The Kremlin denied any knowledge of a large U.S. military aircraft that flight-tracking data showed traveling from NATO member Latvia to Moscow early Tuesday, before later reports indicated Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief John Ratcliffe had traveled to the Russian capital.
Flight monitoring picked up the U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III taking off from the Latvian capital Riga and arriving at Vnukovo airport on the outskirts of Moscow, one of Russia‘s major international aviation hubs.
The flight’s publicly available schedule listed no destination, but the Russian Tass state news agency reported that the aircraft had touched down at roughly 10 a.m. local time. It had traveled to Latvia from Camp Springs in Maryland, home to the U.S. military’s Joint Base Andrews.
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A spokesperson for the U.S. European Command said they had no information to offer when approached about the tracking data on Tuesday. The Pentagon referred queries to the U.S. Air Force, which has been contacted for comment.
The Latvian Defense Ministry told Newsweek that the flight had been “properly coordinated and authorized for operation” within the country’s airspace, but said it could not provide any more information because the plane was not operated by its armed forces.
U.S. military aircraft typically require pre-approval from the host country to fly within its airspace.
Russian sources and open-source intelligence accounts shared unverified footage purportedly showing the C-17 landing at Vnukovo on Tuesday. Newsweek could not independently verify when the video was filmed, but it appears to show a C-17 descending over a shopping center near Vnukovo airport.
Another military transport aircraft, a U.S. Air Force C-40 Clipper, traveled from Camp Springs to Riga on Sunday. No tracking information is available for this aircraft after it arrived in Latvia.
The C-40 is also a military transport plane, and can be configured to carry VIP passengers.
Why Is the U.S. Plane in Russia?
It’s not clear why a U.S. transport aircraft would land in Moscow, but when U.S. planes have arrived in the past, they’ve either delivered supplies or carried traveling diplomats or top security officials.
CBS News and a Telegram channel linked to Moscow’s security services separately reported that Ratcliffe was in the Russian capital. Newsweek has reached out to the CIA for comment.
U.S. officials asked Ukraine’s military last week not to strike certain areas of Russia, including Moscow, with long-range weapons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because a high-level official would be traveling to the capital, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The anonymous sources said Ukraine had agreed to the request.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday there were no plans to meet with U.S. administration officials in Moscow this week, according to remarks cited by state media.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had postponed a planned visit to Moscow to negotiate with Kremlin officials on a peace deal for Ukraine, Tass reported on Sunday.
The state news agency, citing an anonymous source, claimed it was unlikely the two officials would visit Moscow before the end of August.
When Witkoff and Kushner visited Moscow in January for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, they arrived at Vnukovo airport in a U.S. government aircraft, state media reported.
Russian media speculated the C-17 reported to have landed in Moscow on Tuesday may have made the journey for a prisoner swap, although Newsweek could not independently verify this.
The CIA has been involved in previous prisoner swaps, and Ratcliffe was reported to have been key in the release of Russian-American citizen Ksenia Karelina in April 2025.
A U.S. C-37B transport plane arrived at Vnukovo in February 2025 as the U.S. and Russia completed a prisoner swap. The U.S returned Alexander Vinnik, a Russian businessman who had pleaded guilty to money laundering in the U.S., while Russian authorities handed over American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021 and sentenced for drugs charges.
A prisoner exchange is the most likely explanation for a visit from Ratcliffe, said John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attache to both Moscow and Kyiv.
But making sure Russia doesn’t escalate its current hybrid attacks against Europe, as well as a Ukraine peace deal could be on the agenda, too, he told Newsweek.
U.S. intelligence now assesses Russia could launch a “limited” attack on NATO’s eastern European edge as soon as this fall, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. This could involve sending a small number of Russian troops over into the Baltic states or Poland or the upping of Moscow’s hybrid warfare operations, according to the report.
“Hybrid attacks” is a catch-all term for operations that stop short of open fighting, like cyberattacks, information campaigns, arson incidents or the targeting of vulnerable infrastructure, such as undersea cables. NATO says Russia has been waging a hybrid war with the alliance for years.
Former CIA Director William Burns made a rare personal visit to Moscow in November 2021, and later said he had made the journey to warn the Kremlin against launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine as its troops amassed on the border with its neighbor. Russia invaded little over three months later.
What Is a Boeing C-17A Globemaster III?
C-17s are transport aircraft used to move troops or cargo between bases or other military sites. They can also be used for diplomatic or government travel, but specially adapted aircraft are often preferred for transporting top officials.
The U.S. Air Force describes the C-17 as its “most flexible cargo aircraft,” and it is also used to airdrop supplies or evacuate patients. The U.K. operates a handful of C-17s, as do several other U.S. allies, such as Canada.
U.S. C-17 aircraft flew to Moscow in May and June 2020 to deliver ventilators to the country during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Who is CIA Director John Ratcliffe?
Ratcliffe is a longtime Republican attorney and former Texas congressman who has become one of the most influential national security figures in Donald Trump’s political orbit.
After serving as director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021, Ratcliffe was confirmed in 2025 as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, where he has overseen sweeping personnel changes and aggressive foreign operations.
Ratcliffe’s rise began far from Washington. Born in Illinois and raised in Palatine and later Carbondale, he was the son of two schoolteachers and graduated from Notre Dame in 1986 and Southern Methodist University’s law school in 1989.
He later joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas, where he became director of anti‑terrorism and national security. His political career accelerated in 2014 when he unseated longtime Rep. Ralph Hall and entered Congress as a staunch conservative aligned with Trump. His combative posture in hearings involving the Mueller investigation helped propel him into Trump’s inner circle.
Trump tapped him again for high office in 2024, nominating him to run the CIA. Since taking over, Ratcliffe has pursued mass firings, expanded covert operations, and played a central role in U.S. actions against Iran, Venezuela, and Russia. According to the document, he “initiated covert operations in Venezuela” and provided intelligence that preceded U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Tony Phillips.