Mystery continues to surround the visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow aboard a U.S. Air Force transport aircraft on Wednesday morning. Several scenarios have emerged, while it is still unknown whom Ratcliffe met with and what he discussed. The only certainty, according to the Kremlin, is that he did not meet with Vladimir Putin.

“No meetings with Putin were scheduled,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian state-run news agency TASS.

Ratcliffe’s visit was his first known official trip to Russia. The CIA director maintains contacts with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), who has previously said he was willing to meet with him.

Peskov also told the Washington Post that Ratcliffe’s visit involved “contacts between the security services,” without providing further details.

A U.S. official had earlier confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that the CIA director was expected to meet with senior Russian officials, although it remains unclear exactly what was discussed during those contacts.

Kyiv Knew About the U.S. Mission, But Not About Ratcliffe

The Ukrainian side had been informed that a U.S. delegation would travel to Russia, but it was initially not informed that Ratcliffe would also be part of it, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Ukrainian officials are expected to be briefed on the results of the visit, although it is unclear whether Ratcliffe himself will travel to Kyiv to brief them, the same source added.

Meanwhile, the United States asked Ukraine not to carry out strikes on Moscow or St. Petersburg while Ratcliffe was in Russia, another source familiar with the situation told Axios.

The visit took place at a time when Washington and Moscow have intensified bilateral contacts under U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office last January pledging to negotiate an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Despite repeated visits to Moscow by Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, peace talks have effectively stalled, as Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on the issue of territory.

Witkoff and Kushner’s Visit to Ukraine Postponed

Witkoff and Kushner had been scheduled to make their first visits to Ukraine this week, but their trip was postponed.

A source disputed earlier reports that the postponement was due to an escalation in Russian attacks, claiming instead that Trump wanted to keep the two envoys close to him because of the ongoing confrontation with Iran.

The head of Ukraine’s negotiating team, Rustem Umerov, spoke by phone with Witkoff on August 23. According to the same source, Witkoff committed to visiting Ukraine at a later date.

Despite the deadlock in the peace talks, Washington and Moscow have kept diplomatic channels open. These contacts contributed to an agreement for the release, on August 11, of former U.S. Marine Robert Gilman, who had been imprisoned in Russia for four years.