The CIA director suggested holding a trilateral summit between Trump, Zelensky, and Putin

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, during a secret visit to Moscow, proposed holding a three-way meeting of the presidents of the United States, Ukraine and Russia — Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. This was reported by Axios, citing knowledgeable sources.

According to the outlet, one of the purposes of Ratcliffe’s trip to the Russian capital was to determine whether the heads of Russia’s security services could influence Putin and persuade him to return to negotiations with Ukraine with U.S. mediation.

On Friday, U.S. officials informed Zelensky about the results of Ratcliffe’s talks in Moscow and the proposal to hold a three-way summit. The Trump administration had already discussed the idea of such a format previously. Zelensky supported holding trilateral talks, but Putin declined the proposal.

Ratcliffe’s meetings in Moscow

At the beginning of the week, on Tuesday, Ratcliffe secretly arrived in Moscow. There he met with the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin, and the director of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov.

According to Axios’ interlocutors, the talks discussed, among other things, the possibility of resuming peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The outlet’s sources say that Ratcliffe concluded that Bortnikov could constructively join diplomatic efforts and help bring the parties back to the negotiating process.

Earlier, The New York Times reported that during the meeting with Bortnikov the CIA chief allegedly gave a pessimistic assessment of the situation of the Russian army on the front.

What Trump said about the visit

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier confirmed Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow but called it “semi-routine.” At the same time, Trump denied that the visit was connected to warning Russia about a possible attack on NATO.

The American president at the same time acknowledged that one of the goals of the trip was to help end the war.

The Kremlin had earlier said that Ratcliffe’s visit was related to contacts between Russian and American intelligence services.

Politico, citing its own sources, also reported that during the talks the CIA chief urged Russian officials not to take steps that could lead to an escalation of the conflict with the United States’ NATO allies, in particular the Baltic countries.

Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow took place under heightened secrecy. According to the media, even some senior White House officials did not know about the visit in advance.

If the Axios information is confirmed, the CIA director’s trip could have been part of a new attempt by the Trump administration to revive diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.