Rubio calls Ratcliffe’s Russian meeting ‘routine’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighed in on CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s recent meeting in Russia, cutting down media speculation about the meeting while calling it “primarily a routine” trip.
Ratcliffe flew to Moscow at the end of August for high-level discussions with Kremlin intelligence officials. This was the first trip to Russia for a CIA director since Biden administration director William Burns visited in late 2021, just ahead of Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine. As many details of Ratcliffe’s meeting with his Kremlin counterparts remain publicly unclear, Rubio addressed speculation regarding the trip in an interview on Fox News’s The Brian Kilmeade Show.
“His visit there was largely routine in that sense of just establishing and continue to build these intel-to-intel communication channels,” Rubio said. “Those things can prove useful in a time of crisis or conflict. I mean, this is not unusual; it’s occurred under other administrations as well.”
Many initial reports speculated about the meeting’s unannounced purpose due to the summit’s hidden nature. Several outlets ultimately reported various reasons why Ratcliffe was allegedly in Moscow, ranging from him reportedly warning Putin not to attack NATO countries to the director giving a grave assessment of the country’s war with Ukraine.
Rubio said Wednesday that the outlets reporting on the meeting must be using information they are “getting secondhand.”
“I’ve seen those reports, and I don’t know where those are coming from, because nobody who has any knowledge of that meeting is — it’s a very small handful of people, and none of them have talked to the press,” Rubio said.
The secretary of state emphasized that Ratcliffe’s meeting “wasn’t part of any sort of broader initiative, other than continuing to establish those intel-to-intel channels that can prove useful in any particular contingency or crisis situation.”
Last Thursday, after Ratcliffe’s visit, President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House that he was confident Russian President Vladimir Putin would not launch an attack on a NATO country.
“I’ve had good talks with Putin,” Trump said. “He’s not going to be attacking a NATO territory.”
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Trump’s reassurance came as NATO allies have become tense over the possibility of a confrontation after several Russian drone incursions over NATO airspace.
Germany, on Tuesday, announced several retaliatory measures against Moscow after confirming that an explosive-laden drone found at its Leipzig/Halle Airport, which frequently has Ukrainian transport aircraft passing through, belonged to Russia.