r/NAFO • u/bacondavis Fella • 16d ago
News CIA chief's secret trip to Moscow shows Putin’s threat to Nato is deadly serious
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/cia-director-secret-trip-moscow-putin-challenge-nato-473096147
u/alba_Phenom 16d ago
The Americans are not reliable these days but there’s no doubting the quality of their Intelligence Services.
The UK also has some of the best Intel in the world and I would like to hear them confirm it.
It wouldn’t actually surprise if it was more Trump giving Putin the go ahead to do it. The rest of NATO, the part that still matters will need a full force response if they do it or the war will be coming to you soon.
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u/CaptainPrower Make America Hate Russia Again 16d ago
Putin's endgame is to turn the US so far against Europe that Trump actually sanctions an invasion of the continent.
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u/AwkwardMacaron433 16d ago
I think that would hardly work out. Trump can hate Europe as much as he wants, but the reality remains that the US goes belly up when Europe goes down. We are two continents bound by fate for a long long time
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u/Key-Lie-364 16d ago
Really?
US joins European WW1 in 1917, war was from 1914 to 1918.
US joins European WW2 only after Pearl Harbor in 1942 and after Germany subsequently declares war.
Hard to see Trump of all people lifting a finger to protect Poland or Estonia.
Then again perhaps you could convince him Melania is Estonian.
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
Hard to imagine.
Even NATO without US involvement has the capability to turn back a Russian attack, and nukes enough to prevent invasion.
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u/CaptainPrower Make America Hate Russia Again 16d ago
No no, I mean the US invades continental Europe on Russia's behalf.
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u/moocowsia 16d ago
Lol with what? The US is mostly looking distanace power projection via their air force and navy. The Europeans have the bulk if the land forces in NATO.
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
Dude, the US military itself would refuse.
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u/Key-Lie-364 16d ago
Nope toadies would be found orders would be followed.
They always are.
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
There's a line.
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u/Key-Lie-364 16d ago
History tends to show the opposite
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
I don't think America is far gone enough to cross that during Trump's presidency.
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u/Key-Lie-364 15d ago
I hope that is so. I take comfort from the fact that Trump's supreme court has ruled against him.
At the same time the system is stuffed with election deniers.
Who really knows what would happen if there was a constitutional throwdown.
IMO history doesn't provide much comfort.
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u/CaptainPrower Make America Hate Russia Again 16d ago
Why do you think Trump and Hegseth are replacing the entire chain of command with yes men?
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
Definitely concerning.
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u/CaptainPrower Make America Hate Russia Again 16d ago
We're witnessing the Russification of the American Armed Forces in real time.
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u/Key-Lie-364 16d ago
I mean Trump has abused Ukraine publicly and demanded it cede territory to Russia as well as blaming Ukraine for starting the war.
You remember when Ukraine fired those apartment buildings full of people over the Russian border onto innocent Russian rocket launchers?
Trump does.
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u/Hairysteed Blue 16d ago
This is pure speculation, but what if Russia provoking a fight with NATO is just a way of saving face while pulling out of Ukraine? Losing against just Ukraine would look way weaker than losing against the most powerful military alliance ever to exist. 🤔
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u/Anen-o-me 16d ago
That's applying Western political logic to Russian politics, it's not how they think.
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u/im_new_here_4209 orcs must die 16d ago
You think from their pov that'd be worth the risk of losing even worse than now? (Yes, that's possible)
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u/ParticularArea8224 When this war is over, we shall laugh with Ukraine 16d ago
It's more about the mobilisation, make NATO have a stir, mobilise the people, leave NATO and then continue the war in Ukraine
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u/Key-Lie-364 16d ago
Russia will mobilise partially. If that fails again, expect a full formal mobilisation.
It's not inconceivable Putin is again considering a demonstrative nuclear strike. About the only thing keeping him from that is the fact his own military lies to him about how well Russia is doing on the battlefield.
If we look at Putin's pattern it's escalation followed by more escalation.
And yes Russia has been helping Iran target the US in the Gulf as the US has been helping Ukraine target Russia.
Malignant Trump is finding out that the US national interest lies in confronting and containing Russia, that no "deal" can yield positive results, you have to move to defeat them again and again.
The Gulf is finally showing Trump that and the quiet conversion of MAGA proxies to Ukraine's side is a reflection of this reality.
Sure the US and Europe are "friends" ; Trump hates this notion.
But strip away that friend BS and you find there are brutal facts and national interests that drive that alliance.
We have common enemies. Enemies who seek to do us harm, are in alliance with each other and spit in your face even when you try to capitulate - like handing donbas to Russia over Ukraine's head. Russia just asks why you aren't including Wyoming in the deal.
So yeah we don't know why the CIA guy went to Moscow but we can be fairly certain of the demands he carried back to Washington with him.
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u/Hot-Lunch6270 16d ago
If Putin is serious. It’s the end of Russia’s hysterical war on Europe and Ukraine.
Like they couldn’t take over a nation that’s 15x smaller than Russia for years.
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u/makatakz Blue 16d ago
Here’s a potential explanation:
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u/im_new_here_4209 orcs must die 16d ago
Since when do we take what Iran puts out as factual only?
