The reason Ukraine went quiet on drones this week has nothing to do with a shortage of munitions. On August 25, CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew into Moscow’s Vnukovo airport aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 from Riga, spent approximately nine hours in the Russian capital, and departed without a press conference or a formal agenda. It was his first known visit to Moscow since taking the post. Washington had notified Kyiv of the visit in advance and asked Ukrainian forces to suspend strikes on Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Russia’s northern regions for the duration of the American delegation’s stay. Ukraine complied.
The Kremlin described the meeting as routine inter-agency contact between intelligence services. The Wall Street Journal reported something considerably less routine: Ratcliffe flew to Moscow carrying intelligence assessments suggesting Russia is preparing for a possible new mobilization and has been probing NATO’s readiness to respond to further escalation. Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Beth Sanner offered a plain-language translation — Washington knows what Moscow is planning and is telling it not to proceed. The precedent is instructive. The last American intelligence chief to visit Moscow was Ratcliffe’s predecessor, William Burns, in 2021 — a trip widely understood as a warning that the U.S. was aware of Russia’s invasion plans and would respond to them.
Whether this one fares differently remains to be seen. What is clear is that the conflict is approaching another inflection point — and the pressure is building on Russia’s side of the ledger as much as Ukraine’s.
The economic dimension of that pressure is already visible. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy acknowledged publicly this week that port traffic through Odessa has fallen to one quarter of pre-blockade levels. His own words confirmed what market data had been signaling for weeks: the Black Sea campaign is working. As autumn arrives, Russian targeting is expected to shift toward heat and power generation infrastructure — thermal plants, water utilities, and the electrical grid — compounding the damage already done to Ukraine’s logistics and export capacity.
Russia’s stated timeline for the conflict is also worth noting. A member of the State Duma Defense Committee, Sobolev, articulated publicly what Russian military planning appears to assume: that the operation must be concluded by 2030, before NATO member states — Poland, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Norway, Finland, and Sweden — are fully prepared for a broader confrontation with Russia.
Ratcliffe came to Moscow to deliver a warning. Russia came to the meeting having already told its parliament how long it intends to fight and what it intends to achieve. Those two positions are not close to reconciliation — and a nine-hour visit, however high-level, is unlikely to change that.
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russia receiving him in such a capacity itself implies a degree of continued institutional servility to america’s deep state, despite its obvious incapacity against a smaller nation with the institutional courage to defy it. those who shake hands with such as the cia or mossad are approving their terrorism.
“keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
ring any bells?
putin should have broken off diplomatic relations years ago, when its us diplomatic premises were violated.
he basically came to beg.
if he has half a brain, he’ll go home and report “i don’t think we really want a nuclear war. there could be consequences.”
i’m sure he went there both to beg and to threaten at the same time.
was it both in one sentence, like trump does?
ode to us/ua relations
rats and lemmings off a cliff
it seems they’re either in a rage or in a tiff
my americiunt cia feminized mouse ratcliffe comes to moscow on her knees begs for ceasefire leaves with muslim jizz in her anuz
i need some intellectual stimulation. you zionists are simply not capable of that. same rubbish over and over and over again.
rob stimulation is zionist peniz in her anuz🤣
chechen jizz ? ?
they would have given her a pounding. 💪
смрт америци и њиховим дупелизцима!
живела русија, кина, иран, куба и северна кореја!
више личе на смрт ционистички милијардери који су отети америку за своје циљеве.
“washington knows what moscow is planning and is telling it not to proceed” you ugly yanks are not in the position to “tell” anything to russia. back in 2021 you ‘told’ russia not to invade ukraine. russia did it any ways. and you did nothing, and this time you will do nothing. you can’t do anything. your empire has collapsed decades ago. asians in sandals and montain nomads powned you.
russia didn’t “invade” ukraine, it is a military intervention, not an invasion.
maybe ratcliffe was sent by rothschild with the message: please don’t bomb the city of london, we will accommodate you.
faz sentido
hillbillies in gay bars leverage my fascist americunt anuz pump me w jizz derp incel
2030?… if this isn’t wrapped up within the next 3 months after 12 years of this $hit russia fails in all matters of this war!… the fact that the russians even allowed this meeting to take place speaks to it’s indecisiveness still believing in un treaties that don’t exist for it’s members other than what the mc says they are. they need to act like iran -there is no west!…
que 2030 o que. vá tomar no cú john ratcliffe
ratcliffe is chumpo’s cia terrorist scumbag-in-chief.
q. why was he flying in a giant cargo plane that can carry 70 ton tanks? why not a gulfstream?
a. because he was collecting the bodies of cia and other amerikunt scumbags killed in ukraine. this was a flying hearse.
interesante, me preguntó cómo será la sociedad y la economía en 2030
si este invierno es duro, la economía europea estará aún más jodida de lo que ya está.
i hope the russian intelligence delegation sent him away with a flea in his ear.
scott ritter disse que se a cia tivesse ameaçado a rússia “não ataque países da otan”, como diz a imprensa ocidental, os russos mandariam ele embora imediatamente e romperiam a parceria do serviço de inteligência russa com a cia. a cia não faz ameaças, diz ele, ela apenas informa.
the jewsa has been scouring the planet for human sewage to carry out its dirty work. ukrainian nazis, isis head choppers and throat slitters, colombian drug cartel mercs, any old vermin will do. the worse the better for their terrorist foreign legion. the only problem is such folk tend to go rogue and out of control. keeping rattlesnakes as pets is not a good idea. baron frankenstein created a monster and it didn’t work out very well in the end.