CIA chief was in Moscow to warn Russia against attacking NATO and encourage cutting off Iran

By Kevin Liptak, Zachary Cohen, Katie Bo Lillis, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s central intelligence chief traveled to Moscow this week with a warning to Russia not to stage an attack in NATO territory, among other issues, according to two people familiar with the matter.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe also used the trip, which wasn’t announced publicly, to encourage Russia to cut off economic and military support for Iran as the administration works to choke off Tehran financially.

US intelligence officials in the lead up to the trip assessed that Russia was in an increasingly weak position in its war with Ukraine that could prompt it to take military action against NATO, four sources familiar with the latest intelligence told CNN.

For Russia, the goal would be to raise the stakes of supporting Ukraine in the grinding conflict and prompt a negotiated settlement favorable to Russia — an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy.

Ratcliffe’s trip this week was the first known visit by a senior Trump administration official to Moscow in months. The last visit by a CIA director to the Russian capital came under the Biden administration in 2021, when William Burns warned Putin against a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia invaded three months later.

CNN has reached out to the CIA. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Ratcliffe’s warning in Russia.

Although there was no specific intelligence suggesting that Russia was imminently planning on launching an attack, the sources said, a string of intelligence warnings for weeks has indicated that Moscow might take a number of actions, including increased sabotage efforts, cyber or drone attacks, or even a more severe action like a land grab in Europe.

At least one recent intelligence report circulated in the run-up to Ratcliffe’s trip assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely believes the US won’t risk becoming involved in another conflict because it would run against American public opinion, according to one of the sources.

That could give him the confidence to take action, as the consequences of the conflict continue to mount for Russia. Another one of the sources noted that Russia is bogged down on the frontlines in Ukraine, increasingly suffering economically both from western sanctions and from Ukrainian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

“They are on their heels,” that source said.

Trump on Thursday downplayed the prospects of Russia attacking NATO territory and declined to say whether Ratcliffe had issued a warning to Putin.

Trump said his conversations with the Russian president had assured him such a plan was not in the works. “I’ve had good talks with him. He’s not going to be attacking a NATO territory,” Trump told CNN’s Kristen Holmes in the Oval Office.

“I don’t want to comment on that, but they’re not going to attack,” Trump later said when asked about Ratcliffe warning Putin.

Earlier this week, Trump denied that was the intent of Ratcliffe’s trip.

“He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine,” Trump told Glenn Beck in a radio interview on Wednesday. “I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end.”

US and western intelligence assessments have indicated Putin could try to test NATO’s resolve by launching a limited attack on an allied country within the next few years, CNN has previously reported.

How and when Putin might do so remains an open question. But sources have said he is most likely to escalate in some way by targeting the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — or Poland.

There have been numerous instances over the last few years of Russia encroaching on NATO territory. In May, a drone carrying explosives hit an apartment building in Romania as Russian forces attacked a nearby Ukrainian port, injuring two people. And last September, NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that had violated Polish airspace during an attack on Ukraine.

And earlier this month, the US assessed that an explosive-laden drone discovered at an airport in Germany belonged to a Russian intelligence service.

Trump has maintained a contentious relationship with NATO, and has lashed out at the alliance’s members for not being more supportive of his war against Iran. He has never entirely ruled out attempting to withdraw the US from the bloc.

Still, a NATO summit in Turkey last month ended amicably. And he maintains friendly ties with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Asked whether Ratcliffe was visiting Moscow to raise concerns about Russian designs on NATO territory or to ask for Russia’s help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump told Beck, “John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said.”

Ratcliffe flew to Moscow aboard a C-17 Globemaster III, a military transport aircraft. According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the flight initially took off from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and transited through Riga, the Latvian capital.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the CIA director did not meet with Putin during the trip.

He said Ratcliffe’s contact with Russia was “more or less at the level of the special services.”

Peskov added that while this was “positive,” it was premature to speculate “whether this will have an effect overall on the process of pulling our bilateral relations out of the deepest crisis they are currently in.”

The US had asked Ukraine to halt drone and missile strikes in Moscow and other cities in the north of Russia ahead of Ratcliffe’s trip, a person familiar with the matter said. The Ukrainians were told a senior US official would be traveling in Russia.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Haley Britzky and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.