the parties to coordinate diplomatic steps around the conflict in Ukraine.
Gratitude for the "tone of the conversation"
Commenting on the information received, the head of state expressed gratitude to the American side. "We have just spoken with the American side. I am grateful for the information, for the necessary tone of the conversation with Russia," Zelensky stated. According to him, Ukraine "values the coordination of steps" and the fact that Washington is advancing a "quite realistic vision" of what needs to be done and what must be accomplished. "Russia must end its war; all the conditions need to be created for this to happen," the president added, outlining Kyiv's key condition for further contacts.
Timeline of the visit and contacts in Moscow
As RBC-Ukraine recalls, John Ratcliffe made a visit to Moscow on August 25. Later, Russian leader's press secretary Dmitry Peskov disclosed details of Ratcliffe's talks with Russian intelligence services. The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, confirmed that he met with Ratcliffe in Moscow and reported that the parties discussed matters within the competence of intelligence services. In addition, the head of the Presidential Office, Kyrylo Budanov, stated that during Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow, the war in Ukraine was one of the topics of discussion.
Contradictory data
In the public sphere, there are discrepancies in assessing the nature and content of the trip. On the one hand, US President Donald Trump characterized Ratcliffe's recent visit to Moscow as a "routine working trip," noting that the CIA director regularly meets with Naryshkin. On the other hand, according to Budanov, the war in Ukraine was discussed at the meeting, and a number of publications and analysts (including citing WSJ and Euronews) link the trip to a broader set of topics — from Ukraine and NATO to the Iranian issue. Thus, the official Russian and American rhetoric about the "working" nature of the contacts conflicts with claims of a substantive diplomatic message on specific conflicts, creating an inconsistency in the interpretation of the visit's significance.
Context: what messages were discussed
According to additional sources, several versions are forming around Ratcliffe's visit regarding its main message: discussion of the situation in Ukraine, issues related to NATO, and the Iranian track, on which, it is noted, Washington is seeking ways out of the crisis. This is precisely why the transfer of information to Kyiv about the meeting is viewed as an element of coordination between the actions of the US and Ukraine: even if the trip is formally classified as "working," the very fact of notifying Kyiv about its content indicates that Ukraine remains within the scope of American diplomacy on key topics. The further dynamics will depend on whether the parties can convert the "tone of the conversation" into concrete conditions for ending hostilities, as Zelensky insists.
