In an attempt to revive efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, CIA Director John Ratcliffe suggested a trilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his clandestine visit to Moscow this week, according to two people briefed on the subject, according to Axios.
With this travel, Ratcliffe became personally involved in the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts to end the impasse between Russia and Ukraine. During his visit on Tuesday, Putin visited Russian intelligence officials Alexander Bortnikov, director of the FSB, and Sergey Naryshkin, head of the SVR foreign intelligence branch.
Ratcliffe’s discussions were in part on whether Russia’s intelligence elite could influence Putin to resume US-mediated talks with Ukraine, according to the people Axios cited.
Zelenskyy was briefed by US authorities on Friday of Ratcliffe’s talks in Moscow and the three-way summit idea. The Trump administration has already brought up the notion; Putin has rejected it, but Zelenskyy has expressed favor.
According to the sources, Ratcliffe also said that peace talks might be restarted. According to a separate article in the New York Times, he gave Bortnikov a pessimistic view of the war and urged Russia to come to an agreement before its situation worsened.
Ratcliffe saw Bortnikov as a capable negotiator who could help revive diplomatic efforts, according to the Axios sources. Regarding the conversations, the CIA declined to comment.
The US-mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv are still at a standstill at the time of the anticipated meeting. Following the start of the conflict with Iran, negotiations were put on hold in mid-February. In recent months, White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have held separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials, but there hasn’t been much progress.
However, Ukrainian officials continue to have serious doubts about Putin’s motivations. According to Kyiv, it has information suggesting that Russia may be planning a significant escalation.
Pavlo Palisa, Zelenskyy’s deputy chief of staff, stated on Friday that Putin had given the Russian military instructions to prepare a number of operational scenarios for an offensive in northern Ukraine, including the area surrounding Kyiv and Chernihiv.
Kyrylo Budanov, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, stated that US-mediated negotiations with Russia might go back up in September.
Zelenskyy seemed to applaud Washington’s most recent diplomatic initiatives on Friday, praising the US for what he described as the “necessary tone” of its talks with Russia and claiming that the Trump administration was putting forth a “realistic vision” of what needed to be accomplished.
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