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Troubling new reports are emerging about CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Moscow on Tuesday. All of the reports point to delivering a warning to Putin’s regime, while exactly the nature of that warning differ.

There have been growing concerns in Europe over expanding Russian aggression and specifically the possibility it could attack a NATO country to test the alliance’s resolve. There are also reports that Putin will drastically increase offensive operations in Ukraine due to the massive damage his country is now taking from long-range drone and cruise missile strikes, as well as failed peace talks. Reports even state that he is mulling the use of tactical nuclear weapon in order to stop these attacks and change the tide of the years-long conflict, a possibility which we will discuss more later in this piece. Iran, of course, is also a major issue, but it seems, at least based on reporting, it had taken a backseat to whatever the director was trying to accomplish in Moscow.

Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ratcliffe was in Moscow to deliver a message to Putin not to attack NATO countries. His visit “followed new U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years,” the newspaper noted. We have been reporting on major concerns over exactly this for weeks now.

U.S. officials “are concerned that Putin, squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, likely on a Baltic nation, the Journal added.

“Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his time in the Russian capital, but he didn’t meet with Putin. Putin was briefed on the talks, Peskov said,” according to the publication.

Earlier on Wednesday, ABC News reported that an explosive drone found near an An-124-100 Ruslan (NATO reporting name Condor) cargo jet at Leipzig airport in Germany earlier this month “bore the hallmarks of devices typically employed by Russia’s Military Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.” The network cited a U.S. intelligence source.

“The U.S. official, who was briefed on the investigation into the alleged sabotage plot, said the explosives fitted to the drone as well as the structure of the lethal device were ‘typical’ of those used by Russia’s GRU,” ABC added. “This U.S. assessment was made in conjunction with German security and intelligence agencies, the source added.

NumerousRussian drone incursions and other actionshave some European officials convinced that Putinis already waging so-called hybrid war against NATO, and has been doing so for some time.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump downplayed the Ratcliffe trip, which has sparked a wide range of speculation about its purpose.

The president called it “semi-routine.”

That statement is hard to square considering how rare having a CIA director rush to Moscow is. The last time this happened was just prior to the war in Ukraine breaking out into the destructive reality we see today.

As we noted earlier in this story, Putin is reportedly considering escalating attacks on Ukraine, including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, Bloomberg reported, citing “three people close to the Kremlin.”

“For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities.”

At issue, Bloomberg suggested, is that negotiation “frameworks have all effectively collapsed, leaving the two warring sides back at square one.”

This comes as Ukraine is already reeling from constant attacks, especially ballistic missile strikes it can’t defend against because of the lack of Patriot interceptors.

Moreover, the Kremlin “has also abandoned reliance on what it believed was an understanding reached between Putin and Trump at their summit in Alaska last August,” Bloomberg noted.

You can see video from that encounter below.

Such a deal would have required the Trump administration to force Ukraine into giving up the eastern Donetsk region, a demand Kyiv has rejected as it continues to hold out against a Russian onslaught that has gained little ground.

The White House this evening pushed back on the notion that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have reached an insurmountable impasse. A peace deal has been a major objective for President Donald Trump, who famously promised that he would end the conflict on his first day in office.

“The president wants this war settled so that the senseless killing ends,” a White House official told TWZ. “The president and his team remain committed to continuing to play a constructive role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, and he remains optimistic that we’ll ultimately get a peace deal done.”

The United States “continues to play a constructive role in speaking to both sides in working towards bringing the war to an end,” the official added. “We are the only country in the world that can play that role.”

The level of current U.S. involvement in negotiations is unclear. Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to travel to Moscow after an eight-month break and to visit Kyiv for the first time, but no date has emerged for either trip, Bloomberg noted. Last week, Radio Free Europe reporter Alex Raufaglu stated on X that the pair’s trip to Ukraine was delayed, but not canceled, by ongoing Russian attacks on Kyiv.

Putin is not about to cave under economic pressure, Bloomberg suggested, citing its sources. Nor will he end hostilities as Ukraine continues to pound Russian refineries and logistics networks. These attacks are having a devastating effect on the Russian economy and creating increasing frustration among the populace.

As we noted yesterday, Ukraine’s long-range strikes have spurred Putin to allow the government to temporarily seize what it deems commercial critical infrastructure that is not sufficiently protected against such strikes. This follows Russia’s move earlier this year to allow private companies to purchase their own air defense systems to protect their own facilities.

On Wednesday, those attacks continued anew. Ukraine struck another e-commerce hub, causing widespread damage, Russian officials said.

“As a result of the Ukrainian drone strikes, a fire broke out at a Wildberries logistics center,” Tambov Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov stated on Telegram. “The area of the fire is over 100,000 square meters.”

Whether Putin actually does escalate attacks remains to be seen. With increased production of ballistic missiles and new ones from North Korea, he may have new means of sustaining conventional attacks. As for a nuclear one, he has constantly rattled that saber for years. As Bloomberg noted, in the past, there have been reports that China and India have frequently urged him to refrain from that steep climb up the escalation ladder.

We raised the question of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine several months after he launched his full-on invasion, asking the world’s top nuclear proliferation experts of the likelihood it would happen. You can read this feature here, but our expert’s sentiments were made long before Ukraine was picking apart Russia infrastructure on a daily basis, with a standoff weapons armada growing by the day.

So, while it isn’t exactly clear what was discussed in this meeting or its primary objective, none of the reported reasons are encouraging. Quite the opposite, they point to the possibility of a darker new phase in the Russia-NATO standoff.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

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