Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, said on Thursday that he had held a “working-level meeting” with CIA director John Ratcliffe in Moscow earlier this week and that they had discussed unspecified and sensitive matters falling within the remit of their respective intelligence services.
Naryshkin said the fact that they had met was nothing unusual. US president Donald Trump has described Ratcliffe’s visit – which came as the war in Ukraine drags on and as efforts to reach a lasting peace between the United States and Iran have stalled – as “semi-routine”.
At least two US media outlets have cited their own sources as saying Ratcliffe warned Russia not to attack any Nato member state. Neither Washington nor Moscow has confirmed that.
Asked to comment on the reports on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “A lot of this kind of scare-story material is being published right now. Of course, it has nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with the intentions of the Russian Federation.”– Reuters
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