John Ratcliffe

There is absolutely no indication that he's reached any kind of crunch point or any of the pressure that's been put on him from the outside is actually gonna work.

I mean, if you remember, it was only last month that the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe, flew to Moscow on that cloak and dagger mission in which he reportedly told Moscow, he wasn't speaking directly to Putin, he was speaking to, uh, security honchos, but the message very loud and clear, so we are told, is that Washington was not buying the narrative that Russia was winning in Ukraine.

And it was really a, a warning to Putin that it was time to start negotiating seriously and wind up the war.

Well, that appears to have had no effect whatsoever.

And I'm just thinking also, because we have, of course, had a lot of discussion in Europe about what the likelihood of some kind of a new type of escalation, potentially even a horizontal one by Russia might be.

All those speculations were basically kicked off by the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow.

a couple weeks ago and then sort of the fact that the white house didn't really issue any explanatory statement and then it just led to a lot of speculations about the purpose of the visit and then um of course this sort of tracks also or like it comes with the background of um other pretty sort of alarmist intelligence reports from the summer and later.

And you just have some kind of a sense of that is somehow accelerating.

I will note that the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Kushner and Witkoff may be getting sidelined here a bit.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, who I believe we mentioned a week or two ago on this news update, made an unannounced visit to Russia last month to deliver a number of messages from the Trump administration, including reportedly a warning for Russia not to attack NATO.

Anyway, the Financial Times reported that he, Ratcliffe, is, I'm quoting here, preparing to take a bigger role in U.S. negotiations with Russia and Ukraine.

So I don't know if...

I will note that the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Kushner and Witkoff may be getting sidelined here a bit.

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, who I believe we mentioned a week or two ago on this news update, made an unannounced visit to Russia last month to deliver a number of messages from the Trump administration, including reportedly a warning for Russia not to attack NATO.

Anyway, the Financial Times reported that he, Ratcliffe, is, I'm quoting here, preparing to take a bigger role in U.S. negotiations with Russia and Ukraine.

So I don't know if...

But it could be that Putin thinks that the time is now ripe to try to finish the Ukraine war with one decisive blow, because clearly things are now going pretty strongly in Russia's direction.

Yes, and to that effect, the recent visit of the Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. Ratcliffe, John Ratcliffe, is now even more mysterious to me than it was when it was first reported.

There were multiple choices as to why Ratcliffe went to Moscow to meet with someone in the apparatus in the Kremlin, not with Putin himself.

There was the explanation it was about Ukraine.

I mean, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner undoubtedly are out of their depth when they get involved in this part of diplomacy.

But I'll give you one other fact, which is that President Trump has said, or the White House has announced, that John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, will kind of take over the Ukrainian brief, uh, take over America's direct contacts with the Kremlin.

Uh, now I don't know how seriously he means that, but John Ratcliffe is a, is a hardliner against Russia.

Mm.

He does have a, a more realistic view of Russia and what this war is all about.

...

John Ratcliffe went recently-

Okay

... uh, apparently to deliver a tougher message, and, uh, didn't get anywhere.

You know that we learned that Director of CIA William Burns visited Moscow right before Russia attacked Ukraine.

Why? Because this conversation came up recently when John Ratcliffe, current CIA director, visited Moscow.

Everybody was wondering why it happened.

Well, you see, the United States knew everything.