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Putin Rejects Concessions After CIA Director’s Visit, Washington Post Reports
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CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently made an unannounced visit to Moscow, but he failed to persuade Vladimir Putin to make concessions on Ukraine.
According to The Washington Post, the trip appears to have driven the Kremlin to harden its stance instead. Ratcliffe sought to convince Russian intelligence leadership that Moscow holds a weak position and that further escalation would only worsen its circumstances.
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Following meetings in the Russian capital, he concluded that his warnings were delivered, but they failed to break the stalemate. The visit was interpreted as "an attempt to convince Putin to stop the war, and Putin read this as weakness."
The primary goal of the visit was to communicate to the Kremlin that if it expects a complete handover of the Donbas region by Ukraine, "this simply won't happen," while also stressing that continuing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not in Moscow's interests.
According to sources cited by The Washington Post, the Trump administration specifically chose FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, an influential member of Putin's inner circle who previously participated in prisoner exchanges, as the main contact for these talks.
However, Ratcliffe's perspective differed sharply from Putin's view of the situation. Following the CIA director's visit, Russia intensified strikes on Kyiv, killing at least 9 people over 4 days and damaging the main building of the Security Service of Ukraine for the first time.
A source close to the Russian diplomatic corps stated that the strikes were intended as a signal to Washington that "Russia is continuing its offensive operation and sees no reason to shift its stance to a more flexible one."
Despite growing domestic economic problems—including a budget deficit reaching 6.5 trillion rubles ($78.5 billion) over 7 months and the loss of a third of its gasoline production due to strikes on oil refineries—the Kremlin maintains its strategy. It believes that continuing the action for several more months poses an acceptable burden for Russia, but a severe issue for Ukraine.
A business executive source explained that "Putin hopes time is on his side because, despite problems with fuel and growth, the population of Russia is not as ready to protest as the Ukrainian population."
US President Donald Trump’s special representatives, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will travel to Moscow first for discussions before arriving in Kyiv on Sunday, September 6.
The US envoys will make their first trip to the Ukrainian capital to address Russia’s full-scale invasion. Their arrival in Kyiv will follow scheduled talks with Russian officials in Moscow on Saturday, September 5.
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