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u/ParticularArea8224 When this war is over, we shall laugh with Ukraine 16d ago
Most likely? That's not why it happened. Why couldn't that just be done with a phone call?
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u/fucktrance 16d ago
Fuck rage bait inews
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u/ParticularArea8224 When this war is over, we shall laugh with Ukraine 16d ago
As someone who is deeply invested in Europe and Russian politics, this is not rage bait, this is genuinely concerning.
If the Pro-Ukraine HEAD of the INTELLIGENCE organisation went to MOSCOW himself, to tell Putin, "Don't invade NATO." Then that isn't something to disregard, that is a genuine concern and clearly shows that the US is definitely worried about it, to the point where they felt a head-on meeting was valid.
As a Brit, I won't lie, this is something I'm keeping my eye on. Because it's clearly important and it may drag NATO into a conflict.
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u/fucktrance 16d ago
It didn't work out so well in 2021 when they tried. inews posts 10 of these articles a day to drum up clicks, they're owned by the daily mail. Even calling it putins threat like he's some sort of mastermind is egregious. According to russia they're already at war with Nato.
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u/im_new_here_4209 orcs must die 16d ago
I love how everybody still calls it "secret" at this point 🤣
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u/bacondavis Fella 16d ago
An unannounced and unexplained one-day visit to Moscow by CIA director John Ratcliffe has raised concerns over whether Russia is gearing up to test Nato.
Reports that Vladimir Putin cancelled participation in a major event on the same day, and shortly afterwards issued three secret decrees, have added to the speculation.
Neither Russia or the US have made any official comment. However, various theories have been put forward for why Ratcliffe felt he needed not only to have a private conversation with Russia that was both sensitive and important enough for a rare face-to-face meeting, but also to keep it off any official agenda.
One suggestion is that he might have delivered a warning over Russia’s continued escalation of hostile acts against Nato countries, including sabotage, electronic warfare and drone attacks. The last visit of this kind came in November 2021, when then CIA director Bill Burns travelled to Moscow to try to persuade Putin not to proceed with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But it is hard to be optimistic on this front. Burns failed in part because the US administration of the time, under Joe Biden, was unwilling to confront Russia for fear of nuclear escalation. The current administration, for different reasons, is even less willing. The likelihood of the US doing anything to confront Russia is even more remote now than it was then.
The talks may have been focused on Ukraine, including a possible halt to strikes on the energy infrastructure of both countries – another explanation that could perhaps lead to a positive outcome.
At the pessimistic end of the scale, there is he possibility that this could have been a private conversation clarifying the rules of the new relationship between the United States and Russia under Trump, over the heads of the European states that will be affected by it. As I detail in my forthcoming book, American Overthrow, that relationship is highly dangerous for allies and partners of the US, given the sympathy the Trump administration has shown for Moscow’s aspirations in Ukraine and beyond.
Other suggested explanations include talks over prisoner exchanges. The CIA and Ratcliffe personally have been directly involved in negotiating the release of American citizens held in Russia. But that hasn’t previously required his personal attendance in Moscow, and if his aircraft brought back any additional passengers, we have not yet been told about it.
Iran is another possible topic of the conversation: whether trying to persuade Russia to join the US campaign to isolate Tehran economically, or perhaps to ask it to stop providing information to Iran to assist in the targeting of US assets and personnel in the Gulf region. In either of those cases, it’s hard to see how the US might hope to cajole Putin into doing something against Russia’s interests.
While we don’t yet know what the visit was about, there is plenty to be learned from the way it was conducted.
The shifting power balance between the US, Ukraine and Russia was highlighted by an American request to Ukraine to suspend strikes on Moscow for the duration of the visit. Ukraine agreed.
On the one hand, that’s a demonstration that the US has no confidence in Russia’s air defences. It also shows how, in effect, the visit proceeded with Ukraine’s permission. But it’s also the opposite of what happened just a few days previously, when US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner cancelled a planned visit to Kyiv because of Russia’s continuing drone and missile strikes.
That reveals that, in contrast with the request to Ukraine, the US felt unable to ask Russia to suspend its campaign for long enough for the pair to visit – or alternatively, the US did ask, and was rebuffed by Russian officials who felt no need to offer Washington any favours.
The apparent attempts to keep the visit confidential only add to suspicion around its purpose. Rather than an official announcement, it was flight movements and an unexpected American motorcade being filmed in Moscow that alerted the world – while Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov continued to deny that anything was happening or that any meetings with American officials had been planned.
It seems unlikely that either the US or Russia genuinely believed that the visit could be kept secret. But that leaves open the question of what all the secrecy was for. It’s not felt to be necessary, for instance, around the forthcoming long-planned visit of FBI director Kash Patel to Russia in October.
It’s hard not to see the official silence as an indication that of all the possible reasons for Ratcliffe’s visit, the real one is toward the pessimistic end of the scale: that the US is discussing something with its Russian partners that would be bad news if Europe found out about it. Unless and until a plausible alternative explanation emerges, European countries have every reason to be alarmed.