After just a few days, the spin around CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Russia is already contradicting itself. The initial claim was that the U.S. spy chief made the trip to warn the Kremlin against attacking a NATO state. According to the Wall Street Journal, American officials are worried that Vladimir Putin, “squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion.” One day later, a story planted in the New York Times dramatically changed the narrative: Ratcliffe was not there to issue a warning, but to offer friendly, urgent advice. Worried that Vladimir Putin is not receiving “honest assessments of the war’s trajectory and toll,” the CIA director made the trek to “share his bleak assessment of the state of the Russian war against Ukraine, and to urge the Russians to cut a deal.”
The idea of the world’s most powerful intelligence official boarding a C-17A military transport aircraft to make a transatlantic bid for peace in Ukraine is a nice thought. It is also highly implausible.
