Yet another take has been issued, and more alleged details, on CIA Director John Ratcliffe's Tuesday trip to Moscow, which took place amid great secrecy and still even days later has only been subject of immense speculation.
Axios is reporting over the weekend that the CIA chief proposed a trilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - when he met with top Kremlin intelligence officials but was not granted a direct meeting with Putin himself.
"Of course, President Putin is immediately briefed on everything," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, calling the meeting "a positive phenomenon" while not giving additional details.
The war has quite obviously ramped up this summer, with tit-for-tat strikes expanding beyond just military and energy targets, to include food and retailing companies, and increasingly even civilian neighborhoods.
According to some details via Axios:
- Ratcliffe's visit was partly aimed at determining whether Russia's heads of intelligence services could help convince Putin to move toward resuming U.S.-mediated negotiations with Ukraine, the sources said.
- On Friday, U.S. officials briefed Zelensky on Ratcliffe's talks in Moscow and the proposal for a trilateral summit.
- The Trump administration has raised the idea in the past. Zelensky has been on board, but Putin has rejected it.
Over in the Middle East, the Iran war has not gone well for Washington, and so the White House has recently pivoted back to seeking a war forward toward peace in Ukraine, needing a foreign conflict 'win'.
However, US admin officials have signaled they are not ready to force Ukraine into a 'bad' peace deal. Also according to Axios, "Zelensky's chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, told local media on Thursday that U.S.-mediated talks with Russia could resume in September."
As for Trump, on Wednesday he told Glenn Beck in an interview: "We would like to see the Ukraine war end," adding that his administration was "working very hard to get that war ended."
Concerning the CIA chief's visit to Moscow, some have said that it may have been focused on Iran, amid Washington warnings for Russia to cease helping Tehran, following prior widespread allegations that Russian intelligence provided targeting information of US bases and troops across the Mideast region.