CIA director John Ratcliffe made a rare, unannounced visit to Moscow, reportedly to warn Russian intelligence officials against attacking NATO members. The article presents the journey as a deliberate signal of US resolve amid concern that Russia could test the alliance with a limited incursion, particularly in the Baltic region.

Ratcliffe travelled on a US military C-17 aircraft, which was publicly tracked and stopped in Riga, Latvia, before Moscow—an itinerary interpreted as underlining support for NATO’s eastern members. He spent several hours in the Russian capital and did not meet Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin; the White House described the trip as “semi-routine”. It was the first publicly known Moscow visit by a CIA director since William Burns travelled there in 2021, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.